Qt and computer vision 2 : Build a simple computer vision application with Qt5 and opencv3

    In this post, I will show you how to build a dead simple computer vision application with Qt Creator and opencv3 step by step.

Install opencv3.4.1(or newer version) on windows

0. Go to source forge, download prebuild binary of opencv3.4.2. or you could build it by yourself

1. Double click on the opencv-3.4.2-vc14_vc15.exe and extract it to your favorite folder(pic_00)

Pic00

2. Open the folder you extract(assume you extract it to /your_path/opencv_3_4_2). You will see a folder call "opencv" .

Pic01

3. Open your QtCreator you installed.

Create a new project by Qt Creator

4. Create a new project

Pic02

5. You will see a lot of options, for simplicity, let us choose "Application->Non-Qt project->Plain c++ application". This tell the QtCreator, we want to create a c++ program without using any Qt components.

Pic03

6. Enter the path of the folder and name of the project.

Pic04

7. Click the Next button and use qmake as your build system by now(you can prefer cmake too, but I always prefer qmake when I am working with Qt).

8. You will see a page ask you to select your kits, kits is a tool QtCreator use to group different settings like device, compiler, Qt version etc.

Pic05

9. Click on next, QtCreator may ask you want to add to version control or not, for simplicity, select None. Click on finish.

10. If you see a screen like this, that means you are success.

Pic06

11. Write codes to read an image by opencv

#include <iostream>

#include <opencv2/core.hpp>
#include <opencv2/highgui.hpp>

//propose of namespace are
//1. Decrease the chance of name collison
//2. Help you organizes your codes into logical groups
//Without declaring using namespace std, everytime when you are using
//the classes, functions in the namespace, you have to call with the
//prefix "std::".
using namespace cv;
using namespace std;

/**
 * main function is the global, designated start function of c++.
 * @param argc Number of the parameters of command line
 * @param argv Content of the parameters of command line.
 * @return any integer within the range of int, meaning of the return value is
 * defined by the users
 */
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    if(argc != 2){
        cout<<"Run this example by invoking it like this: "<<endl;
        cout<<"./step_02.exe lena.jpg"<<endl;
        cout<<endl;
        return -1;
    }

    //If you execute by Ctrl+R, argv[0] == "step_02.exe", argv[1] == lena.jpg
    cout<<argv[0]<<","<<argv[1]<<endl;

    //Open the image
    auto const img = imread(argv[1]);
    if(!img.empty()){
        imshow("img", img); //Show the image on screen
        waitKey(); //Do not exist the program until users press a key
    }else{
        cout<<"cannot open image:"<<argv[1]<<endl;

        return -1;
    }

    return 0; //usually we return 0 if everything are normal
}

How to compile and link the opencv lib with the help of Qt Creator and qmake

  Before you can execute the app, you will need to compile and link to the libraries of opencv. Let me show you how to do it. If you missed steps a and b, you will see a lot of error messages like Pic07 or Pic09 show.

12. Tell the compiler, where are the header files, this could be done by adding following command in the step_02.pro.

INCLUDEPATH += your_install_path_of_opencv/opencv/opencv_3_4_2/opencv/build/include

  The compiler will tell you it can't locate the header files if you do not add this line(see Pic07).

Pic07

  If your INCLUDEPATH is correct, QtCreator should be able to find the headers and use the auto complete to help you type less words(Pic08).

Pic08

13. Tell linker which libraries of the opencv it should link to by following command.

LIBS += your_install_path_of_opencv/opencv/opencv_3_4_2/opencv/build/x64/vc14/lib/opencv_world342.lib

Without this step, you will see the errors of "unresolved external symbols"(Pic08).

Pic09

14. Change from debug to release.

Pic10

  Click the icon surrounded by the red region and change it from debug to release. Why do we do that? Because

• Release mode is much more faster than debug mode in many cases
• The library we link to is build as release library, do not mixed debug and release libraries in your project unless you are asking for trouble

  I will introduce more details of compile, link, release, debug in the future, for now, just click Ctrl+B to compile and link the app.

Execute the app

  After we compile and link the app, we already have the exe in the folder(in the folder show at Pic11).

Pic11

  We are almost done now, just few more steps the app could up and run.

13. Copy the dll opencv_world342.dll and opencv_ffmpeg342_64.dll(they place in /your_path/opencv/opencv_3_4_2/opencv/build/bin) into a new folder(we called it global_dll).

14. Add the path of this folder into system path. Without step 13 and 14, the exe wouldn't be able to find the dll when we execute the app, and you may see following error when you execute the app from command line(Pic12). I recommend you use the tool--Rapid environment editor(Pic13) to edit your path on windows.

Pic12

Pic13

15. Add command line argument in the QtCreator, without it, the app do not know where is the image when you click Ctrl+R to execute the program.

Pic14.jpg

16. If success, you should see the app open an image specify from the command line arguments list(Pic15).

Pic15

  These are easy but could be annoying at first. I hope this post could leverage your frustration. You can find the source codes located at github.