MATLAB function is unable to import python library when run as executable file

I need to run a python script from my matlab function. I used the following code to do this.

!cd ~ && source ./venv/bin/activate && cd ./LiverSegApp/src/ && python ./SIML_LiverSeg/lib/hnet/test.py

This code goes to my home directory, activates a python virtual environment, then goes to my code directory and runs test.py. I ran this matlab function from MATLAB console/GUI and the python call works perfectly fine. If I run test.py from the terminal inside my virtual environment, everything works perfectly.

However, when I change this matlab function and its auxiliary functions into a executable, and run the executable from the terminal, I get the following error from test.py:

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "./SIML_LiverSeg/lib/hnet/test.py", line 16, in <module>

from scipy import ndimage

File "/Users/pictureme/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/scipy/ndimage/__init__.py", line 161, in <module>

from .filters import *

File "/Users/pictureme/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/scipy/ndimage/filters.py", line 36, in <module>

from . import _ni_support

ImportError: cannot import name _ni_support

The relevant parts of test.py (the beginning series of imports) are:

from __future__ import print_function

import sys

sys.path.insert(0,'./SIML_LiverSeg/lib/hnet/Keras-2.0.8')

from keras import backend as K

import os

import numpy as np

from medpy.io import load,save

from keras.optimizers import SGD

from hybridnet import dense_rnn_net

from loss import weighted_crossentropy

from lib.funcs import predict_tumor_inwindow

import argparse

from pathlib import Path

from scipy import ndimage

from skimage import measure

os.environ['CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES'] = '0'

K.set_image_dim_ordering('tf') # Tensorflow dimension ordering in this code

The following is my $PATH that I set manually in MATLAB:

['./SIML_LiverSeg/lib/hnet/Keras-2.0.8', '/Users/pictureme/LiverSegApp/src/SIML_LiverSeg/lib/hnet', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python27.zip', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/plat-darwin', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/plat-mac', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/plat-mac/lib-scriptpackages', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/Extras/lib/python', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/lib-tk', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/lib-old', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload', '/Users/pictureme/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages']

The scipy library is located in the last file directory. There is also a similar issue with the "from skimage import measure" line.

Additionally, if I do "from scipy import * ", this code works fine as well.

I would appreciate any help. This error seems strange. Thanks.