Learning OpenCV

How This Book Is Best Used

This text need not be read in order. It can serve as a kind of user manual: look up the function when you need it; read the function's description if you want the gist of how it works "under the hood". The intent of this book is more tutorial, however. It gives you a basic understanding of computer vision along with details of how and when to use selected algorithms.

This book was written to allow its use as an adjunct or as a primary textbook for an undergraduate or graduate course in computer vision. The basic strategy with this method is for students to read the book for a rapid overview and then supplement that reading with more formal sections in other textbooks and with papers in the field. There are exercises at the end of each chapter to help test the student's knowledge and to develop further intuitions.

You could approach this text in any of the following ways.

Grab Bag

Go through Chapters Chapter 1–Chapter 3 in the first sitting, then just hit the appropriate chapters or sections as you need them. This book does not have to be read in sequence, except for Chapters Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 (Calibration and Stereo).

Good Progress

Read just two chapters a week until you've covered Chapters Chapter 1–Chapter 12 in six weeks (Chapter 13 is a special case, as discussed shortly). Start on projects and start in detail on selected areas in the field, using additional texts and papers as appropriate.

The Sprint

Just cruise through the book as fast as your ...