How can I open images in a Google Colaboratory notebook cell from uploaded png files?

Question

I am working with a Google Colaboratory notebook. I uploaded a file named bp.png into the working directory, and I can see that the file is in there by running !ls in a code cell. Then I try this piece of code to see the image in a markdown cell:

<h2 align="center">Image</h2> <img src="bp.png" width="600"> 

But the Colab notebook's cell stays empty after running that (except for the header), although if I run this in a local Jupyter notebook the image does appear in the cell in that local notebook.

UPDATE:

I know I can use files uploaded to the working directory because my custom .py files that I upload, get imported to my Colab notebooks without any problems. For example, I can upload a file py_file.py and then in the Colab notebook use it as in from py_file import some_function, and it works.

Answer 1

Try this

from IPython.display import Image Image('bp.png') 

You can set width and height as well

Image("bp.png", width=100, height=100) 

To display more than 1 image, you need to call display. (it’s auto for just 1 image)

from IPython.display import Image, display display(Image('1.png')) display(Image('2.png')) 

Update jan/2019

Put your image in /usr/local/share/jupyter/nbextensions/

Then display it from /nbextensions/, e.g.

%%html <img src='/nbextensions/image.png' /> 

Update feb/2022

In Google Colab, open the file browser icon (left nav bar) and navigate to usr/local/share/jupyter/nbextensions as described above. Click the ellipsis menu on the nbextensions folder > Upload and select your image to upload. Make sure to update the img tag from the code snippet above with the correct file name, and you'll want to use a code box (not text). Note that your image will be deleted from the directory when your runtime is recycled (I got a warning dialog stating so when I uploaded my image), so be careful with that.

Answer 2

One can also display images in the markdown/Text cell in Colab. Create a Text cell and then you will have a top bar with icons. Select the image icon corresponding to "Insert images" and then choose from you local machine the image. It seems like it doesn't let you select from the google drive, though