Introduction

What is OpenCV?

OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision) is a library of programming functions mainly aimed at real time computer vision.

Example applications of the OpenCV library are Human-Computer Interaction (HCI); Object Identification, Segmentation and Recognition; Face Recognition; Gesture Recognition; Motion Tracking, Ego Motion, Motion Understanding; Structure From Motion (SFM); Stereo and Multi-Camera Calibration and Depth Computation; Mobile Robotics.

OpenCV book

• Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision with the OpenCV Library

  • by Gary Bradski and Adrian Kaehler, O'Reilly Press, October, 2008.

• Japanese Translation: 詳解 OpenCV (単行本（ソフトカバー）)

• Chinese Translation: 学习OpenCV（中文版）(预订中,估价) [新品]

• It is a textbook that covers

  • Computer vision in general, intuition to the algorithms and theory
  • User's guide to OpenCV with pragmatic working examples
  • Function specs and tuning intuitions

Contributors

• OpenCV Logo

Announcements

• Updates on what's new in OpenCV, particularly what has been added to the SVN:

  • OpenCV Monthly

• Change logs (what changed in the official releases)

  • OpenCV Change Logs

• User Group

  • http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/OpenCV/

• Active Developer Twitter

  • http://www.twitter.com/opencvlibrary

• Google Summer of Code 2010

How do I Download OpenCV?

• The current release is: 2.1.0 Linux/Mac, Windows.

• To get the latest SVN code, use: svn co https://code.ros.org/svn/opencv/trunk/opencv To build, see the Install Guide below.

  • To see the latest SVN revision, run: svn info https://code.ros.org/svn/opencv/trunk/opencv

• Next OpenCV Official Release: will probably be called 2.2.0 and is due in October, 2010.

Release Numbering Philosophy:

• The convention OpenCV follows for release numbering is:

• We will try to loosely follow Linux minor number even-odd release conventions where the API for new functionality is less stable/documented on odd minor numbers and more stable/documented on the even numbers.

Installing OpenCV

1. Installing OpenCV on Linux, Windows or MacOS

1. Installing OpenCV on Linux Debian, with python support

Getting Started with OpenCV

1. Using Visual C++ and OpenCV

2. Using Eclipse IDE and OpenCV

3. Using C++ Builder IDE and OpenCV

4. Using DevCpp IDE and OpenCV

5. C/C++ interpreter Ch and OpenCV.

6. How do I compile OpenCV and OpenCV programs in Linux? - Also see notes in the Linux section of OS Specific Stuff below

7. Using OpenCV with Visual C++ and Microsoft's DirectShow

8. How do I compile OpenCV and OpenCV programs on Mac OS/X?

Frequently Asked Questions

Problem Specific Frequently Asked Questions

1. Beginners/Newbie FAQ's (how to access a pixel etc.)

2. Is there a user group or forum for OpenCV? Yes: OpenCV Yahoo Group

3. How to use OpenCV to capture and display images from a camera

4. Which video file formats can I use with OpenCV?

5. How do I use OpenCV to Detect Faces?

6. Using OpenCV for Face Recognition

7. How to use OpenCV to Detect Objects?

8. How to use the OpenCV Blob Extraction Library

9. How do I correctly refresh my HighGUI application?

10. Where to download DirectShow?

11. How to Display more than one image in a single window?

12. CodingStyleGuide

13. VideoSurveillance

14. Where do I report a bug or request new features or raise documentation issues?

    • In general, you can go to https://code.ros.org/trac/opencv/wiki/

      • You will first need to register at https://code.ros.org/gf/ (This is only for spam control, your name is not given out). Then:

      • Click on "new ticket" to file a new bug report or feature request, or submit a patch.
      • Click on "view tickets" or "search" to look for existing tickets - probably your problem is already known or even fixed in the latest SVN version.

    • Bug Notes:

      • Do the work: Submit as much information as you can (what OS, what compiler, what OpenCV version).
      • To help rapidly fix the bug, it is preferable to also attach a short program plus data that reproduces the problem.
      • You can and should submit bugs for documentation. Again, be specific (C, C++, Python). What exactly was missing, confusing or wrong.
        • If you know how the documentation should be fixed, submit that too.

