OpenCV 2.

4 Cheat Sheet (C++)

The OpenCV C++ reference manual is here:
http: // docs. opencv. org . Use Quick Search to nd
descriptions of the particular functions and classes
Key OpenCV Classes
Point_ Template 2D point class
Point3_ Template 3D point class
Size_ Template size (width, height) class
Vec Template short vector class
Matx Template small matrix class
Scalar 4-element vector
Rect Rectangle
Range Integer value range
Mat 2D or multi-dimensional dense array
(can be used to store matrices, images,
histograms, feature descriptors, voxel
volumes etc.)
SparseMat Multi-dimensional sparse array
Ptr Template smart pointer class
Matrix Basics
Create a matrix
Mat image(240, 320, CV_8UC3);
[Re]allocate a pre-declared matrix
image.create(480, 640, CV_8UC3);
Create a matrix initialized with a constant
Mat A33(3, 3, CV_32F, Scalar(5));
Mat B33(3, 3, CV_32F); B33 = Scalar(5);
Mat C33 = Mat::ones(3, 3, CV_32F)*5.;
Mat D33 = Mat::zeros(3, 3, CV_32F) + 5.;
Create a matrix initialized with specied values
double a = CV_PI/3;
Mat A22 = (Mat_<float>(2, 2)
cos(a), -sin(a), sin(a), cos(a));
float B22data[] = {cos(a), -sin(a), sin(a), cos(a)};
Mat B22 = Mat(2, 2, CV_32F, B22data).clone();
Initialize a random matrix
randu(image, Scalar(0), Scalar(256)); // uniform dist
randn(image, Scalar(128), Scalar(10)); // Gaussian dist
Convert matrix to/from other structures
(without copying the data)
Mat image_alias = image;
float* Idata=new float[480*640*3];
Mat I(480, 640, CV_32FC3, Idata);
vector<Point> iptvec(10);
Mat iP(iptvec); // iP 10x1 CV_32SC2 matrix
IplImage* oldC0 = cvCreateImage(cvSize(320,240),16,1);
Mat newC = cvarrToMat(oldC0);
IplImage oldC1 = newC; CvMat oldC2 = newC;
... (with copying the data)
Mat newC2 = cvarrToMat(oldC0).clone();
vector<Point2f> ptvec = Mat_<Point2f>(iP);
Access matrix elements
A33.at<float>(i,j) = A33.at<float>(j,i)+1;
Mat dyImage(image.size(), image.type());
for(int y = 1; y < image.rows-1; y++) {
Vec3b* prevRow = image.ptr<Vec3b>(y-1);
Vec3b* nextRow = image.ptr<Vec3b>(y+1);
for(int x = 0; x < image.cols; x++)
for(int c = 0; c < 3; c++)
dyImage.at<Vec3b>(y,x)[c] =
saturate_cast<uchar>(
nextRow[x][c] - prevRow[x][c]);
}
Mat_<Vec3b>::iterator it = image.begin<Vec3b>(),
itEnd = image.end<Vec3b>();
for(; it != itEnd; ++it)
(*it)[1] ^= 255;
Matrix Manipulations: Copying,
Shuing, Part Access
src.copyTo(dst) Copy matrix to another one
src.convertTo(dst,type,scale,shift) Scale and convert to
another datatype
m.clone() Make deep copy of a matrix
m.reshape(nch,nrows) Change matrix dimensions and/or num-
ber of channels without copying data
m.row(i), m.col(i) Take a matrix row/column
m.rowRange(Range(i1,i2))
m.colRange(Range(j1,j2))
