Book Image

OpenCV 4 for Secret Agents - Second Edition

By : Joseph Howse

Book Image

OpenCV 4 for Secret Agents - Second Edition

By: Joseph Howse

Overview of this book

OpenCV 4 is a collection of image processing functions and computer vision algorithms. It is open source, supports many programming languages and platforms, and is fast enough for many real-time applications. With this handy library, you’ll be able to build a variety of impressive gadgets. OpenCV 4 for Secret Agents features a broad selection of projects based on computer vision, machine learning, and several application frameworks. To enable you to build apps for diverse desktop systems and Raspberry Pi, the book supports multiple Python versions, from 2.7 to 3.7. For Android app development, the book also supports Java in Android Studio, and C# in the Unity game engine. Taking inspiration from the world of James Bond, this book will add a touch of adventure and computer vision to your daily routine. You’ll be able to protect your home and car with intelligent camera systems that analyze obstacles, people, and even cats. In addition to this, you’ll also learn how to train a search engine to praise or criticize the images that it finds, and build a mobile app that speaks to you and responds to your body language. By the end of this book, you will be equipped with the knowledge you need to advance your skills as an app developer and a computer vision specialist.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Free Chapter

Section 1: The Briefing

Section 1: The Briefing

Preparing for the Mission

Preparing for the Mission

Technical requirements

Setting up a development machine

Setting up Android Studio and OpenCV

Setting up Unity and OpenCV

Setting up a Raspberry Pi

Finding OpenCV documentation, help, and updates

Alternatives to Raspberry Pi

Searching for Luxury Accommodations Worldwide

Searching for Luxury Accommodations Worldwide

Technical requirements

Planning the Luxocator app

Creating, comparing, and storing histograms

Training the classifier with reference images

Acquiring images from the web

Acquiring images from Bing Image Search

Preparing images and resources for the app

Integrating everything into the GUI

Running Luxocator and troubleshooting SSL problems

Building Luxocator for distribution

Section 2: The Chase

Section 2: The Chase

Training a Smart Alarm to Recognize the Villain and His Cat

Training a Smart Alarm to Recognize the Villain and His Cat

Technical requirements

Understanding machine learning in general

Planning the Interactive Recognizer app

Understanding Haar cascades and LBPH

Implementing the Interactive Recognizer app

Planning the cat-detection model

Implementing the training script for the cat-detection model

Planning the Angora Blue app

Implementing the Angora Blue app

Building Angora Blue for distribution

Further fun with finding felines

Controlling a Phone App with Your Suave Gestures

Controlling a Phone App with Your Suave Gestures

Technical requirements

Planning the Goldgesture app

Understanding optical flow

Setting up the project in Android Studio

Getting a cascade file and audio files

Specifying the app's requirements

Laying out a camera preview as the main view

Tracking back-and-forth gestures

Playing audio clips as questions and answers

Capturing images and tracking faces in an activity

Equipping Your Car with a Rearview Camera and Hazard Detection

Equipping Your Car with a Rearview Camera and Hazard Detection

Technical requirements

Planning The Living Headlights app

Detecting lights as blobs

Estimating distances (a cheap approach)

Implementing The Living Headlights app

Testing The Living Headlights app at home

Testing The Living Headlights app in a car

Creating a Physics Simulation Based on a Pen and Paper Sketch

Creating a Physics Simulation Based on a Pen and Paper Sketch

Technical requirements

Planning the Rollingball app

Detecting circles and lines

Setting up OpenCV for Unity

Configuring and building the Unity project

Creating the Rollingball scene in Unity

Creating Unity assets and adding them to the scene

Creating the launcher scene in Unity

Tidying up and testing

Section 3: The Big Reveal

Section 3: The Big Reveal

Seeing a Heartbeat with a Motion-Amplifying Camera

Seeing a Heartbeat with a Motion-Amplifying Camera

Technical requirements

Planning the Lazy Eyes app

Understanding what Eulerian video magnification can do

Extracting repeating signals from video using the fast Fourier transform

Compositing two images using image pyramids

Implementing the Lazy Eyes app

Configuring and testing the app for various motions

Stopping Time and Seeing like a Bee

Stopping Time and Seeing like a Bee

Technical requirements

Planning the Sunbaker app

Understanding the spectrum

Finding specialized cameras

Installing Spinnaker SDK and PySpin

Capturing images from industrial cameras using PySpin

Adapting the Lazy Eyes app to make Sunbaker

Making WxUtils.py Compatible with Raspberry Pi

Making WxUtils.py Compatible with Raspberry Pi

Learning More about Feature Detection in OpenCV

Learning More about Feature Detection in OpenCV

Running with Snakes (or, First Steps with Python)

Running with Snakes (or, First Steps with Python)

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Other Books You May Enjoy

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Testing The Living Headlights app in a car

When choosing the hardware for a car-based setup, it's important to consider the following questions:

Can the car's outlets power the hardware?
Can the hardware fit conveniently in the car?

A Raspberry Pi draws power from a 5V supply through its micro USB port. We can satisfy this power requirement by plugging a USB adapter into the car's cigarette lighter and then connecting it to the Pi through a USB to micro USB cable. Make sure that your adapter's voltage is exactly 5V and that its amperage is equal to or greater than the recommended amperage for your Pi model. For example, the official documentation at https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/faqs/ recommends a 5V, 2.5A power supply for Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. The following image shows a setup using a first-generation Raspberry Pi Model A:

Normally, the cigarette...