15. Help! I can't get my code to compile!

Tutorials

1. OpenCV_Talks

2. Using OpenCV with Microsoft's DirectShow

3. POSIT tutorial (3D Pose Estimation using OpenCV and OpenGL)

4. A short introduction to programming with OpenCV

5. Tutorial on how to use Philips webcam features with OpenCV on Linux

6. Introduction to OpenCV (in Turkish) 1 2 3 4 5

7. Introduction to programming with OpenCV and IPP - (2003)

8. Sample program for Face Recognition

9. SamplesPrograms

10. Small Example Programs 1 2 generated by cvPreProcessor

11. DCTmod2 Feature For Face recognition

12. How to significantly speed up the cvMatchTemplate() function

13. Примеры (>10) использования OpenCV + С++Builder6 + перевод части документации, форум

14. Instalasi OpenCV di Borland C++ Builder 6 -- Tutorial Bahasa Indonesia

15. ICRA 2009

16. CVPR 2010

17. A short guide to getting started with OpenCV

18. OpenCV Tutorials and Source code (includes Face Recognition & Shirt Color Detection).

Full

Support, Documentation & Resources

Technical Support

There is no formal technical support for OpenCV, but there is a very active OpenCV Forum at Yahoo Groups where you are welcome to post your questions. A mirror of the group archive can be found at Gmane.

Bug Report Page

• Submit bugs: Report a bug or request new features or raise documentation issues on our bug tracking page.

  • You will first need to register at https://code.ros.org/gf/ (This is only for spam control, your name is not given out). Then:

  • Click on "new ticket" to file a new bug report or feature request, or submit a patch.
  • Click on "view tickets" or "search" to look for existing tickets - probably your problem is already known or even fixed in the latest SVN version.

• Bug Notes:

  • Do the work: Submit as much information as you can (what OS, what compiler, what OpenCV version).
  • To help rapidly fix the bug, it is preferable to also attach a short program plus data that reproduces the problem.
  • You can and should submit bugs for documentation. Again, be specific (C, C++, Python). What exactly was missing, confusing or wrong.
    • If you know how the documentation should be fixed, submit that too.

Documentation of Functions

• C++

• C

• Python Docs

Other:

• cvBlobsLib

• External OpenCV 1.0 API with function search on cs.indiana.edu

• External OpenCV 2.0 API with function search on fscience.net

OpenCV Online Resources

• The Official Home Page

• The OpenCV China (OpenCV中文站)

• To get the latest SVN code, use: svn co https://code.ros.org/svn/opencv/trunk/opencv

  • To build, see the Install Guide.

  • We used to use sourceforge where you can still get the released versions from. SourceForge

    • main page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary

    • Note: the bug and patch trackers on sourceforge are not used anymore. Use https://code.ros.org/trac/opencv instead.

• The OpenCV Forum at Yahoo Groups

• The #opencv IRC channel on Freenode -- currently 'Un-official'

• OpenCVDotNet - OpenCV wrappers for .NET Framework.

• SoftIntegration - OpenCV wrappers for Ch.

• OpenCV Naver Community Forum (Korean)

• EffortFor3dReconstruction - Community document to bring forward 3D reconstruction in OpenCV

• Emgu CV A cross platform .Net wrapper for OpenCV

• OpenCvSharp A cross platform .Net wrapper for OpenCV 1.1, written in C#. All CxCore, CvReference, MachineLearning functions wrapped. Documentation of functions included in XML Format

• opencv.jp (Reference manuals and sample codes in Japanese)

• JavaCV - Contains a Java wrapper for the C API of OpenCV 1.0, 1.1pre1, 2.0, and 2.1 (cxcore, cv, highgui, and cvaux)

• AI Shack - Tutorials/articles on OpenCV, computer vision in general and robotics.

