Install OpenCV Environment on Ubuntu 16.04

Abstract

This article aims at installing OpenCV 3.4.8 with opencv_contrib environment on Ubuntu 16.04.

Note: Though this is for Ubuntu 16.04.6, it may still adapt to the similar version like Ubuntu 18.04.

Note: Though this is for OpenCV 3.4.8, it may still adapt to the similar version.

Step 1. Install dependences

Install dependences required:

~$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
~$ sudo apt-get install cmake git libgtk2.0-dev pkg-config libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev
~$ sudo apt-get install python-dev python-numpy libtbb2 libtbb-dev libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libtiff-dev libjasper-dev libdc1394-22-dev

Attention: This dependences are for version 3.4.8, for other version, please see official documents in https://opencv.org/.

Step 2. Download sources

Download OpenCV 3.4.8 source file(source.zip) from Github repo: https://github.com/opencv/opencv/releases/tag/3.4.8

Download OpenCV_Contrib 3.4.8 source file(source.zip) from Github repo: https://github.com/opencv/opencv_contrib/releases/tag/3.4.8

Attention: Please make sure the version of OpenCV and OpenCV_Contrib are the same, otherwise it will install failure.

Step 3. Unzip and move files

Unzip the two downloaded files in the same directory, take ~/ as an example:

~$ unzip opencv-3.4.8.zip
~$ unzip opencv_contrib-3.4.8.zip

Now two folder will appear in the ~/ directory:

opencv-3.4.8
opencv_contrib-3.4.8

Move the folder opencv_contrib-3.4.8 to the folder opencv-3.4.8:

~$ mv opencv_contrib-3.4.8 opencv-3.4.8

Step 4. Building OpenCV from Source Using CMake

Create a new folder “build” in the folder “opencv-3.4.8”:

~$ cd opencv-3.4.8
~/opencv-3.4.8$ mkdir build
~/opencv-3.4.8$ cd build

Configuring with cmake commands:

cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local -DOPENCV_EXTRA_MODULES_PATH=/home/<yourusername>/opencv-3.4.8/opencv_contrib-3.4.8/modules ..

If no error occurs, run command below to make the project:

~/opencv-3.4.8/build$ make -j7

If no error occurs, run command below to install:

sudo make install

Finally, run command below to reload config and reboot:

sudo ldconfig
reboot