Image Comparison Tool for Image Processing Toolbox

Compare two images side by side with synchronized zoom and pan using a custom App Designer UI component.

About This Example

Inspecting the effect of an image-processing operation usually means looking at the original and the result together, at the same zoom level and the same region of interest. ImageComparisonTool is a custom UI component, built in App Designer, that displays two image viewers with a control bar for linking, swapping, and resetting the views.

This example shows how to configure the component properties, update the displayed images and titles dynamically, and embed the component in a UI figure alongside your own controls to build a custom filtering workflow. It also shows how to open the component in App Designer to modify the layout or the implementation code.

Run imageComparisonToolDemo to launch the filtering workflow. The example uses a slider to update the Gaussian-filtered image and its title while the original and filtered images remain available for synchronized comparison.

The component provides these interactive controls:

• Linked Viewers check box — Synchronize zoom and pan between both viewers
• Swap Images button — Swap the images displayed in the left and right viewers
• Reset Views button — Restore both viewers to display the full image

Setup

Products

Requires MATLAB® R2026b or newer.

Also requires the following MathWorks products:

• Image Processing Toolbox™

Getting Started

Open ImageComparisonTool.mlapp in App Designer, or create the component directly in the Command Window:

comp = ImageComparisonTool;

Run the complete filtering workflow from the Command Window:

imageComparisonToolDemo

To inspect or modify the component implementation, open it in App Designer:

appdesigner("ImageComparisonTool")

Example Files

File	Description
ImageComparisonTool.mlapp	The App Designer UI component for image comparison
imageComparisonToolDemo.m	Runnable filtering workflow that configures and updates the component
imageComparisonUI.gif	Animation showing the component in use

License

The license is available in the license.txt file in this GitHub® repository.

Community Support

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