Ideas for the Future of OpenCV

• * Our SummerOfCode page describes project ideas for the Google Summer of Code. The SummerOfCodeApplication page shows current status of our application to the program.

• Mac_OS_X_OpenCV_Port holds specific ideas for OpenCV on Mac OS X

OS Specific Stuff

Linux Version

• In beta 5, test programs are not built by default. To build, run "make check" (see CxTest for more information on running and writing tests).

• The current distribution of OpenCV (0.9.7 beta 5) does *NOT* work with GCC 4.0 or 4.1. Before compiling, you will have to run the configure script as follows: CXXFLAGS=-fno-strict-aliasing ./configure . GCC 4.0 will *NOT* (but 4.1 will) give *ANY* warning whatsoever that something is wrong (it is a bug of GCC 4.0), but it will *NOT* work, so you have been warned. If this option is not used with GCC 4.0 or 4.1, the resulting library has lots of errors as evidenced by failed tests in the test programs and the test programs segfaulting. Alternatively, you can also use the CVS version. The aliasing bugs are fixed in the CVS version.

• Building will fail on x86_64 platforms and GCC 4.0.2 using the beta 5 release with errors about various SSE things like "'__m128d' was not declared" . Since GCC 4 and beta 5 are broken anyway, use the CVS version. GCC 3.2.3 may also work.

• Sometimes the configure script may generate a bad makefile for your system if it was generated by a version of autoconf/automake/etc that is too old for your system. For example, you may get linking errors for the library files on x86_64. To fix this, run autoreconf in the root opencv directory (where configure is) to regenerate the scripts. Then run make distclean and run the newly generated configure to generate new makefiles.

• Compiling OpenCV and OpenCV programs on Linux

Linux OpenCV Camera Compatibility

• For some cameras (e.g. Quickcam Express) try running "v4lctl -c /dev/video0 setinput X" to get a valid list of inputs and then set it appropriately with the same command.

(*) If you have problems with synchronization while using cvQueryFrame using PS3Eye please contact me: there's a workaround

MacOS X Version

OpenCV 2.0 for Mac/Linux/Unix is available on the files section of SourceForge.

Until the next release of OpenCV, there is now a pre-built version (universal binary Private Framework, together with a demo application). Have a look at the PrivateFramework page or download it from http://www.ient.rwth-aachen.de/cms/software/opencv/.

Additional information on building and on the current state of development can be found on the Mac_OS_X_OpenCV_Port page.

MacOS X Compatible Cameras

Windows Version

Windows Compatible Cameras

DirectShow without the hassle

You can use the video input library at http://muonics.net/school/spring05/videoInput/ to avoid the messiness of dealing with DirectShow. It even works for direct capture to the imageData field of an IPL image, though I found that the result was upsidedown and had red and blue switched. (Note from author of videoInput: new version out! With option to have RGB or BGR pixels and loads of other features)

Firewire 1394 cameras without Direct X

You can install the CMU 1394 driver for your camera and then use the API of this driver to capture video from the camera. In this way, you can avoid the use of DirectX. See example for details.

VC Smart Cameras

OpenCV can run on VC Smart Cameras now. Vision Components + OpenCV

Development

This page is to describe serious development aimed at inclusion or expansion of OpenCV.

Willow Garage Development

• The ongoing project management page for the core development team can be found at OpenCV Development at Willow Garage

• OpenCV on Twitter

OpenCV 2009 Summer Release

The feature list and plan for the next major release of OpenCV is here: OpenCV 2009/08

Ideas that one could work on OpenCV Ideas 2009

Other

People

Feel free to add yourself here...

