OpenCV vs Matlab - Line/Hallway Detection

Question

For my computer vision class, I'm going to be doing a project where I extract information about a hallway based on an image of that hallway. In particular, the lines of the hallway which extend toward a vanishing point will be of interest. My question is whether I should use Matlab, OpenCV, or something else to implement this.

I don't have a ton of time for this project. This fact makes Matlab seem like a good option since it seems you can usually get things up and running quickly there. On the other hand, I hope to take what I do for this class project and extend it out further for research once the class is complete. This makes OpenCV seem better as (from what I've read) it's much more efficient. It's possible another choice would be to implement it in Matlab for the project than port that code to an OpenCV form later. It should be noted that I have plenty of experience with C/C++, but only a little in both Matlab and OpenCV.

At the moment, I'm leaning toward just using OpenCV from the start. However, I would like the opinion of someone who's had a bit more experience here than myself. If you'd recommend something over both OpenCV and Matlab, please say so. Also, if you have any tips on what packages or toolkits might be useful for such a project, they would be greatly appreciated.

Any suggestions? Thanks for your time!

Answer 1

Using which one it is easier for you to write a piece of code to read an image file and display it? If you know C++ very well, then it should be easy to debug the code. Since you say you have little experience with Matlab, if you make a small mistake in the code debugging can take a long time. So I suggest break down the problem into:

1. read image and display it, this is very easy in both
2. detect edges using a simple/classic method, this is super easy in both, display the result and visually check it's correctly done
3. use a robust line fitting method, the RANSAC and Hough transform methods are probably what you're going to use, OpenCV makes using the easier than you can guess, Matlab also has built in functions to detect lines using the Hough transform, and gives you the start/end points of each segment. But if you're finding a vanishing point, you shouldn't need those.

The decision is yours, this is not a very difficult problem, can find loads of help on the web. Good luck with the project, and please let us know how it goes.