Newbie Help!

[Shubham Kanodia]

Hello there !

I attended today's sessions on the Software Freedom Day. OpenCV definitely caught my interest. 

I've had this one idea for a long time. Its basically a webcam observer that helps switch off the monitor when the user is away from his PC and save energy. In practice, user's monitor would stay on as long as the user is actively working or is in front of the system and would enter a energy save (or sleep mode) if the user takes a coffee break. As soon as he returns, a face is detected and the monitor would automatically power up again. 

I want to implement this on a windows machine. 

How do I get started with OpenCV (on windows preferably)? Do I require in-depth knowledge of python?

[Vinay.S.Rao]

Cool! Good questions already!

For OpenCV on Windows, follow the instructions here : http://docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/introduction/windows_install/windows_install.html

I'd like to suggest the http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/files/opencv-win/2.4.7/ link, which is a direct installer.

On Linux, it's a matter of getting the source and building the libraries in a proper format. It's a way better environment to start fiddling with OpenCV (personal experience).

http://docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/introduction/linux_install/linux_install.html is a good place to start.

Also, you can have a look at: https://github.com/jayrambhia/Install-OpenCV/tree/master/Ubuntu/2.4. You can find scripts there to install the version of OpenCV you want.
It also installs the dependencies required for a complete build of OpenCV (ffmpeg etc are required to get feeds from the webcam).

You don't have to know Python to work on OpenCV. You can use C++ or C, if you'd prefer them. 

If you'd like to make things easier, give http://www.simplecv.org/ a shot (it's basically simplified OpenCV).

Feel free to shoot a mail if you need more help.

Cheers,

Vinay

[Shubham Kanodia]

Okay, So I managed to download and install OpenCV for windows and covered all instructions shown here.  I tried to read through the documentation and samples, but there's hardly any for 'C'. I know its rather unfortunate that I'm still stuck with C, but I never really got the chance, time or motivation to learn python online. Anyway, what do I do next??

Visibly frustrated,

Shubham K

[Vinay Rao]

If you know how to code in C, you should be comfortable with using functions, passing parameters etc.

Here's a link that will give you the motivation to learn Python : http://tutorial.simplecv.org/en/latest/examples/shell.html

Simply get SimpleCV, and you'll start learning Python alongside.

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

Also, just to give an analogy I gave students last year - programming is like swimming, you have to get into the water and then learn to swim by swimming. Python is by far the easiest language out there anyway :)

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "bms-lug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bms-lug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to bms...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bms-lug.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

--
Shantanu Tushar    (UTC +0530)
http://www.shantanutushar.com

[Ashwith Rego]

Shubham,

In case you're new to OpenCV, you might want to get in touch with Prof. Abhishek Appaji (Medical Electronics Dept) and see if he can help you with it. I think he's planning some sort of workshop soon with someone at IISc. The workshop will happen with OpenCV on Ubuntu.

Also I concur with Shantanu. Try giving python a shot. It is really simple. If you need a book, the one I used was http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ I also completed a course at edX.org which used Python. I'm not from a CS background so doing a course proved specially useful for me.

Kind Regards

Ashwith J. Rego
-----------------
My Webpage: http://ashwith.wordpress.com/
Find me on LinkedIn at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashwith
Follow Me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Louisda16th

[Madhusudan C.S]

Hi Shubham,

In the same spirit of what Shantanu said, if you are interested in Free and Open Source software this is also a good time to give Linux a shot. What is the worst thing that can happen after all?

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "bms-lug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bms-lug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to bms...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bms-lug.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

--

Cheers,
  Madhusudan.C.S

[Joel Louzado]

Another good python resource is Zed Shaw's "Learn python the hard way" book.

It's available for free online. Really good book that starts from the very basics.

Learnpythonthehardway.org/book

-Joel
-------------------------------------------
Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
A: http://five.sentenc.es

--

[Vinay.S.Rao]

Bringing this thread back on topic, learning Python is definitely not necessary.
Since your question was about OpenCV, there is extensive documentation available for C++.
I think you will be learning C++ as part of the curriculum anyway. If not, if you are able to find code samples that use C++, I can help you find ways to do the equivalent using C.
Although, if you start with with C++ tutorials, you will notice that you can use re-use most things you commonly used in C (by this I mean you can use most headers). This means you only have to use some data structures from C++, and do everything else in the usual 'C' way. Since you are already comfortable with C, you will already know looping constructs, operators etc and these are the same (usually) in C++. Things should be easier moving to C++ from C.

