# Image slicing in Python
**URL:** https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160
**Category:** Beginner Questions
**Tags:** slicing, simpleitk
**Created:** [August 16, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160 "2019-08-16T22:19:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AralRalud](https://discourse.itk.org/u/AralRalud)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160/1 "2019-08-16T22:19:13Z")
Hi, I have a probably trivial issue, but I can’t wrap my mind around it.I am trying to slice a 3D image using indexing but I get one slice short of what one would expect. After looking into it, it seems the last slice is always missing. Here’s a simple example using a simple array:
```auto
import numpy as np
import SimpleITK as itk
# create
test_array = np.array([0,1,2,3,4]*6).reshape(3,2,5)
test_array = test_array.swapaxes(2,0)
test_array
```
```auto
Out[2]:
array([[[0, 0, 0],
[0, 0, 0]],
[[1, 1, 1],
[1, 1, 1]],
[[2, 2, 2],
[2, 2, 2]],
[[3, 3, 3],
[3, 3, 3]],
[[4, 4, 4],
[4, 4, 4]]])
```
If we convert this array to an Image and take every second slice in the third dimension and convert it back to a numpy array (for easier visualization), we expect to get an array of size (3,2,3), the same as one would by using the same operation on the array directly. Instead we get this
```auto
test_img = itk.GetImageFromArray(test_array)
sliced = test_img[:,:,::2]
sliced_array = itk.GetArrayFromImage(sliced)
sliced_array
```
```auto
Out[3]:
array([[[0, 0, 0],
[0, 0, 0]],
[[2, 2, 2],
[2, 2, 2]]])
```
So the last slice
```auto
[[4,4,4],
[4,4,4]]
```
is missing.
Is this a bug or am I missing something?
---
### Author:  [@blowekamp](https://discourse.itk.org/u/blowekamp)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160/2 "2019-08-16T23:24:52Z")
Hello Lara and welcome to the ITK community,
Thanks you for you clear post with illustrative examples. Your expectations are the same as mine, so I am surprised by the result as well. The implementation of this functionality is by the `SliceImageFilter`. I’ll be able to investigate this issue on Monday further. In the mean time could you try to directly use the `SliceImageFilter` to see if you can reproduce the same surprising behavior?
---
### Author:  [@AralRalud](https://discourse.itk.org/u/AralRalud)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2019, 1:55am UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160/3 "2019-08-17T01:55:29Z")
Hi Bradley,
thanks for the welcome!
Yes, I was able to reproduce it by using the `SliceImageFilter`. Just to make sure I don’t have a problem locally, I ran it on three computers using Python 3.6.8 and Python 3.5.2.
```python
slice = itk.SliceImageFilter()
slice.SetStep((1,1,2))
sliced_filter = slice.Execute(test_img)
sliced_filter.GetSize()
Out[14]: (3, 2, 2)
sliced_filter = itk.GetArrayFromImage(sliced_filter)
sliced_filter
Out[16]:
array([[[0, 0, 0],
[0, 0, 0]],
[[2, 2, 2],
[2, 2, 2]]])
```
---
### Author:  [@blowekamp](https://discourse.itk.org/u/blowekamp)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2019, 12:24pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160/4 "2019-08-19T12:24:04Z")
Great, that narrows it down to a bug in the ITK filter itself. Can you please create a GitHub issue for this bug: [https://github.com/InsightSoftwareConsortium/ITK/issues](https://github.com/InsightSoftwareConsortium/ITK/issues)
---
### Author:  [@AralRalud](https://discourse.itk.org/u/AralRalud)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160/5 "2019-08-19T14:36:46Z")
Thanks, I did
>
---
### Author:  [@blowekamp](https://discourse.itk.org/u/blowekamp)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2019, 11:43am UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-slicing-in-python/2160/6 "2019-08-21T11:43:27Z")
Here is the PR to address the undersizing issue with the `itkSliceImageFilter`:
>
I will look into back porting this for SimpleITK.