Modern C++ for

Computer Vision and

Image Processing

Lecture 0: The basics

Ignacio Vizzo and Cyrill Stachniss
Course Organization

Lectures: Wednesday 16:00 (CEST)

Held at Youtube live-stream on the course
channel.
Questions via Youtube channel during the lecture.

Tutorials: Friday 15:00 (CEST)

Also offline Tutorials.
Also ”on-demand” Tutorials.
Not all the Tutorials are provided by me.

Discord: Fastest channel to discuss.

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Course structure

The course is split in two parts:

1. Learning the basics
Lectures : Consists of 10 lectures.
Homeworks: Consists of 9 hands-on
homeworks.
2. Working on a project
Plan and code inverse image search
Groups of 2 people

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Workload

180 h per semester (Workload)

60 h per semester (Lectures)
16 weeks per semester

Doing some math:

180 − 60 ℎ
􏿶 􏿹≈8 􏿰 􏿳
16 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘

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What you will learn in course

How to work in Linux

How to write software with modern C++
Core software development techniques
How to work with images using OpenCV
How to implement inverse image search
Check out Google Image Search for
example: https://images.google.com/

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How is the course structured?
Part I: C++ basics tools.
Part II: The C++ core language.
Part III: Modern C++.
Part IV: Final project.

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Course Content

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Course Philosophy

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What you will do in this course

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Please stop me!

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Why?
Why C++? Why Linux? Why?

Over 50 000 developers surveyed

Nearly half of them use Linux
C++ is the most used systems language
(4.5 million users in 2015)
C++ 11 is a modern language
All companies want C++ in our field
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Stack Overflow survey: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/
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CLion survey: https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2015/07/infographics-cpp-facts-before-clion/
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Why C++

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Image taken from https://circuitdigest.com/
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Companies that use C++

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The following slides are adapted from Avery Wang
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More info at http://www.stroustrup.com/applications.html
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Browsers written in C++

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Slides adapted from Avery Wang
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Software written in C++

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Games written in C++

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C++ History: assembly

Benefits:
Unbelievably simple instructions
Extremely fast (when well-written)
Complete control over your program

Why don’t we always use assembly?

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The following slides are adapted from Avery Wang
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 C++ History: assembly
1 main: # @main
2 push rax
3 mov edi , offset std :: cout
4 mov esi , offset .L.str
5 mov edx , 13
6 call std :: basic_ostream <char , std ::
char_traits <char > >& std :: __ostream_insert <char , std
:: char_traits <char > >(std :: basic_ostream <char , std ::
char_traits <char > >&, char const*, long)
7 xor eax , eax
8 pop rcx
9 ret
10 _GLOBAL__sub_I_example.cpp : #
@_GLOBAL__sub_I_example.cpp
11 push rax
12 mov edi , offset std :: __ioinit
13 call std :: ios_base :: Init :: Init () [ complete
object constructor ]
14 mov edi , offset std :: ios_base :: Init ::~ Init
() [ complete object destructor ]
15 mov esi , offset std :: __ioinit
16 mov edx , offset __dso_handle
17 pop rax
18 jmp __cxa_atexit # TAILCALL
19 .L.str :
20 .asciz "Hello , world \n"

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C++ History: assembly

Drawbacks:
A lot of code to do simple tasks
Hard to understand
Extremely unportable

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C++ History: Invention of C

Problem:
Computers only understand assembly
language.

Idea:
Source code can be written in a more
intuitive language
An additional program can convert it into
assembly [compiler]

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 C++ History: Invention of C

T&R created C in 1972, to much

praise.

C made it easy to write code

that was
Fast
Ken Thompson and Dennis
Simple Ritchie, creators of the C
language.

Cross-platform

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C++ History: Invention of C

C was popular since it was simple.

This was also its weakness:

No objects or classes.
Difficult to write code that worked
generically.
Tedious when writing large programs.

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C++ History: Welcome to C++
In 1983, the first vestiges of C++ were
created by Bjarne Stroustrup.