• Steven Hickson Clemson University, C++/C# OpenCV and FPGA projects with javascript and HTML 5.0

• Emrah Basaran-Erciyes University/Turkey [ emrahbsrn@gmail.com ]

• Gecko Geek (FRENCH Tutorials, like Color Tracking)

• - TerryMay-USA

• Alex Karpus - Ottawa, Canada - ported OpenCV 2.0 (cv, cxcore, highgui) to WinCE SDK v6.0 (Project Details, Downloads)

• Gennady Gilin [ genady.job@gmail.com ] -

• Riza Alaudin Syah SharedSystem Inc. Japan

• Randy Cahya Wihandika [ rendicahya@yahoo.com ] - Electronic Engineering Polytechnic Institute of Surabaya - Indonesia

• Danang Suharno - Ngadinegaran, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

• Fayas A [ fayas.a@gmail.com ]- Phd student

• Pratap Vardhan-Computer Vision & Image processing enthusiast, India http://pratapvardhan.blogspot.com/ [ pratapapvr@gmail.com ]

• P. Girish, India, Neomagic Semiconductors http://www.neomagic.com

• Asit Jain

• Chris Harris- PHP expert.

• Tomasz Kolinko, using OpenCV for AR and marketing games purposes, Mechanekin, Warsaw, Poland

• Indraneel Ahluwalia

• Gary Bradski

• Adrian Kaehler

• ChristophSeibert

• Stephen Antony

• OlivierBornet

• MarkAsbach - working on Mac OS X port, Framework, Python

• Parameswaran

• RalfStauder

• RicardBorras

• PankajVallabh

• MohammadHeydari, mdh.heydari@gmail.com

• JavierBarandiaran

• JairoSanchez

• AndresCaro

• XiaomingLiu

• DominiqueBelhachemi

• Michael T. Matibag, michaelmatibag@gmail.com , micmat_aztecx@yahoo.com

• Kecsap

• Luiz Reginaldo

• Shiqi Yu

• BarisEvrimDemiroz

• ASBG Group in Portugal

• Francisco Bernardo

• Haar Hand Tracker Losi, losteiner@gmail.com

• RomanStanchak

  • Sebastian Montabone - Fine Grained Saliency

• Le Khanh Thanh,Ha Noi, Viet Nam. comp_vis@yahoo.com

• Lismont Kevin, stvv@pandora.be , Belgium

• Thijs Triemstra

• Zhaoxiang Zhang

• ChrisFairles

• Sami Bourgou

• Shirish Goyal

• MoaathALRajab

• Laurent Wagneur, France, INGENICA http://www.ingenica.fr

• mailto:congthienvn@yahoo.com Pham Cong Thien, Suwon, Korea http://www.hcmuaf.edu.vn/cackhoa/kcntt/nhanvien/pcthien/index.html

• OpenCV integration for Prosilica cameras and VC Smart Cameras Antonio Yu, Metron Hong Kong Ltd. http://www.metronhk.com

• Jérôme Landré, France - http://pagesperso-orange.fr/jerome.landre/index_en.xhtml

• Lee Seongjoo, Republic of Korea Artificial Intellegence Laboratory, Yonsei University

• Son Do-Lenh

• NicolasSaunier

• TamasUngi - and his tutorial notes

• Phan Anh Vu - Hanoi University of Technology - virces931511@yahoo.com - http://cntt.tv

• Oscar Deniz Suarez, Spain http://mozart.dis.ulpgc.es/Gias/oscar.html

• Bluekid

• Pousadas em Salvador

• João Quintas, Portugal - vazamentos

• Sunu Wibirama - OpenCV Indonesia

• Matthew Bennett - Course Leader of BTEC Games Design at Gloucester College and author of http://colourisation.net

• BENABBAS Yassine - OpenCV Tutorials(google knols)- PhD Student at Lille1

• Naotoshi Seo - Tutorial - OpenCV haartraining OpenCVX - Yet another OpenCV eXtension functions

• Nash - OpenCV Tutorials

• Alasdair Swenson - VJ pop-eye alasdairswenson@gmail.com

• A. Rahman Rezazadeh - Denmark abr@agrotech.dk Agrotech

• brzone on brazilian

• Web hosting- Quality resource for web hosting.

