Modern C++ for

Computer Vision and

Image Processing

Igor Bogoslavskyi and Cyrill Stachniss

Outline

Course introduction

Linux introduction

C++ syntax
Hello World!

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What you will learn in course

How to work in Linux

How to write software with modern C++
Core software development techniques
How to work with images using OpenCV
How to implement inverse image search
Check out Google Image Search for
example: https://images.google.com/

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Why C++? Why Linux? Why?

Over 50 000 developers surveyed

Nearly half of them use Linux
C++ is the most used systems language
(4.5 million users in 2015)
C++11 is a modern language
All companies want C++ in our field
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Stack Overflow survey: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/
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CLion survey: https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2015/07/infographics-cpp-facts-before-clion/
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Course structure

The course is split in two parts:

1. Learning the basics
Consists of lectures and homeworks
5 homeworks, 10 points each
25 points moves you to the next part
2. Working on a project
Plan and code inverse image search
Groups of 2 — 3 people
Final project presentation in the end of semester
Exam = project presentation

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Batteries included!

We will provide you with all the essential tools

for the course:
An Ubuntu virtual machine
Lecture recordings on ECampus, YouTube
Git server to store your code and submit
homework assignments

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What is Linux?
Linux is a free Unix-like OS
Linux kernel implemented by Linus Torvalds
Extremely popular: Android, ChromeOS,
servers, supercomputers, etc.
Many Linux distributions available
Use any distribution if you have preference
Examples will be given in Ubuntu

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Linux directory tree
/
SYSTEM USER

tmp opt usr other home

system
folders

local include bin lib igor

Tree organization starting with root: /

There are no volume letters, e.g. C:, D:
User can only access his/her own folder
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Understanding files and folders

Folders end with / e.g. /path/folder/

Everything else is files, e.g. /path/file
Absolute paths start with /
while all other paths are relative:
/home/igor/folder/ — absolute path to a folder
/home/igor/file.cpp — absolute path to a file
folder/file — relative path to a file
Paths are case sensitive:
filename is different from FileName
Extension is part of a name:
filename.cpp is different from filename.png
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Linux terminal

Press Ctrl + Alt + T to open terminal

Linux terminal is a very powerful tool

Most tasks can be done faster from the
terminal than from the GUI
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Navigating tree from terminal

Terminal is always in some folder

pwd: print working directory
cd <dir>: change directory to <dir>
ls <dir>: list contents of a directory
Special folders:
/ — root folder
~ — home folder
. — current folder
.. — parent folder

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Structure of Linux commands

Typical structure
${PATH}/command [ options ] [ parameters ]

${PATH}/command: obsolute or relative path

to the program binary
[options]: program-specific options
e.g. -h, or --help
[parameters]: program-specific parameters
e.g. input files, etc.

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 Use help with Linux programs
man <command> — manual
exhaustive manual on program usage
command -h
command --help
usually shorter help message
1 igor@igor -lab :~$ pdfpc -h
2 pdfpc v3 .1.1
3 Usage :
4 pdfpc [ OPTION ...] <pdf -file >
5 Help Options :
6 -h, --help Show help options
7 Application Options :
8 -d, --duration =N Duration in minutes
9 <... etc ... >
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 Using command completion

Pressing while typing:

completes name of a file, folder or program
“beeps” if current text does not match any
file or folder uniquely
Pressing + shows all potential matches
Example:
1 igor@igor -work :~> cd te [TAB] [TAB]
2 teaching / temp/ testing /

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Creating and manipulating
files and folders
mkdir [-p] <foldername> — make directory
Create a folder <foldername>
(with all parent folders [-p])
rm [-r] <name> — remove [recursive]
Remove file or folder <name>
(With folder contents [-r])
cp [-r] <source> <dest> — copy
Copy file or folder from <source> to <dest>
mv <source> <dest> — move
Move file or folder from <source> to <dest>
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Using placeholders

Placeholder Meaning
* Any set of characters
? Any single character
[a-f] Characters in [abcdef]
[ ̂ a-c] Any character not in [abc]

Can be used with most of terminal

commands: ls, rm, mv etc.

