Exception thrown for cvCalcOpticalFlowHS() opencv - c++

Question

Heey, I'm trying to sort out the function of Optical Flow of openCV, but for some reason I'm getting an exception in visual studio:
Unhandled exception at 0x772615de in Optical_flow.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: cv::Exception at memory location 0x0036f334..
With breakpoints I found out that the error lies within the cvCalcOpticalFlowHS function.
I'm using openCV 2.1
#include <cv.h>
#include <highgui.h>
using namespace cv;
int init() {
return 0;
}
int main(int argc, char **args) {
CvCapture* capture = cvCaptureFromFile("Video/Wildlife.wmv");
double fps = cvGetCaptureProperty(capture, CV_CAP_PROP_FPS);
CvSize size;
size.width = (int)cvGetCaptureProperty(capture, CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH);
size.height = (int)cvGetCaptureProperty(capture, CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT);
CvVideoWriter* writer = cvCreateVideoWriter("result.avi", 0, fps,size, 1);
IplImage* curFrame = cvQueryFrame(capture);
Mat u = Mat(size, CV_32FC2);
Mat v = Mat(size, CV_32FC2);
CvTermCriteria IterCriteria;
IterCriteria.type = CV_TERMCRIT_ITER | CV_TERMCRIT_EPS;
IterCriteria.max_iter = 500;
IterCriteria.epsilon = 0.01;
while(1) {
IplImage* nextFrame = cvQueryFrame(capture);
if(!nextFrame) break;
u = Mat::zeros(size, CV_32FC2);
v = Mat::zeros(size, CV_32FC2);
/* Do optical flow computation */
cvCalcOpticalFlowHS(&curFrame, &nextFrame, 0, &u, &v, 0.01, IterCriteria);
cvWriteFrame(writer, curFrame);
curFrame = nextFrame;
}
cvReleaseVideoWriter(&writer);
cvReleaseCapture(&capture);
return 0;
}
Anyone has seen this problem before or sees the mistake I made?
Best Regards
Remco

Answer 1

From the documentation, curFrame and nextFrame should be 8-bit single channel. You are currently just pulling these from the loaded file without checking/converting them as necessary. Can you confirm that the input is of the right type?
Also you have a nasty mix of C++ style cv::Mat with C style IplImage*. I'd suggest you upgrade to a more recent version of OpenCV (2.4 has recently been released), and try to stick with the one or other of the C++ or C style methods.
Note also that this optical flow method is classed as obsolete with a recommendation to use either calcOpticalFlowPyrLK() for sparse features or calcOpticalFlowFarneback() for dense features.
Below is some example code demonstrating calcOpticalFlowFarneback(), which is what I believe you are trying to achieve. It takes data from the webcam rather than a file.
#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>
using namespace cv;
void drawOptFlowMap(const cv::Mat& flow,
cv::Mat& cflowmap,
int step,
const cv::Scalar& color
)
{
for(int y = 0; y < cflowmap.rows; y += step)
for(int x = 0; x < cflowmap.cols; x += step)
{
const cv::Point2f& fxy = flow.at<cv::Point2f>(y, x);
cv::line(cflowmap,
cv::Point(x,y),
cv::Point(cvRound(x+fxy.x),cvRound(y+fxy.y)),
color);
cv::circle(cflowmap, cv::Point(x,y), 2, color, -1);
}
}
int main(int argc, char **args) {
VideoCapture cap(0); // open the default camera
if(!cap.isOpened()) // check if we succeeded
return -1;
Mat newFrame, newGray, prevGray;
cap >> newFrame; // get a new frame from camera
cvtColor(newFrame, newGray, CV_BGR2GRAY);
prevGray = newGray.clone();
double pyr_scale = 0.5;
int levels = 3;
int winsize = 5;
int iterations = 5;
int poly_n = 5;
double poly_sigma = 1.1;
int flags = 0;
while(1) {
cap >> newFrame;
if(newFrame.empty()) break;
cvtColor(newFrame, newGray, CV_BGR2GRAY);
Mat flow = Mat(newGray.size(), CV_32FC2);
/* Do optical flow computation */
calcOpticalFlowFarneback(
prevGray,
newGray,
flow,
pyr_scale,
levels,
winsize,
iterations,
poly_n,
poly_sigma,
flags
);
drawOptFlowMap(flow, newFrame, 20, CV_RGB(0,255,0));
namedWindow("Output",1);
imshow("Output", newFrame);
waitKey(1);
prevGray = newGray.clone();
}
return 0;
}
The above code is pretty similar to the fback.cpp sample code which comes with OpenCV.