2D Convolution / Creating new filter

OpenCV function filter2D is used to create new linear filters.

void filter2D(InputArray src, OutputArray dst, int ddepth, InputArray kernel, Point anchor=Point(-1,-1), double delta=0, int borderType=BORDER_DEFAULT )
Parameters:

• src – input image.
• dst – output image of the same size and the same number of channels as src.
• ddepth – desired depth of the destination image; if it is negative, it will be the same as src.depth(); the following combinations of src.depth() and ddepth are supported:

  • src.depth() = CV_8U, ddepth = -1/CV_16S/CV_32F/CV_64F
  • src.depth() = CV_16U/CV_16S, ddepth = -1/CV_32F/CV_64F
  • src.depth() = CV_32F, ddepth = -1/CV_32F/CV_64F
  • src.depth() = CV_64F, ddepth = -1/CV_64F

  when ddepth=-1, the output image will have the same depth as the source.
  
• kernel – convolution kernel (or rather a correlation kernel), a single-channel floating point matrix; if you want to apply different kernels to different channels, process them individually.
• anchor – anchor of the kernel that indicates the relative position of a filtered point within the kernel; the anchor should lie within the kernel; default value (-1,-1) means that the anchor is at the kernel center.
• delta – optional value added to the filtered pixels before storing them in dst.
• borderType – pixel extrapolation method (see borderInterpolate() for details).

A kernel is a fixed size array of numerical coefficients along with an anchor point in that array.

The code provided below is slight modification of code provided in OpenCV documentation.

Steps:

1. Load image
2. Create a kernel to convolve with the input matrix ( here all elements of kernel is equal; so performs a low pass filter operation)
3. Apply convolution (filter2D)
4. Draw contours

Functions:

filter2D, imshow, imread, waitKey.

Example:

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#include "opencv2/imgproc/imgproc.hpp"
#include "opencv2/highgui/highgui.hpp"
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

using namespace cv;

void conv2(Mat src, int kernel_size)
{
    Mat dst,kernel;
    kernel = Mat::ones( kernel_size, kernel_size, CV_32F )/ (float)(kernel_size*kernel_size);

    /// Apply filter
    filter2D(src, dst, -1 , kernel, Point( -1, -1 ), 0, BORDER_DEFAULT );
    namedWindow( "filter2D Demo", CV_WINDOW_AUTOSIZE );imshow( "filter2D Demo", dst );
}

int main ( int argc, char** argv )
{
    Mat src;

    /// Load an image
    src = imread( "1.jpg" );
    if( !src.data )  { return -1; }

    conv2(src,3);

    waitKey(0);
    return 0;
}

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