OpenCV Files

This is OpenCV 2.0, the installation package for Windows.

The major new features:
=======================

* the brand-new C++ interface,
  in addition to the existing OpenCV 1.x C API.

* a lot of new functionality, especially in the area
  of feature detectors and descriptors

* SSE2 optimization of many functions

* the revised directory structure and
  the completely new CMake-based build system

* completely new documentation, available
  offline as PDF (included) and online:
  http://opencv.willowgarage.com/documentation/index.html

and a lot more; please, see the ChangeLog.


Important installation notes:
=============================

1. The library is better to be installed to a directory _without_
   a space in its name, such as the default C:\OpenCV2.0 -
   otherwise (e.g. if you install it to C:\Program Files\OpenCV2.0)
   you may get compile errors.
   This is a limitation of the current build scripts. 

2. Due to many technical problems the installation package does
   not include pre-compiled OpenCV libraries for Visual Studio users.

   Instead, it includes libraries built with MinGW 4.3.3 TDM-SJLJ.

   They are good enough to run the C/C++ and Python samples and tests,
   but for developing your OpenCV-based applications using
   Visual Studio, Borland IDE etc., or even a different version of MinGW,
   you need to build the libraries with your compiler using CMake,
   as explained here:
      http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/InstallGuide.
   
   Here is the procedure at glance:
   --------------------------------
   1. Download CMake from http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html
      and install it.

   2. Run CMake GUI tool and configure OpenCV there:
      2.1. select C:\OpenCV2.0 (or the installation directory you chose)
           as the source directory;
      2.2. choose some other directory name for the generated project files, e.g.
           C:\OpenCV2.0\vs2008, or D:\Work\OpenCV_MinGW etc.
      2.3. press Configure button, select your preferrable build environment
      2.4. adjust any options at your choice
      2.5. press Configure again, then press Generate.
      
   3a. In the case of Visual Studio or any other IDE, open the generated
      solution/workspace/project ..., e.g. C:\OpenCV2.0\vs2008\OpenCV.sln,
      build it in Release and Debug configurations.
   3b. In the case of command-line Makefiles, enter the destination directory
       and type "make" (or "nmake" etc.) 
      
   4. Add the output directories to the system path, e.g.:
      C:\OpenCV2.0\vs2008\bin\Debug;C:\OpenCV2.0\vs2008\bin\Release:%PATH%
      It is safe to add both directories, since the Debug
      OpenCV DLLs have the "d" suffix, which the Release DLLs do not have.
      
   5. Optionally, add C:\OpenCV2.0\include\opencv to the list of
      include directories in your IDE settings,
      and the output library directories
      (e.g. C:\OpenCV2.0\vs2008\lib\{Debug,Release})
      to the list of library paths.

   It is important to build both release and debug configurations, and link
   you code with the proper libraries in each configuration,
   otherwise various compile-time or run-time errors are possible.

Known issues:
=============
   
1. Python 2.6 bindings for OpenCV are included within the package,
   but not installed.
   You can copy the subdirectory opencv/Python2.6/Lib/site-packages into
   the respective directory of the Python installation.
   This procedure will be automated in the next OpenCV update.

2. Several (actually, most) SWIG-based Python samples do not work correctly now.
   The reason is this problem is being investigated and the intermediate update
   of the OpenCV Python package will be released as soon as the problem is sorted out.

3. The library has not been tested on 64-bit Windows versions.
   But it is known to have some limitations in the highgui part, such as
   the lack of FFMPEG and DirectShow support.

4. The library can be built with VS2003.NET, and all the tests pass,
   but DirectShow support (via videoInput library) is not included.


Differences between OpenCV-2.0.0-win32.exe and OpenCV-2.0.0a-win32.exe:
=======================================================================

1. Visual Studio 2003.NET is now supported

2. Corrected bug in matrix routines that could produce incorrect results
   or even cause runtime errors.
   
3. A few other minor changes to sync the content with
   the source package for Unix.