Just my personal opinion; Python is very easy to learn, and I personally use it very extensively. Your call.

Cheers,
Vinay

[Shubham Kanodia]

Its not like I haven't tired to learn python before, but having being locked into to the C environment (Turbo C)  for years, I would lose motivation and leave it midway.

Also, I've fidgeted with Linux before. Even done hackintosh twice :P

So anyway I guess its best I get started with basics first . I'll give Ubuntu another try and get started with python (for real this time!) . Btw, I heard dual booting Ubuntu causes problems with windows 8. If i'm booting using legacy bios, (i.e. no UEFI or secureboot or whatever), will things go fine if I used the "install alongside windows" option?

Shubham K

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Shubham Kanodia <shubham...@gmail.com> wrote:

Its not like I haven't tired to learn python before, but having being locked into to the C environment (Turbo C)  for years, I would lose motivation and leave it midway.

Also, I've fidgeted with Linux before. Even done hackintosh twice :P

So anyway I guess its best I get started with basics first . I'll give Ubuntu another try and get started with python (for real this time!) . Btw, I heard dual booting Ubuntu causes problems with windows 8. If i'm booting using legacy bios, (i.e. no UEFI or secureboot or whatever), will things go fine if I used the "install alongside windows" option?

Yes with legacy bios it is awesomely smooth, even with UEFI. The culprit is SecureBoot.
 

Shubham K

On Saturday, November 30, 2013 6:44:39 PM UTC+5:30, Shubham Kanodia wrote:

Hello there !

I attended today's sessions on the Software Freedom Day. OpenCV definitely caught my interest. 

I've had this one idea for a long time. Its basically a webcam observer that helps switch off the monitor when the user is away from his PC and save energy. In practice, user's monitor would stay on as long as the user is actively working or is in front of the system and would enter a energy save (or sleep mode) if the user takes a coffee break. As soon as he returns, a face is detected and the monitor would automatically power up again. 

I want to implement this on a windows machine. 

How do I get started with OpenCV (on windows preferably)? Do I require in-depth knowledge of python?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "bms-lug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bms-lug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to bms...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bms-lug.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[Deepak Mittal]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Shubham Kanodia <shubham...@gmail.com> wrote:

Its not like I haven't tired to learn python before, but having being locked into to the C environment (Turbo C)  for years, I would lose motivation and leave it midway.

Also, I've fidgeted with Linux before. Even done hackintosh twice :P

So anyway I guess its best I get started with basics first . I'll give Ubuntu another try and get started with python (for real this time!) . Btw, I heard dual booting Ubuntu causes problems with windows 8. If i'm booting using legacy bios, (i.e. no UEFI or secureboot or whatever), will things go fine if I used the "install alongside windows" option?

Using legacy BIOS, it doesn't create any issues. If you know your way around partitions, you can safely install linux alongside windows.

 

Shubham K

On Saturday, November 30, 2013 6:44:39 PM UTC+5:30, Shubham Kanodia wrote:

Hello there !

I attended today's sessions on the Software Freedom Day. OpenCV definitely caught my interest. 

I've had this one idea for a long time. Its basically a webcam observer that helps switch off the monitor when the user is away from his PC and save energy. In practice, user's monitor would stay on as long as the user is actively working or is in front of the system and would enter a energy save (or sleep mode) if the user takes a coffee break. As soon as he returns, a face is detected and the monitor would automatically power up again. 

I want to implement this on a windows machine. 

How do I get started with OpenCV (on windows preferably)? Do I require in-depth knowledge of python?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "bms-lug" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bms-lug+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to bms...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bms-lug.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

--
Regards,
Deepak Mittal,
Twitter - @dpacmittal

[Karan Singh]

What are you really interested in?
The kernel, the drivers or everything else that runs on top of that? Knowing what you are most interested in will give you ideas on the language to learn.

