[Pkg-science-devel] Hello; Debian computer vision apps; VisionKit proposal.

[Cynbe ru Taren]

Howdy, all!

Most of my background is in stuff like compilers, interpreters
and OpenGL graphics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynbe_ru_Taren
has some details) but recently I've been getting interested
in computer vision.

I've joined the OpenCV developers list, checked in some general
clean-up stuff, and started coding up some of the OpenCV demos as a
Gtk mini-app by way of learning my around and making it easier for
other people to get a sense of what OpenCV can do.

Some questions and comments:

  o I've subscribed to this list because it is listed as the
    OpenCV package maintainer for Debian.

  o I don't see any computer vision (as opposed to simple
    video capture &tc) apps listed for Debian.  Am I just
    failing to find them, or is there basically no such
    thing at the moment?

  o I'd like to evolve my Gtk wrapper for the OpenCV demos
    into a generally useful open-source computer vision app.
    I'm thinking of calling it "VisionKit", which seems to
    be a free name.  ("VisionLab" is taken, looks like. Sexier
    suggestions welcomed. :)

     * Are there existing packages/websites/whatever I should
       look at by way of getting a good sense of the state of
       the art in computer vision apps?  (I'm aware of stuff
       like David Marr's book on vision, the Stanford Grand
       Challenge success using OpenCV, recent arxiv.org papers
       on Haar-like feature detectors &tc;  I'm just not aware
       of useful open-source computer vision apps or good
       closed-source vision apps to use as a model for writing
       such an open-source app.  Unless you count "Processing"
       or AVS or the old BigEye hack, which I really do not...)

     * Does anyone have wishlist items worth my keeping in mind?
       (Or, I suppose, anti-wishlist items to avoid?)
   
     * I'd like to see VisionKit packaged for Debian when I get
       it to the stage of being reasonably useful.  How should I
       go about that?  Should I start working with someone early
       on, or wait until I have something ready for production
       use?  Would I be better off tucking it into the OpenCV
       package or distributing it as an independent tarball?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 -- Cynbe