This book supports several operating systems as development environments, including Windows XP or a later version, Max OS X 10.6 or a later version, and Ubuntu12.04 or a later version. The only hardware requirement is a webcam (or camera device), except for in Chapter 2, Hand Gesture Recognition Using a Kinect Depth Sensor, which instead requires access to a Microsoft Kinect 3D Sensor or an Asus Xtion.
The book contains seven projects, with the following requirements.
All projects can run on any of Windows, Mac, or Linux, and they require the following software packages:
- OpenCV 2.4.9 or later: Recent 32-bit and 64-bit versions as well as installation instructions are available at http://opencv.org/downloads.html. Platform-specific installation instructions can be found at http://docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/introduction/table_of_content_introduction/table_of_content_introduction.html.
- Python 2.7 or later: Recent 32-bit and 64-bit installers are available at https://www.python.org/downloads. The installation instructions can be found at https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Download.
- NumPy 1.9.2 or later: This package for scientific computing officially comes in 32-bit format only, and can be obtained from http://www.scipy.org/scipylib/download.html. The installation instructions can be found at http://www.scipy.org/scipylib/building/index.html#building.
- wxPython 2.8 or later: This GUI programming toolkit can be obtained from http://www.wxpython.org/download.php. Its installation instructions are given at http://wxpython.org/builddoc.php.
In addition, some chapters require the following free Python modules:
- SciPy 0.16.0 or later (Chapter 1): This scientific Python library officially comes in 32-bit only, and can be obtained from http://www.scipy.org/scipylib/download.html. The installation instructions can be found at http://www.scipy.org/scipylib/building/index.html#building.
- matplotlib 1.4.3 or later (Chapters 4 to 7): This 2D plotting library can be obtained from http://matplotlib.org/downloads.html. Its installation instructions can be found by going to http://matplotlib.org/faq/installing_faq.html#how-to-install.
- libfreenect 0.5.2 or later (Chapter 2): The libfreenect module by the OpenKinect project (http://www.openkinect.org) provides drivers and libraries for the Microsoft Kinect hardware, and can be obtained from https://github.com/OpenKinect/libfreenect. Its installation instructions can be found at http://openkinect.org/wiki/Getting_Started.
Furthermore, the use of iPython (http://ipython.org/install.html) is highly recommended as it provides a flexible, interactive console interface.
Finally, if you are looking for help or get stuck along the way, you can go to several websites that provide excellent help, documentation, and tutorials:
- The official OpenCV API reference, user guide, and tutorials: http://docs.opencv.org
- The official OpenCV forum: http://www.answers.opencv.org/questions
- OpenCV-Python tutorials by Alexander Mordvintsev and Abid Rahman K: http://opencv-python-tutroals.readthedocs.org/en/latest