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

Didn't follow the thread from the beginning? ;)

[Karan Singh]

Haha just read it. So many more details required to ascertain its feasibility though :)

[Shubham Kanodia]

My area of interest is more towards application oriented programming than system programming. I have very little interest in what the kernel or OS is doing under the hood. I  want to be creating stuff which people can use directly. i.e. designing user experiences and UI's . 

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

"I  want to be creating stuff which people can use directly", great, that is exactly what drives me as well :D

[Pradeep L]

I tried to install ubuntu 11.04 in hp laptop with windows 8 built in .During installation i ended up getting a  black screen which i later fixed it by setting nomodeset to off . After completing installation when it rebooted again it ran to blackscreen again i fixed it by adding nomodeset in the grub . Now the problem is every time i boot in ,i have to do this nomodeset thing in grub .U guys have to help me in fixing this  .

i have to change nomodeset thing in grub permanently .

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

this should help http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132 :)

[Pradeep L]

thanks a lot shantanu .if i want to get  involved in KDE is it necessary  to install KUBUNTU or can i do that using UBUNTU  ?

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

It is not a hard requirement, but it will be a lot easier if you already have Kubuntu because then you don't need to manually install a lot of libraries. So my advice is, for KDE development, unless your Ubuntu system is there for a long time, you have lot of customized settings you don't want to throw away, install Kubuntu.

Warning: Once you do that, you'll never want to go back to Ubuntu, thanks to how awesome KDE is ;)

[Deepak Mittal]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Shantanu Tushar Jha <shaa...@gmail.com> wrote:

It is not a hard requirement, but it will be a lot easier if you already have Kubuntu because then you don't need to manually install a lot of libraries. So my advice is, for KDE development, unless your Ubuntu system is there for a long time, you have lot of customized settings you don't want to throw away, install Kubuntu.

Warning: Once you do that, you'll never want to go back to Ubuntu, thanks to how awesome KDE is ;)

I can second this. I moved to Kubuntu on Shantanu's recommendation and never looked back. 

--

[Pradeep L]

i will try Kubuntu. because i am looking for projects under KDE in GSOC. tx KDE guru.

[Pradeep L]

Are  the terminal commands in KUBUNTU is same as in UBUNTU .? Obvious question from the guy migrating from ubuntu to kubuntu .

wats the difference that u found after shifting to kubuntu.?to Deepak

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

Yes they are exactly the same. All ubuntu derivatives[1], by definition, share the same base system[2], they only differ in their Desktop Environment and package selection.

[1] Ubuntu Server, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Mythubuntu, and so on

[2] Which is, well, ubuntu, which itself is based on another system called Debian www.debian.org

[Karan Singh]

One can also have multiple Desktop envs. installed and if you get bored of one, you can switch..and later switch back.
:)

[Deepak Mittal]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 1:40 PM, Karan Singh <karansi...@gmail.com> wrote:

One can also have multiple Desktop envs. installed and if you get bored of one, you can switch..and later switch back.
:)

Multiple DEs is a very bad idea. I once had KDE and GNOME installed side by side each running on their own TTY. Having multiple DEs messed up settings in my home directory. I don't exactly remember what it messed up but I started getting frequent application crashes. This was few years ago and things might've changed now but I would not recommend having multiple DEs on same installation.

@Pradeep

As Shantanu said, both have identical base system, just the DE is different. Which means they have their own application ecosystem which comes preinstalled by default. So for example, KDE's text editor is Kate, while GNOME's text editor is gedit. It didn't take long to get used to a whole new application ecosystem. 

Having said that, it's trivial to install GNOME applications on KDE. For example, KDE's IRC client Quassel was causing some issues with my IRC bouncer, so I just did apt-get install xchat and I got GNOME's IRC client (xchat) installed.

Apart from those difference I should also mention that Ubuntu is under Canonical, while Kubuntu is not. So there have been few controversial decisions made by Canonical like 

 - Inclusion of paid apps in software center

 - Collecting information from dash search.

It matters only if you care about your privacy, but I had to put it out there. 

My advice would be to try both of them, give each of them few days and settle with one you like. However, if you want to develop for KDE, using Kubuntu will get you started faster and easier.

[Karan Singh]

I have Gnome and KDE. I have had it that way since 9.10.. Never faced any issues.