Take a matrix row/column span
m.diag(i) Take a matrix diagonal
m(Range(i1,i2),Range(j1,j2)),
m(roi)
Take a submatrix
m.repeat(ny,nx) Make a bigger matrix from a smaller one
flip(src,dst,dir) Reverse the order of matrix rows and/or
columns
split(...) Split multi-channel matrix into separate
channels
merge(...) Make a multi-channel matrix out of the
separate channels
mixChannels(...) Generalized form of split() and merge()
randShuffle(...) Randomly shue matrix elements
Example 1. Smooth image ROI in-place
Mat imgroi = image(Rect(10, 20, 100, 100));
GaussianBlur(imgroi, imgroi, Size(5, 5), 1.2, 1.2);
Example 2. Somewhere in a linear algebra algorithm
m.row(i) += m.row(j)*alpha;
Example 3. Copy image ROI to another image with conversion
Rect r(1, 1, 10, 20);
Mat dstroi = dst(Rect(0,10,r.width,r.height));
src(r).convertTo(dstroi, dstroi.type(), 1, 0);
Simple Matrix Operations
OpenCV implements most common arithmetical, logical and
other matrix operations, such as
add(), subtract(), multiply(), divide(), absdiff(),
bitwise_and(), bitwise_or(), bitwise_xor(), max(),
min(), compare()
correspondingly, addition, subtraction, element-wise
multiplication ... comparison of two matrices or a
matrix and a scalar.
Example. Alpha compositing function:
void alphaCompose(const Mat& rgba1,
const Mat& rgba2, Mat& rgba_dest)
{
Mat a1(rgba1.size(), rgba1.type()), ra1;
Mat a2(rgba2.size(), rgba2.type());
int mixch[]={3, 0, 3, 1, 3, 2, 3, 3};
mixChannels(&rgba1, 1, &a1, 1, mixch, 4);
mixChannels(&rgba2, 1, &a2, 1, mixch, 4);
subtract(Scalar::all(255), a1, ra1);
bitwise_or(a1, Scalar(0,0,0,255), a1);
bitwise_or(a2, Scalar(0,0,0,255), a2);
multiply(a2, ra1, a2, 1./255);
multiply(a1, rgba1, a1, 1./255);
multiply(a2, rgba2, a2, 1./255);
add(a1, a2, rgba_dest);
}
sum(), mean(), meanStdDev(), norm(), countNonZero(),
minMaxLoc(),
various statistics of matrix elements.
exp(), log(), pow(), sqrt(), cartToPolar(),
polarToCart()
the classical math functions.
scaleAdd(), transpose(), gemm(), invert(), solve(),
determinant(), trace(), eigen(), SVD,
the algebraic functions + SVD class.
dft(), idft(), dct(), idct(),
discrete Fourier and cosine transformations
For some operations a more convenient algebraic notation can
be used, for example:
Mat delta = (J.t()*J + lambda*
Mat::eye(J.cols, J.cols, J.type()))
.inv(CV_SVD)*(J.t()*err);
implements the core of Levenberg-Marquardt optimization
algorithm.
Image Processsing
Filtering
filter2D() Non-separable linear lter
sepFilter2D() Separable linear lter
boxFilter(),
GaussianBlur(),
medianBlur(),
bilateralFilter()
Smooth the image with one of the linear
or non-linear lters
Sobel(), Scharr() Compute the spatial image derivatives
Laplacian() compute Laplacian: I =