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C++ History: Welcome to C++

He wanted a language that was:

Fast
Simple to Use
Cross-platform
Had high level features

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Evolution of C++

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Image taken from https://www.modernescpp.com/
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Design Philosophy of C++

Multi-paradigm
Express ideas and intent directly in code.
Safety
Efficiency
Abstraction

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0
Icon taken from Wikipedia
What is GNU/Linux?
Linux is a free Unix-like OS
Linux kernel implemented by Linus Torvalds
Extremely popular: Android, ChromeOS,
servers, supercomputers, etc.
Many Linux distributions available
Use any distribution if you have preference
Examples will be given in Ubuntu

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Linux directory tree
/
SYSTEM USER

tmp opt usr other home

system
folders

local include bin lib ivizzo

Tree organization starting with root: /

There are no volume letters, e.g. C:, D:
User can only access his/her own folder
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Understanding files and folders

Folders end with / e.g. /path/folder/

Everything else is files, e.g. /path/file
Absolute paths start with /
while all other paths are relative:
/home/ivizzo/folder/ — absolute path to a folder
/home/ivizzo/file.cpp — absolute path to a file
folder/file — relative path to a file
Paths are case sensitive:
filename is different from FileName
Extension is part of a name:
filename.cpp is different from filename.png
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Linux terminal
Press Ctrl + Alt + T to open terminal

Most tasks can be done faster from the

terminal than from the GUI
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Navigating tree from terminal

Terminal is always in some folder

pwd: print working directory
cd <dir>: change directory to <dir>
ls <dir>: list contents of a directory

Special folders:
/ — root folder
~ — home folder
. — current folder
.. — parent folder

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Structure of Linux commands

Typical structure
${PATH}/command [ options ] [ parameters ]

${PATH}/command: obsolute or relative path

to the program binary
[options]: program-specific options
e.g. -h, or --help
[parameters]: program-specific parameters
e.g. input files, etc.

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 Use help with Linux programs

man <command> — manual

exhaustive manual on program usage
command -h/--help
usually shorter help message
1 [/home/ student ]$ cat --help
2 Usage : cat [ OPTION ]... [FILE]...
3 Concatenate FILE(s) to standard output .
4 -A, --show -all equivalent to -vET
5 -b, --number - nonblank number nonempty output lines
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7 Examples :
8 cat f - Output fs contents , then standard input.
9 cat Copy standard input to standard output .
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 Using command completion

Pressing while typing:

completes name of a file, folder or program
“beeps” if current text does not match any
file or folder uniquely
Pressing twice shows all potential
matches

Example:
1 [/home/ student ]$ cd D [TAB] [TAB]
2 Desktop / Documents / Downloads /

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Files and folders

mkdir [-p] <foldername> — make directory

Create a folder <foldername>
(with all parent folders [-p])
rm [-r] <name> — remove [recursive]
Remove file or folder <name>
(With folder contents [-r])
cp [-r] <source> <dest> — copy
Copy file or folder from <source> to <dest>
mv <source> <dest> — move
Move file or folder from <source> to <dest>
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Using placeholders

Placeholder Meaning
* Any set of characters
? Any single character
[a-f] Characters in [abcdef]
[ ̂ a-c] Any character not in [abc]

Can be used with most of terminal

commands: ls, rm, mv etc.

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 1 [/home/ student / Examples / placeholders ]$ ls
2 u01.tex v01.pdf v01.tex
3 u02.tex v02.pdf v02.tex
4 u03.tex v03.pdf v03.tex
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6 [/home/ student / Examples / placeholders ]$ ls *. pdf
7 v01.pdf v02.pdf v03.pdf
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9 [/home/ student / Examples / placeholders ]$ ls u*
10 u01.tex u02.tex u03.tex
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12 [/home/ student / Examples / placeholders ]$ ls ?01*
13 u01.tex v01.pdf v01.tex
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15 [/home/ student / Examples / placeholders ]$ ls [uv]01*
16 u01.tex v01.pdf v01.tex
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18 [/home/ student / Examples / placeholders ]$ ls u0[^12].tex
19 u03.tex

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Standard input/output channels
Single input channel:
stdin: Standard input: channel 0
Two output channels:
stdout: Standard output: channel 1
stderr: Standard error output: channel 2

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Standard input/output channels
$ program

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Redirecting stdout
$ program 1>cout.txt

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Redirecting stderr
$ program 2>cerr.txt

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Redirect stdout and stderr
$ program 1>stdout.txt 2>stderr.txt

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Redirect stdout and stderr
progamm 1>out.txt 2>&1

