Finding Local Maxima Grayscale Image opencv - c++

Question

I am trying to create my personal Blob Detection algorithm
As far as I know I first must create different Gaussian Kernels with different sigmas (which I am doing using Mat kernel= getGaussianKernel(x,y);) Then get the Laplacian of that kernel and then filter the Image with that so I create my scalespace. Now I need to find the Local Maximas in each result Image of the scalespace. But I cannot seem to find a proper way to do so.... my Code so far is
vector <Point> GetLocalMaxima(const cv::Mat Src,int MatchingSize, int Threshold)
{
vector <Point> vMaxLoc(0);
if ((MatchingSize % 2 == 0) ) // MatchingSize has to be "odd" and > 0
{
return vMaxLoc;
}
vMaxLoc.reserve(100); // Reserve place for fast access
Mat ProcessImg = Src.clone();
int W = Src.cols;
int H = Src.rows;
int SearchWidth = W - MatchingSize;
int SearchHeight = H - MatchingSize;
int MatchingSquareCenter = MatchingSize/2;
uchar* pProcess = (uchar *) ProcessImg.data; // The pointer to image Data
int Shift = MatchingSquareCenter * ( W + 1);
int k = 0;
for(int y=0; y < SearchHeight; ++y)
{
int m = k + Shift;
for(int x=0;x < SearchWidth ; ++x)
{
if (pProcess[m++] >= Threshold)
{
Point LocMax;
Mat mROI(ProcessImg, Rect(x,y,MatchingSize,MatchingSize));
minMaxLoc(mROI,NULL,NULL,NULL,&LocMax);
if (LocMax.x == MatchingSquareCenter && LocMax.y == MatchingSquareCenter)
{
vMaxLoc.push_back(Point( x+LocMax.x,y + LocMax.y ));
// imshow("W1",mROI);cvWaitKey(0); //For gebug
}
}
}
k += W;
}
return vMaxLoc;
}
which I found in this thread here, which it supposedly returns a vector of points where the maximas are. it does return a vector of points but all the x and y coordinates of each point are always -17891602... What to do???
Please if you are to lead me in something else other than correcting my code be informative because I know nothing about opencv. I am just learning

Answer 1

The problem here is that your LocMax point is declared inside the inner loop and never initialized, so it's returning garbage data every time. If you look back at the StackOverflow question you linked, you'll see that their similar variable Point maxLoc(0,0) is declared at the top and constructed to point at the middle of the search window. It only needs to be initialized once. Subsequent loop iterations will replace the value with the minMaxLoc function result.
In summary, remove this line in your inner loop:
Point LocMax; // delete this
And add a slightly altered version near the top:
vector <Point> vMaxLoc(0); // This was your original first line
Point LocMax(0,0); // your new second line
That should get you started anyway.

Answer 2

I found it guys. The problem was my threshold was too high. I do not understand why it gave me negative points instead of zero points but lowering the threshold worked