OpenCV on Android Platforms

Marco Moltisanti Image Processing Lab http://iplab.dmi.unict.it moltisanti@dmi.unict.it http://www.dmi.unict.it/~moltisanti

Outline
Intro System setup Write and build an Android app Write and build an OpenCV app for Android

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

A couple of words about Android / 1

Android is a Linux-based OS, oriented to mobile devices; Android, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White; Google acquired Android, Inc. in 2005; In 2007, Open Handset Alliance, a consortium including Google, HW manufacturers and TC operators, unveiled Android as its first product, a mobile device platform. First commercial device running Android was HTC Dream, released on October, 2008.
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

A couple of words about Android / 2

Each major release is named after a dessert: first was Cupcake (1.5), current is Jelly Bean (4.1)

Distribution of Android Releases: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

A couple of words about Android / 3

Applications for Android OS can be acquired through an app store, such as Google Play or the Amazon App Store; Moreover, it is possible download and install the apps APK file from a third party site.

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Android Apps / 1
An Android app is packaged and distributed as an Android Package, i.e. a file with apk extension. All the code and data in a single apk file is considered a to be one application. Each app lives in a sandbox inside the Linuxbased Android OS. Each app has a unique ID and runs on its own Linux process. Each process has its own Virtual Machine.
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Android Apps / 2
MyApp

A single screen with a user interface

Run in background

Manage data

Listen to system wide announcements

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Android Apps: file Manifest

The system must know the existence of the applications components. A manifest file, named AndroidManifest.xml, is needed in order to:
Declare components; Identify user permissions (e.g. Internet Access); Declare minimum API level; Declare needed external lib;
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Android Apps
An exhaustive view of Applications architecture would take too much time Further informations available at
http://developer.android.com/guide/components/index.html

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Lets start!
First of all, we need to setup our work environment.
Developers Kits, Virtual Machines, API,

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Ingredients

Java SDK 6 or higher

Eclipse IDE

A C/C++ Compiler (Visual C++ / MinGW / Cygwin)

Android SDK

Android NDK

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Recipe / 1
Download and install Java SDK from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/jav ase/downloads/jdk7u9-downloads1859576.html Let JAVA_FOLDER be the folder where we installed our JDK. Put the JAVA_FOLDER\bin directory in the System Path.
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Recipe / 2
Download and install Android SDK from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
Download and unzip Android NDK from
http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Recipe / 3
Download and unzip Eclipse IDE for Java Developers from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
Install the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin for Eclipse: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/insta lling-adt.html

Install the C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT) for Eclipse

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Recipe / 4
A good quick start guide is available at http://docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/introduc tion/android_binary_package/android_dev_in tro.html

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Android application structure

Project root folder
Jni
Present if we need C/C++ code

C/C++ application source code Android.mk and Application.mk Compiled libs Resources of the application

Control the C++ build process

Written with Makefile syntax

Libs

Res

Images xml files describing UI layout

Src

Java code of the application

Name of the Application Name of main applications package Components of the application Required permissions

AndroidManifest.xml

essential information about application to the Android system:

default.properties

text file containing information about target Android platform and other build details

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Hello World! / 1
Click on the highlighted button (if you dont have it, you have to reinstall ADT plugin) to create a new Android App.

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Hello World! / 2
Fill the form and click next. Go forward to the end of wizard we dont care in this moment about icons and stuff!

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Hello World! / 3

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Run, Hello World, run! / 1

To run our HelloWorld! App we have to setup a Virtual Device. This can be done using Android Virtual Device Manager, that comes with the SDK. Launch AVD Manager and create a new device
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Run, Hello World, run! / 2

From Eclipse, click Run (CTRL+F11) and select the Android App modality Eclipse will launch the device emulator and run your app.

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

A bit deeper / 1
The user interface (UI) of an application is stored in a xml file, which contains each components settings. The UI can be created modifying the xml or using the tools provided by Eclipse. Example!

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

A bit deeper / 2
The logic part is in a java file, with the same name of the activity were working on. In our example, its in MainActivity.java It is possible to access layout elements using the findViewById method.
public View findViewById (int id) id can be retrieved using R.id.componentName

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Events Handling
Nobody likes a static UI! Here we use the Java event handling paradigm: Event Listeners! Each event has its own listener
onClickListener onCheckedChangeListener

Few lines of code are better than a thousand words!

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

OpenCV for Android

There are 3 ways to use OpenCV on Android
1. Basic level
OpenCV Java API only + Android SDK.

2. Advanced level
OpenCV native interface + Android NDK.

3. Hacker level
We don't suggest this way.

1 & 2 use prebuilt OpenCV package:

It allows to use both Java and C++ OpenCV API

3 needs OpenCV builded from sources.

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Basic level
OpenCV exposes almost all its functionality to Java including camera You don't even need to dive into NDK stuff You simply add a reference to the OpenCV, import its classes and move forward The overhead is equal to a cost of one or several JNI calls This approach works in many cases, but sometimes JNI calls can consume too much
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Advanced level
The Android way is writing all your code in Java Sometimes it is not enough and you need to go to a native level and write part of your application in C/C++:
For example: you already have some computer functionality which is written in C++ but do not want to rewrite the C++ code to Java.

Add a class with native methods and wrapping your C++ functionality into the Java part of your Android application C++ code of OpenCV is cross-platform, that means that you can port your desktop code to mobile devices
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Hacker level
We don't recommend this way, but it is useful if you want to work with OpenCV sources.
Implement some new features Optimize the performance Submit a bugfix Want to have an access to the latest OpenCV features We wont try this approach!
Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Install OpenCV Manager on the VD / 1

Launch Android Virtual Device (AVD) Manager Start the Virtual Device

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

Install OpenCV Manager on the VD / 2

Let ANDROID_SDK be the folder where we installed the SDK; Let ANDROID_OPENCV be the folder where we put the opencv4android libs; Open a shell:
cd ANDROID_SDK\platform_tools adb install ANDROID_OPENCV\apk\OpenCV_2.4.3_Manager_2.0_platform. apk Wait for success!

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms

And now?

String code = "Lets go to write down the code!"; System.out.prinltn(code);

Marco Moltisanti OpenCV on Android Platforms