accumulatedweight throws cv:Exception error - image-processing

Question

I am new to OpenCV and trying to find contours and draw rectangle on them, here's my code but its throwing cv::Exception when it comes to accumulatedweighted().
#include "opencv2/video/tracking.hpp"
#include "opencv2/imgproc/imgproc.hpp"
#include "opencv2/imgproc/imgproc_c.h"
#include "opencv2/highgui/highgui.hpp"
#include <iostream>
#include <ctype.h>
using namespace cv;
using namespace std;
static void help()
{
cout << "\nThis is a Example to implement CAMSHIFT to detect multiple motion objects.\n";
}
Rect rect;
VideoCapture capture;
Mat currentFrame, currentFrame_grey, differenceImg, oldFrame_grey,background;
vector<vector<Point> > contours;
vector<Vec4i> hierarchy;
bool first = true;
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
//Create a new movie capture object.
capture.open(0);
if(!capture.isOpened())
{
//error in opening the video input
cerr << "Unable to open video file: " /*<< videoFilename*/ << endl;
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
//capture current frame from webcam
capture >> currentFrame;
//Size of the image.
CvSize imgSize;
imgSize.width = currentFrame.size().width; //img.size().width
imgSize.height = currentFrame.size().height; ////img.size().height
//Images to use in the program.
currentFrame_grey.create( imgSize, IPL_DEPTH_8U);//image.create().
while(1)
{
capture >> currentFrame;//VideoCapture& VideoCapture::operator>>(Mat& image)
//Convert the image to grayscale.
cvtColor(currentFrame,currentFrame_grey,CV_RGB2GRAY);//cvtColor()
// Converting Original image to make both background n original image same
currentFrame.convertTo(currentFrame,CV_32FC3);
background = Mat::zeros(currentFrame.size(), CV_32FC3);
//Here its throwing exception
accumulateWeighted(currentFrame,background,1.0,NULL);
imshow("Background",background);
if(first) //Capturing Background for the first time
{
differenceImg = currentFrame_grey.clone();//img1 = img.clone()
oldFrame_grey = currentFrame_grey.clone();//img2 = img.clone()
convertScaleAbs(currentFrame_grey, oldFrame_grey, 1.0, 0.0);//convertscaleabs()
first = false;
continue;
}
//Minus the current frame from the moving average.
absdiff(oldFrame_grey,currentFrame_grey,differenceImg);//absDiff()
//bluring the differnece image
blur(differenceImg, differenceImg, imgSize);//blur()
//apply threshold to discard small unwanted movements
threshold(differenceImg, differenceImg, 25, 255, CV_THRESH_BINARY);//threshold()
//find contours
findContours(differenceImg,contours,hierarchy,CV_RETR_TREE, CV_CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE, Point(0, 0)); //findcontours()
//draw bounding box around each contour
//for(; contours! = 0; contours = contours->h_next)
for(int i = 0; i < contours.size(); i++)
{
rect = boundingRect(contours[i]); //extract bounding box for current contour
//drawing rectangle
rectangle(currentFrame, cvPoint(rect.x, rect.y), cvPoint(rect.x+rect.width, rect.y+rect.height), cvScalar(0, 0, 255, 0), 2, 8, 0);
}
//New Background
convertScaleAbs(currentFrame_grey, oldFrame_grey, 1.0, 0.0);
//display colour image with bounding box
imshow("Output Image", currentFrame);//imshow()
//display threshold image
imshow("Difference image", differenceImg);//imshow()
//clear memory and contours
//cvClearMemStorage( storage );
//contours = 0;
contours.clear();
//background = currentFrame;
//press Esc to exit
char c = cvWaitKey(33);
if( c == 27 ) break;
}
// Destroy All Windows.
destroyAllWindows();
return 0;
}
Please Help to solve this.

Answer 1

First of all, I don't really get the idea of calling accumulateWeighted with alpha = 1.0. If you look at the definition of accumulateWeighted in the doc, you will see that with alpha = 1.0 it is basically equivalent to copy currentFrame into background at each iteration.
Moreover, it is an accumulation function, to accumulate image changes over time into a new image. What is the interest of it if you reset background at every loop with background = Mat::zeros(currentFrame.size(), CV_32FC3); ?
This being said, there is a little flaw in your code with the 4th argument of the function. You wrote accumulateWeighted(currentFrame,background,1.0,NULL);. If you look into the documentation you will find that the 4th argument is a Mask, and is optional. Passing a NULL pointer here might be the source of your exception. Why don't you call the function like this : accumulateWeighted(currentFrame,background,1.0); ?
Hope this helps,
Ben