OpenCV - The Powerhouse of Computer Vision and Image Processing

Overview:

        OpenCV, short for Open Source Computer Vision Library, is an open-source computer vision and machine learning software library. Originally developed by Intel, it is now maintained by a community of developers under the OpenCV Foundation. It provides a common infrastructure for computer vision applications and accelerates the use of machine perception in commercial products.

Users:

        OpenCV is used by a diverse group of users, including data scientists, AI researchers, ML practitioners, and developers across various industries.

Goal:

        The primary goal of OpenCV is to provide an integrated framework for real-time computer vision and serves as a platform that facilitates numerous image and video analysis applications.

Uses and Features:

1. Image and Video Processing: OpenCV can read and write images, capture and save videos, and process images.
2. Feature Detection: It can perform feature detection to identify objects, faces, or even handwriting.
3. Object Detection: OpenCV can detect specific objects such as faces, eyes, cars, in videos or images.
4. Image Analysis: It can analyze videos, estimate motion, subtract the background, and track objects.
5. Histogram Calculation: OpenCV provides a function cv::calcHist, which calculates the histogram of a set of arrays (usually images or image planes). It can operate with up to 32 dimensions.

How it Works:

1. Reading the Image: OpenCV helps you to read the image from a file or directly from a camera to make it accessible for further processing.
2. Image Enhancement: You can enhance the image by adjusting the brightness, sharpness, or contrast of the image.
3. Object Detection: Objects can be detected by using OpenCV.
4. Image Filtering: You can change the image by applying various filters such as blurring or sharpening.
5. Saving the Changed Images: After processing, you can save modified images for future analysis.

Customer Companies Statistics:

1. OpenCV is used by many well-established companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Sony, Honda, Toyota, and many startups such as Applied Minds, VideoSurf, and Zeitera.
2. It is most often used by companies with 10-50 employees and 1M-10M dollars in revenue.
3. Looking at OpenCV customers by industry, we find that Information Technology and Services (20%), Computer Software (14%), and Higher Education (9%) are the largest segments.