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 Example: placeholders

1 igor@igor - laptop :~/ teaching /demo > ls

2 u01.tex u02.tex u03.tex v01_a.tex v01.pdf v01.tex
v02.pdf v02.tex v03.pdf v03.tex
3 igor@igor - laptop :~/ teaching /demo > ls *. pdf
4 v01.pdf v02.pdf v03.pdf
5 igor@igor - laptop :~/ teaching /demo > ls u*
6 u01.tex u02.tex u03.tex
7 igor@igor - laptop :~/ teaching /demo > ls ?01*
8 u01.tex v01_a .tex v01.pdf v01.tex
9 igor@igor - laptop :~/ teaching /demo > ls [uv ]01*
10 u01.tex v01_a .tex v01.pdf v01.tex
11 igor@igor - laptop :~/ teaching /demo > ls u0 [^12]. tex
12 u03.tex

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Standard input/output channels
Single input channel: stdin
Two output channels:
stdout: Standard output: channel 1
stderr: Standard error output: channel 2
Redirecting stdout
command 1> out.txt
command >> out.txt
Redirecting stderr
command 2> out.txt
Redirect stdout and stderr into a file
progamm > out.txt 2>&1
Write stdout and stderr into different files
progamm 1>stdout.txt 2>stderr.txt
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Working with files

more/less/cat <filename>
Print the contents of the file
Most of the time using cat if enough
find <in-folder> -name <filename>
Search for file <filename> in folder
<in-folder>, allows wildcards
grep <what> <where>
Search for a string <what> in a file <where>

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Chaining commands

command1; command2; command3

Calls commands one after another
command1 && command2 && command3
Same as above but fails if any of the
commands returns a non-zero code
command1 | command2 | command3
Pipe stdout of command1 to stdin of command2
and stdout of command2 to stdin of command3
Piping commonly used with grep:
ls | grep smth look for smth in output of ls
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Canceling commands

CTRL + C
Cancel currently running command
kill -9 <pid>
Kill the process with id pid
killall <pname>
Kill all processes with name pname
htop (top)
Shows an overview of running processes
Allows to kill processes by pressing F9

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Command history

The shell saves the history of commands in

the ~/.bash_history file
: go to the previous command
: go to the next command
Ctrl + R <query>: search in history
less .bash_history: show history

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Installing software

Most of the software is available in the system

repository. To install a program in Ubuntu
type this into terminal:
sudo apt update to update information
about available packages
sudo apt install <program> to install the
program that you want
Use apt search <program> to find all
packages that provide <program>
Same for any library, just with lib prefix
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0
Icon taken from Wikipedia
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We won’t teach you everything
about C++

Within C++, there is a much

smaller and cleaner language
struggling to get out.
-Bjarne Stroustrup
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Where to write C++ code

There are two options here:

Use a C++ IDE
CLion
Qt Creator
Eclipse
Use a modern text editor [recommended]
Sublime Text 3 [my preference]
Visual Studio Code
Atom
VIM [steep learning curve]
Emacs [steep learning curve]

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Most icons are from Paper Icon Set: https://snwh.org/paper
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 Hello World!

Simple C++ program that prints Hello World!

1 # include <iostream >
2
3 int main () {
4 // Is this your first C++ program ?
5 std :: cout << " Hello World !" << std :: endl;
6 return 0;
7 }

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 Comments and any whitespace
chars are completely ignored
A comment is text:
On one line that follows //
Between /* and */
All of these are valid C++:
1 int main () { return 0;} // Unexpected comment .

1 int main ()
2
3 { return 0;
4 }

1 int main () {
2 return /* Unexpected comment */ 0;
3 }
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Good code style is important
Programs are meant to be read by
humans and only incidentally
for computers to execute.
-Donald Knuth
Use clang_format to format your code
use cpplint to check the style
Following a style guide will save you time
and make the code more readable
We use Google Code Style Sheet
Naming and style recommendations will be
marked by GOOGLE-STYLE tag in slides
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Google style sheet: https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html
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 Everything starts with main

Every C++ program starts with main

main is a function that returns an error code
Error code 0 means OK
Error code can be any number in [1, 255]
1 int main () {
2 return 0; // Program finished without errors .
3 }

1 int main () {
2 return 1; // Program finished with error code 1.
3 }

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 #include directive

Two variants:
#include <file> — system include files
#include "file" — local include files
Copies the content of file into the current file
1 # include " some_file .h"
2 // We can use contents of file " some_file .h" now.
3 int main () {
4 return 0;
5 }

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 I/O streams for simple
input and output
Handle stdin, stdout and stderr:
std::cin — maps to stdin
std::cout — maps to stdout
std::cerr — maps to stderr
#include <iostream> to use I/O streams
Part of C++ standard library
1 # include <iostream >
2 int main () {
3 int some_number ;
4 std :: cin >> some_number ;
5 std :: cout << " number = " << some_number << std :: endl;
6 std :: cerr << " boring error message " << std :: endl;
7 return 0;
8 }
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 Compile and run Hello World!

We understand text
Computer understands machine code
Compilation is translation
from text to machine code
Compilers we can use on Linux:
GCC
Clang [*] [used in examples]

Compile and run Hello World example:

1 c++ -std=c++11 -o hello_world hello_world .cpp
2 ./ hello_world

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References

Cpp Core Guidelines:

https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines
Google Code Styleguide:
https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html
Git guide:
http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/
C++ Tutorial:
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/
Book: Code Complete 2 by Steve McConnell

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