c++ laser detection using frame by frame analysis - c++

Question

I am trying to create a program that will open my camera, take a frame, and locate a laser point. I want to analyse each frame and find a red laser dot. Ideally, I would be able to insert a line at the x and y coordinate at the centroid of the laser dot that updates with each new frame. The camera I am using to take pictures of the laser is fairly high quality and takes pictures of size 2048x2048 so going through each pixel takes way too long. I need this software to run fairly quickly. I already have the code to open the camera and acquire frames.
laser image
What is the best way to write the code to locate the central point of the laser point within each frame?
Thanks,
#include <stdio.h>
#include <iostream>
#include "xiApiPlusOcv.hpp"
#include "opencv2/opencv.hpp"
using namespace cv;
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
try
{
xiAPIplusCameraOcv cam;
// Retrieving a handle to the camera device
printf("Opening first camera...\n");
cam.OpenFirst();
cam.SetExposureTime(10000); //10000 us = 10 ms
// Note: The default parameters of each camera might be different in different API versions
cam.SetImageDataFormat(XI_RGB24);
printf("Starting acquisition...\n");
cam.StartAcquisition();
printf("First pixel value \n");
#define EXPECTED_IMAGES 200
for (int images = 0; images < EXPECTED_IMAGES; images++)
{
Mat cv_mat_image = cam.GetNextImageOcvMat();
cvWaitKey(20);
Mat outImg;
cv::resize(cv_mat_image, outImg, cv::Size(), .35, .35);;
imshow("image", outImg);
}
cam.StopAcquisition();
cam.Close();
printf("Done\n");
cvWaitKey(500);
}
catch (xiAPIplus_Exception& exp) {
printf("Error:\n");
exp.PrintError();
cvWaitKey(2000);
}
return 0;
}