2
I
x
2
+

2
I
y
2
erode(), dilate() Morphological operations
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Example. Filter image in-place with a 3x3 high-pass kernel
(preserve negative responses by shifting the result by 128):
filter2D(image, image, image.depth(), (Mat_<float>(3,3)
-1, -1, -1, -1, 9, -1, -1, -1, -1), Point(1,1), 128);
Geometrical Transformations
resize() Resize image
getRectSubPix() Extract an image patch
warpAffine() Warp image anely
warpPerspective() Warp image perspectively
remap() Generic image warping
convertMaps() Optimize maps for a faster remap() ex-
ecution
Example. Decimate image by factor of

2:
Mat dst; resize(src, dst, Size(), 1./sqrt(2), 1./sqrt(2));
Various Image Transformations
cvtColor() Convert image from one color space to
another
threshold(),
adaptivethreshold()
Convert grayscale image to binary image
using a xed or a variable threshold
floodFill() Find a connected component using re-
gion growing algorithm
integral() Compute integral image
distanceTransform() build distance map or discrete Voronoi
diagram for a binary image.
watershed(),
grabCut()
marker-based image segmentation algo-
rithms. See the samples watershed.cpp
and grabcut.cpp.
Histograms
calcHist() Compute image(s) histogram
calcBackProject() Back-project the histogram
equalizeHist() Normalize image brightness and con-
trast
compareHist() Compare two histograms
Example. Compute Hue-Saturation histogram of an image:
Mat hsv, H;
cvtColor(image, hsv, CV_BGR2HSV);
int planes[]={0, 1}, hsize[] = {32, 32};
calcHist(&hsv, 1, planes, Mat(), H, 2, hsize, 0);
Contours
See contours2.cpp and squares.cpp samples on what are the
contours and how to use them.
Data I/O
XML/YAML storages are collections (possibly nested) of
scalar values, structures and heterogeneous lists.
Writing data to YAML (or XML)
// Type of the file is determined from the extension
FileStorage fs("test.yml", FileStorage::WRITE);
fs "i" 5 "r" 3.1 "str" "ABCDEFGH";
fs "mtx" Mat::eye(3,3,CV_32F);
fs "mylist" "[" CV_PI "1+1"
"{:" "month" 12 "day" 31 "year"
1969 "}" "]";
fs "mystruct" "{" "x" 1 "y" 2
"width" 100 "height" 200 "lbp" "[:";
const uchar arr[] = {0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1};
fs.writeRaw("u", arr, (int)(sizeof(arr)/sizeof(arr[0])));
fs "]" "}";
Scalars (integers, oating-point numbers, text strings),
matrices, STL vectors of scalars and some other types can be
written to the le storages using operator
Reading the data back
// Type of the file is determined from the content
FileStorage fs("test.yml", FileStorage::READ);
int i1 = (int)fs["i"]; double r1 = (double)fs["r"];
string str1 = (string)fs["str"];
Mat M; fs["mtx"] M;
FileNode tl = fs["mylist"];
CV_Assert(tl.type() == FileNode::SEQ && tl.size() == 3);
double tl0 = (double)tl[0]; string tl1 = (string)tl[1];
int m = (int)tl[2]["month"], d = (int)tl[2]["day"];
int year = (int)tl[2]["year"];
FileNode tm = fs["mystruct"];
Rect r; r.x = (int)tm["x"], r.y = (int)tm["y"];
r.width = (int)tm["width"], r.height = (int)tm["height"];
int lbp_val = 0;
FileNodeIterator it = tm["lbp"].begin();
for(int k = 0; k < 8; k++, ++it)
lbp_val |= ((int)*it) k;
Scalars are read using the corresponding FileNodes cast
operators. Matrices and some other types are read using
operator. Lists can be read using FileNodeIterators.
Writing and reading raster images
imwrite("myimage.jpg", image);
Mat image_color_copy = imread("myimage.jpg", 1);
Mat image_grayscale_copy = imread("myimage.jpg", 0);
The functions can read/write images in the following formats:
BMP (.bmp), JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg), TIFF (.tif, .ti),
PNG (.png), PBM/PGM/PPM (.p?m), Sun Raster
(.sr), JPEG 2000 (.jp2). Every format supports 8-bit, 1-
or 3-channel images. Some formats (PNG, JPEG 2000)
support 16 bits per channel.
Reading video from a le or from a camera
VideoCapture cap;
if(argc > 1) cap.open(string(argv[1])); else cap.open(0);
Mat frame; namedWindow("video", 1);
for(;;) {
cap frame; if(!frame.data) break;
imshow("video", frame); if(waitKey(30) >= 0) break;
}
Simple GUI (highgui module)
namedWindow(winname,flags) Create named highgui window
destroyWindow(winname) Destroy the specied window
imshow(winname, mtx) Show image in the window
waitKey(delay) Wait for a key press during the speci-
ed time interval (or forever). Process
events while waiting. Do not forget to
call this function several times a second
in your code.
createTrackbar(...) Add trackbar (slider) to the specied
window
setMouseCallback(...) Set the callback on mouse clicks and
movements in the specied window
See camshiftdemo.cpp and other OpenCV samples on how to
use the GUI functions.
Camera Calibration, Pose Estimation
and Depth Estimation
calibrateCamera() Calibrate camera from several views of
a calibration pattern.
findChessboardCorners() Find feature points on the checker-
board calibration pattern.
solvePnP() Find the object pose from the known
projections of its feature points.
stereoCalibrate() Calibrate stereo camera.
stereoRectify() Compute the rectication transforms for
a calibrated stereo camera.
initUndistortRectifyMap() Compute rectication map (for
remap()) for each stereo camera head.
StereoBM, StereoSGBM The stereo correspondence engines to be
run on rectied stereo pairs.
reprojectImageTo3D() Convert disparity map to 3D point
cloud.
findHomography() Find best-t perspective transformation
between two 2D point sets.
To calibrate a camera, you can use calibration.cpp or
stereo_calib.cpp samples. To get the disparity maps and the
point clouds, use stereo_match.cpp sample.
Object Detection
matchTemplate Compute proximity map for given tem-
plate.
CascadeClassifier Violas Cascade of Boosted classiers us-
ing Haar or LBP features. Suits for de-
tecting faces, facial features and some
other objects without diverse textures.
See facedetect.cpp
HOGDescriptor N. Dalals object detector using
Histogram-of-Oriented-Gradients
(HOG) features. Suits for detect-
ing people, cars and other objects
with well-dened silhouettes. See
peopledetect.cpp
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