What is OpenCV ?

OpenCV [OpenCV] is an open source (see http://opensource.org) computer vision library

available from http://SourceForge.net/projects/opencvlibrary. Th e library is written in C

and C++ and runs under Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Th ere is active development

on interfaces for Python, Ruby, Matlab, and other languages.

OpenCV was designed for computational effi ciency and with a strong focus on realtime

applications. OpenCV is written in optimized C and can take advantage of multicore

processors. If you desire further automatic optimization on Intel architectures

[Intel], you can buy Intel’s Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP) libraries [IPP], which

consist of low-level optimized routines in many diff erent algorithmic areas. OpenCV

automatically uses the appropriate IPP library at runtime if that library is installed.

One of OpenCV’s goals is to provide a simple-to-use computer vision infrastructure

that helps people build fairly sophisticated vision applications quickly. Th e OpenCV

library contains over 500 functions that span many areas in vision, including factory

product inspection, medical imaging, security, user interface, camera calibration, stereo

vision, and robotics. Because computer vision and machine learning oft en go hand-inhand,

OpenCV also contains a full, general-purpose Machine Learning Library (MLL).

Th is sublibrary is focused on statistical pattern recognition and clustering. Th e MLL is

highly useful for the vision tasks that are at the core of OpenCV’s mission, but it is general enough to be used for any machine learning problem.

OpenCV Tutorial in C++