Get the current OpenCV source code, by cloning the OpenCV git repository¶

Use any Git tool (such as the "git" command-line tool, or a GUI tool such as Git Extensions (Windows), TortoiseGit (Windows), SourceTree (Mac), or gitk and git-gui (Linux).

• Main repository (enough for most OpenCV users)

git clone git://code.opencv.org/opencv.git

• Additional repository that contains auxiliary stuff, like big datasets for running the OpenCV tests

git clone git://code.opencv.org/opencv_extra.git

Modify the current OpenCV source code, by pushing your changes to the OpenCV git repository¶

Instruction for Ubuntu users:¶

• Upload shh-key to the server. If you haven't created any, do it with the following command:

  ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa

  Leave the Passphrase empty. Then copy contents of the file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to the Key field on the http://code.opencv.org/my/account page. Press Create. Run

  ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

  command. It may be critical on some versions of Ubuntu.

• Clone the repository as described in the section above. Run the following command in local repository folder to be able to push changes

  git remote set-url origin --push [email protected]:opencv.git

Instruction for Windows users:¶

• Download and install an up-to-date version of msysgit from its official site: http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list. There is also the portable version (PortableGit-1.7.11-preview20120710.7z), which you need only to unpack to get access to the console version of Git. Supposing that for some of us it could be quite enough.
• Download and install the GUI for Git. There are two popular alternatives:
  • TortoiseGit is free, open source (GPL v2). It can be downloaded from http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/downloads/list. It has different versions for 32 and 64 bit, so be careful. While installing, locate your msysgit (if it doesn't do that automatically) and choose OpenSHH... (Not PLink... Putty...!).
  • SmartGit is also free, but for non-commercial use only. Written in Java, which can be installed automatically if needed. SmartGit can be downloaded from: http://www.syntevo.com/smartgit/download.html?all=true. Portable Archive (includes JRE) is recomended for download. It only requires unpacking and locating msysgit on first launch.
• Generate SSH access key:
  • Launch Git Bash (file git-bash.bat in msysgit folder).
  • Run

    ssh-keygen -t rsa -C  "[email protected]"

    with the console. The output will contain information on where it stored the keys.
  • Go to that directory and open the public key (id_rsa.pub) with any text editor.
  • Copy contents of the file id_rsa.pub to the Key field on the http://code.opencv.org/my/account page. Press Create.
• Clone repository, using 'quick' read-only protocol (git://code.opencv.org/opencv.git).
• Launch Git Bash again and go to the folder that you've cloned the repository to ('.git' folder should have appeared there). Run the following command:

  git remote set-url origin --push [email protected]:opencv.git

  to be able to push changes to the repository.
• That's it. You may try making some changes to commit and push them for the test run.