The OpenCV Tutorials, Release 2.4.13.

Installation in Linux

These steps have been tested for Ubuntu 10.04 but should work with other distros as well.

Required Packages

• GCC 4.4.x or later

• CMake 2.6 or higher
• Git
• GTK+2.x or higher, including headers (libgtk2.0-dev)
• pkg-config
• Python 2.6 or later and Numpy 1.5 or later with developer packages (python-dev, python-numpy)
• ffmpeg or libav development packages: libavcodec-dev, libavformat-dev, libswscale-dev
• [optional] libtbb2 libtbb-dev
• [optional] libdc1394 2.x
• [optional] libjpeg-dev, libpng-dev, libtiff-dev, libjasper-dev, libdc1394-22-dev
The packages can be installed using a terminal and the following commands or by using Synaptic Manager:
[compiler] sudo apt-get install build-essential
[required] sudo apt-get install cmake git libgtk2.0-dev pkg-config libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev
[optional] sudo apt-get install python-dev python-numpy libtbb2 libtbb-dev libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libtiff-dev lib

Getting OpenCV Source Code

You can use the latest stable OpenCV version available in sourceforge or you can grab the latest snapshot from our Git
repository.

Getting the Latest Stable OpenCV Version

• Go to our page on Sourceforge;

• Download the source tarball and unpack it.

Getting the Cutting-edge OpenCV from the Git Repository

Launch Git client and clone OpenCV repository

In Linux it can be achieved with the following command in Terminal:
cd ~/<my_working _directory>
git clone https://github.com/opencv/opencv.git

1.1. Installation in Linux 9

The OpenCV Tutorials, Release 2.4.13.7

Building OpenCV from Source Using CMake, Using the Command Line

1. Create a temporary directory, which we denote as <cmake_binary_dir>, where you want to put the generated
Makefiles, project files as well the object files and output binaries.
2. Enter the <cmake_binary_dir> and type
cmake [<some optional parameters>] <path to the OpenCV source directory>

For example
cd ~/opencv
mkdir release
cd release
cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local ..

3. Enter the created temporary directory (<cmake_binary_dir>) and proceed with:

make
sudo make install

Note: Use cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local .. , without spaces

after -D if step 2 do not work.
If the size of the created library is a critical issue (like in case of an Android build) you can use the install/strip
command to get the smallest size as possible. The stripped version appears to be twice as small. However, we do not
recommend using this unless those extra megabytes do really matter.

Using OpenCV with gcc and CMake

Note: We assume that you have successfully installed OpenCV in your workstation.

• The easiest way of using OpenCV in your code is to use CMake. A few advantages (taken from the Wiki):
1. No need to change anything when porting between Linux and Windows
2. Can easily be combined with other tools by CMake( i.e. Qt, ITK and VTK )
• If you are not familiar with CMake, checkout the tutorial on its website.

Steps

Create a program using OpenCV

Let’s use a simple program such as DisplayImage.cpp shown below.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>

using namespace cv;

int main(int argc, char** argv )

{

10 Chapter 1. Introduction to OpenCV

 The OpenCV Tutorials, Release 2.4.13.7

if ( argc != 2 )
{
printf("usage: DisplayImage.out <Image_Path>\n");
return -1;
}

Mat image;
image = imread( argv[1], 1 );

if ( !image.data )
{
printf("No image data \n");
return -1;
}
namedWindow("Display Image", WINDOW_AUTOSIZE );
imshow("Display Image", image);

waitKey(0);

return 0;
}

Create a CMake file

Now you have to create your CMakeLists.txt file. It should look like this:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)
project( DisplayImage )
find_package( OpenCV REQUIRED )
add_executable( DisplayImage DisplayImage.cpp )
target_link_libraries( DisplayImage ${OpenCV_LIBS} )

Generate the executable

This part is easy, just proceed as with any other project using CMake:
cd <DisplayImage_directory>
cmake .
make

Result

By now you should have an executable (called DisplayImage in this case). You just have to run it giving an image
location as an argument, i.e.:
./DisplayImage lena.jpg

You should get a nice window as the one shown below:

1.2. Using OpenCV with gcc and CMake 11