Q165277

OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision Library) is a library of programming functions mainly for real-time computer vision. Originally developed by Intel, it was later supported by Willow Garage, then Itseez (which was later acquired by Intel). The library is cross-platform and licensed as free and open-source software under Apache License 2. Starting in 2011, OpenCV features GPU acceleration for real-time operations.

==History== Officially launched in 1999, the OpenCV project was initially an Intel Research initiative to advance CPU-intensive applications, part of a series of projects including real-time ray tracing and 3D display walls. The main contributors to the project included a number of optimization experts in Intel Russia, as well as Intel's Performance Library Team. In the early days of OpenCV, the goals of the project were described as: Advance vision research by providing not only open but also optimized code for basic vision infrastructure. No more reinventing the wheel. Disseminate vision knowledge by providing a common infrastructure that developers could build on, so that code would be more readily readable and transferable. Advance vision-based commercial applications by making portable, performance-optimized code available for free – with a license that did not require code to be open or free itself.