Generate .mat of Images - Matlab

Question

How can I create a .mat file which holds a bunch of images in matlab?

I'm using the images as a training set, so figured it would be easier to load from a .mat than load 100+ images every time I run the program.

If I'm thinking about this the wrong way, please point me in the right direction. Thanks.

Answer 1

You can simply combine all images (each of which is a 3D matrix for color images) into a 4D matrix with last dimension is the total number. And save this 4D matrix to a .mat file for later loading.

For grayscale images, you only need to combine them into a 3D matrix as each of which is 2D.

As commented by @Divakar, you may need to combine them into a cell array if the sizes of the images are not consistent.

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Edit: Suppose you have combined the images into a 3D/4D matrix called data, you can use save data; to save it into disk and use load data; to load it back.