Setup OpenCV-2.3 for Visual Studio 2010

Well, the official guide is for installing OpenCV 2.1 on VS2010, so I wrote some instructions below that shows how to properly install and configure the x86 version of OpenCV 2.3 on Visual Studio 2010 (Express), since a lot of folks seem to have problems setting it up correctly.

Download OpenCV-2.3.0-win-superpack.exe and execute it to extract all files to a folder named OpenCV2.3. Inside this folder there are 2 directories: build and opencv. All the setup on VS2010 will refer to the build directory. For practical purposes I moved the folder OpenCV2.3 to my C:\ drive, so pay attention to the paths I suggest on this guide as yours might be different.

On Visual Studio, create a new Win32 Console Application project and name it whatever you like. After that, a new window will show up. Click on the tab Application Settings and make sure the option Empty Project gets selected:

Add a new file main.cpp to the folder Source Files, then add this code to main.cpp:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <cv.h>
#include <highgui.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
if (argc < 2)
{
    printf("Usage: ./opencv_hello <file.png>\n");
    return -1;
}

    IplImage* img = cvLoadImage(argv[1], CV_LOAD_IMAGE_UNCHANGED);
if (!img)
{
    return -1;
}

cvNamedWindow("display", CV_WINDOW_AUTOSIZE);
    cvShowImage("display", img );

    cvWaitKey(0);        

    return 0;
}

At this point, we need to configure the project so it can locate OpenCV headers and libraries. Go to the Project Properties (ALT+F7), and once the new window shows up do the following:

• On the Configuration box, select All Configurations

• Open Configuration Properties > C/C++ > General, and edit the field Additional Include Directories to add these 3 paths (for the headers):

  C:\OpenCV2.3\build\include\opencv

  C:\OpenCV2.3\build\include\opencv2

  C:\OpenCV2.3\build\include

Note that include\opencv is for the C interface of OpenCV and include\opencv2 if for the C++ interface. We are also adding the folder include to prevent our build from being broken by some headers of the C interface that refer to C++ headers as opencv2\core.

• Then, add the path of the libraries on Configuration Properties > Linker > General, and on the Additional Library Directories field, add this: C:\OpenCV2.3\build\x86\vc9\lib:

• Finally, for this simple test we are going to add the libraries opencv_core230.lib and opencv_highgui230.lib. So go to Configuration Properties > Linker > Input and add them:

When writing more complex applications you’ll probably need to add other OpenCV libs that I did not
mentioned on this little project of ours.

Press F7 to Build Solution and you should see:

========== Build: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

To be able to execute the application you’ll need to modify the PATH environment variable of your system to add the location of OpenCV’s DLLs. Add this to end of PATH:

; C:\OpenCV2.3\build\x86\vc9\bin