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Working with files
more/less/cat <filename>
Print the contents of the file
Most of the time using cat if enough
find <in-folder> -name <filename>
Search for file <filename> in folder
<in-folder>, allows wildcards
locate <filename>
Search for file <filename> in the entire
system!
just remember to sudo updatedb often
grep <what> <where>
Search for a string <what> in a file <where>
ag <what> <where>
Search for a string <what> in a dir <where>
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Chaining commands

command1; command2; command3

Calls commands one after another
command1 && command2 && command3
Same as above but fails if any of the
commands returns an error code
command1 | command2 | command3
Pipe stdout of command1 to stdin of command2
and stdout of command2 to stdin of command3
Piping commonly used with grep:
ls | grep smth look for smth in output of ls
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Linux Command Line Pipes and
Redirection

https://youtu.be/mV_8GbzwZMM

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Canceling commands

CTRL + C
Cancel currently running command
kill -9 <pid>
Kill the process with id pid
killall <pname>
Kill all processes with name pname
htop (top)
Shows an overview of running processes
Allows to kill processes by pressing k

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Command history

The shell saves the history of the last

executed commands
: go to the previous command
: go to the next command
Ctrl + R <query>: search in history
! + 10 : execute the 10th command
history: show history

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Installing software

Most of the software is available in the system

repository. To install a program in Ubuntu
type this into terminal:
sudo apt update to update information
about available packages
sudo apt install <program> to install the
program that you want
Use apt search <program> to find all
packages that provide <program>
Same for any library, just with lib prefix
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Bash tutorial

https://youtu.be/oxuRxtrO2Ag
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0
Icon taken from Wikipedia
We won’t teach you everything
about C++

Within C++, there is a much

smaller and cleaner language
struggling to get out.
-Bjarne Stroustrup
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Where to write C++ code

There are two options here:

Use a C++IDE
CLion
Qt Creator
Eclipse
Use a modern text editor [recommended]
Visual Studio Code [my preference]
Sublime Text 3
Atom
VIM [steep learning curve]
Emacs [steep learning curve]

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Most icons are from Paper Icon Set: https://snwh.org/paper
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 Hello World!

Simple C++ program that prints Hello World!

1 # include <iostream >
2
3 int main () {
4 // Is this your first C++ program ?
5 std :: cout << "Hello World !" << std :: endl;
6 return 0;
7 }

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 Comments and any whitespace:
completely ignored
A comment is text:
On one line that follows //
Between /* and */
All of these are valid C++:
1 int main () { return 0;} // Ignored comment .

1 int main ()
2
3 { return 0;
4 }

1 int main () {
2 return /* Ignored comment */ 0;
3 }
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Good code style is important
Programs are meant to be read
by humans and only incidentally
for computers to execute.
-Donald Knuth
Use clang_format to format your code
use cpplint to check the style
Following a style guide will save you time
and make the code more readable
We use Google Code Style Sheet
Naming and style recommendations will be
marked by GOOGLE-STYLE tag in slides
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https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html
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 Everything starts with main

Every C++ program starts with main

main is a function that returns an error code
Error code 0 means OK
Error code can be any number in [1, 255]
1 int main () {
2 return 0; // Program finished without errors .
3 }

1 int main () {
2 return 1; // Program finished with error code 1.
3 }

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 #include directive

Two variants:
#include <file> — system include files
#include "file" — local include files
Copies the content of file into the current file
1 # include " some_file .hpp"
2 // We can use contents of file " some_file .hpp" now.
3 int main () { return 0; }

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 I/O streams for simple
input and output
Handle stdin, stdout and stderr:
std::cin — maps to stdin
std::cout — maps to stdout
std::cerr — maps to stderr
#include <iostream> to use I/O streams
Part of C++ standard library
1 # include <iostream >
2 int main () {
3 int some_number ;
4 std :: cout << " please input any number " << std :: endl;
5 std :: cin >> some_number ;
6 std :: cout << " number = " << some_number << std :: endl;
7 std :: cerr << " boring error message " << std :: endl;
8 return 0;
9 }
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 Compile and run Hello World!

We understand text
Computer understands machine code
Compilation is translation
from text to machine code
Compilers we can use on Linux:
Clang [*] [used in examples]
GCC

Compile and run Hello World example:

1 c++ -std=c++11 -o hello_world hello_world .cpp
2 ./ hello_world

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Credits to Igor the great

https://bit.ly/2JmIqGs [shortened]
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Suggested Video
”You Should Learn to Program” by
Christian Genco at TEDxSMU

https://youtu.be/xfBWk4nw440
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C++ Programming Language

Website:
http://www.stroustrup.com/4th.html

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Best reference

https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp
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References
C++ Reference:
https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp

Cpp Core Guidelines:

https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines

Google Code Styleguide:

https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html

C++ Tutorial:
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/

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