A free quick-start kit is now available for engineers who want to start developing computer vision applications using OpenCV.

OpenCV is a free open source library of computer vision algorithm components popular with engineers who are learning about computer vision and prototyping new algorithms and applications. However, installing and configuring a development environment with OpenCV can be difficult for new users.

Now, engineers at Berkeley Design Technology (BDTI; Oakland, CA, USA) have solved this problem by offering a complete, pre-built OpenCV development environment in the form of a virtual machine image that can be downloaded and installed free of charge.

The BDTI Quick-Start OpenCV Kit includes Ubuntu Linux, an Eclipse integrated development environment, GNU GCC tools, and OpenCV -- all pre-installed and ready to run within a single virtual machine image that can be executed using a free VMware Player for PCs or VMware Fusion for Macs.

In addition, BDTI has provided interactive, real-time example applications illustrating computer vision functions such as face detection and object tracking.

Originally developed by Intel Corporation, OpenCV was first publicly released in 2000. It has been downloaded over 3.5 million times and has been used in a wide variety of applications, from collision avoidance to advanced robotics.

The BDTI OpenCV Quick-Start Kit is available free of charge to all through the Embedded Vision Alliance’s Embedded Vision Academy project here.

The Embedded Vision Alliance provides training videos, tutorial articles, code examples, and a number of other free resources on its web site Embedded-Vision.com.

-- by Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design