• Web hosting reviews

• Vizmatic - Computer vision software development

• Roberto Robot umanoide MecWilly - Italy

• Matia Pizzoli Sapienza Università di Roma - Italy

• Andrea Carbone Sapienza Università di Roma ALCOR Lab - Italy

• Jacopo Parvizi -Student at DIIGA - Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy

• Burak Çayır - Galatasaray University, Istanbul-TURKEY - burakcayir@gmail.com - http://www.gsu.edu.tr

• Stephen S. Nestinger - University of California, Davis - USA - ssnestinger@ucdavis.edu

• Daniel Cervantes acompanhantes - Spain

• WeiYan Ph.D. student- University of Illinois - USA - weiyan2@illinois.edu

• Calderon Francisco - calderonf@gmail.com - Universidad Javeriana Bogotá - documentación en español.

• Quang Nguyen - quangndba@gmail.com - Fix8.com - [Mobinex Inc.]

• Martin Dale - Automotive Development.

• Flavio Bernardotti - Computer Vision Encyclopaedic Forum with 30.000 documents, projects with source, opencv papers ...

• A.Rahman Rezazadeh abr@agrotech.dk

• JeanReneBedard jrbedard@gmail.com

• Claudio Concilio Robotics claudio.concilio@TSKILLS.com - Italy

• Juno Seo http://www.nml.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~jhseo Visual Servoing nic.seo@gmail.com - Korea

• Dr.Srinivas Ganapathyraju - Professor - Canada - Interested in OPENCV applications to robotics- Email: world_hiker@yahoo.com

• JIA Pei http://www.visionopen.com Active Appearance Model - UK

• Fatih Ömrüuzun - Middle East Technical University, Ankara - TURKEY f.omruuzun@gmail.com http://fscience.net

• Calven Eggert - Otimização de sites - Toronto, Canada - iPhone Development

• Yannick Verdie - Virginia Tech, USA - working on Mac OS X port, Framework. Vislab website ...

• DI Andreas Heindl - Phd Student - working on automated cell detection in various tissues Andreas Heindl

• Vijay C Narayan - Robot Enthusiast - Working on Robot vision and navigation Vijay C Narayan

• José Alonso Ybanez Zepeda - Computer Vision Research -Email: jaybanez[AT]gmail.com - otimização de sites| Nicole Hogan

• Vijay Daniel, rLambda, Chennai, India - Working on Android port

• Cem Arslan, Istanbul-Turkey, CodeGear 2009 Project, cemarslan@mac.com

• Wang Kang - Nanjing University of Infomation Science and Techlonogy My Tech Blog novertina@aol.com

• Walter "Myzhar" Lucetti - Computer/Robotic Engineer Home Rover Project email

• Samuel Audet - Author of JavaCV

• Burak Ofluoglu - HP-ITU Software Innovation Center Burak Ofluoglu

• Fatih Taspinar-The University of Kocaeli, Turkey - realtime object recognition, fatihtsp@gmail.com

• Sebastian Müller - study project: realtime ocr for math formulas with webcam (named blackbird) - install and working with opencv/webcam on linux, wiki in german language

• Diego Schmaedech - Brazil - Working on Eyetracking System

• Ryan Lei - CMLab, NTU, Taiwan - Working on Object Recognition, and Mac OS X Wiki pages here.

• Calven Eggert - Criar site - Toronto, Canada - iPhone Development

• Wang Wei Da - yester-place - Taiwan - wa114040@gmail.com

• Gonzalez, Jesus - Using OpenCV and uEye Cameras for Aerial Servoing Control. University of Seville- Spain - susogv[at]gmail.com

• Anirudh Sharma -touchaddict - using OpenCV for tabletop interactions - anirudhsharma dot crypto at gmail dot com

• Thomas Bhatia

• Jai Pillai - Vision Researcher, University of Maryland - Object tracking, Adaptive smoothing code available at http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~jsp/Downloads.html

• Shervin Emami - Australia - Robotics & Face Detection. OpenCV tutorials & code

• Alex Barry - Kitchener, Ontario, Canada - Open source implementation for eye tracking using cheap hardware. Code Repository - Home Page

• David J Barnes - Cognitive Vision systems for Robotics, Chicago, IL