scverse / scverse/spatialdata

Scale transform changes aggregate results

Open Beginner friendly
#1,028 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

needs: triage priority: low
Dominant language
Python
Stars
394
Forks
95
Avg merge
4d 3h
Merged PRs (30d)
7

Description

Hey everyone,
as mentioned on Zulip I am using macsima data, where the macsima reader by default adds the Scale transformation to the coordinate system. I noticed that when I remove this my aggregation results are slightly different. This is most prominent for small signals, for larger signals it is not so pronounced. My original use case was for the mean intensity. For sum its very obvious that the absolute values change due to the transform, but the ratios stay similar.

Of course I understand that it makes sense to apply the transform before doing the aggregation, since they are intended for example for aligning my labels with the image. Still it was a bit unintuitive for me that this happens as a new user. Maybe this could be highlighted also a bit more in the tutorials. As requested below is a small example.

import spatialdata as sd
from spatialdata.datasets import blobs
from spatialdata.transformations import set_transformation, Scale

sdata = blobs()
# set scale transformation to new coordinate system. global coord system has Identity transform
scale_transform = Scale([0.1, 0.1], ("x", "y"))
set_transformation(sdata["blobs_image"], transformation=scale_transform, to_coordinate_system="scaled")
set_transformation(sdata["blobs_labels"], transformation=scale_transform, to_coordinate_system="scaled")

global_sum = sdata.aggregate(values="blobs_image", by="blobs_labels", target_coordinate_system="global")

print(global_sum["table"].X[:1])
#<Compressed Sparse Row sparse matrix of dtype 'float64'
#	with 3 stored elements and shape (1, 3)>
#  Coords	Values
#  (0, 0)	1309.3692551660652
#  (0, 1)	1587.8641823936478
#  (0, 2)	3125.1190857645483

scaled_sum = sdata.aggregate(values="blobs_image", by="blobs_labels", target_coordinate_system="scaled")

print(scaled_sum["table"].X[:1])
#<Compressed Sparse Row sparse matrix of dtype 'float64'
#	with 3 stored elements and shape (1, 3)>
#  Coords	Values
#  (0, 0)	12.758250581405642
#  (0, 1)	15.427204091295
#  (0, 2)	31.23271691509622


global_mean = sdata.aggregate(values="blobs_image", by="blobs_labels", agg_func="mean", target_coordinate_system="global")

print(global_mean["table"].X[:1])
#<Compressed Sparse Row sparse matrix of dtype 'float64'
#	with 3 stored elements and shape (1, 3)>
#  Coords	Values
#  (0, 0)	0.08696083251418378
#  (0, 1)	0.10545687603066001
#  (0, 2)	0.20755257260839133

scaled_mean = sdata.aggregate(values="blobs_image", by="blobs_labels", agg_func="mean", target_coordinate_system="scaled")

print(scaled_mean["table"].X[:1])
#<Compressed Sparse Row sparse matrix of dtype 'float64'
#	with 3 stored elements and shape (1, 3)>
#  Coords	Values
#  (0, 0)	0.08449172570467313
#  (0, 1)	0.10216691451188742
#  (0, 2)	0.2068391848681869

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the supplied Python example and review the tutorials covering coordinate systems, transformations, and aggregation. Confirm how Scale changes aggregate results for sum and mean, then update the relevant tutorial so the effect of the target coordinate system is explicit and verify the example remains understandable.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.