Raspberry Pi Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8. Computer Vision

8.0 Introduction

Computer vision (CV) allows your Raspberry Pi to see things. In practical terms, this means that your Raspberry Pi can analyze an image, looking for items of interest and even recognizing faces and text.

If you link this with a camera to supply the images, all sorts of possibilities open up.

8.1 Installing SimpleCV

Problem

You want to install SimpleCV computer vision software on your Raspberry Pi.

Solution

To install SimpleCV, first install the prerequisite packages using these commands:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install ipython python-opencv python-scipy 
$ sudo apt-get install python-numpy python-setuptools python-pip
$ sudo pip install svgwrite

Then install SimpleCV itself using the command:

$ sudo pip install https://github.com/sightmachine/SimpleCV/zipball/master

Once installation is complete, you can check that everything worked by running this command:

$ simplecv
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 SimpleCV 1.3.0 [interactive shell] - http://simplecv.org
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Commands: 
    "exit()" or press "Ctrl+ D" to exit the shell
    "clear()" to clear the shell screen
    "tutorial()" to begin the SimpleCV interactive tutorial
    "example()" gives a list of examples you can run
    "forums()" will launch a web browser for the help forums
    "walkthrough()" will launch a web browser with a walkthrough

This will open the SimpleCV console. ...