Multiple Webcam using OpenCV 2.1 and Visual Studio 2008

I just found out that it is not difficult to connect to two webcam using OpenCV and do image processing on the captured images. I used OpenCV 2.1 and Visual C++ 2008 for this program, so those who are familiar with Visual C++ 2008 should be familiar with this code. The installation and configuration of OpenCV is explained clearly in their wiki and you can follow the steps written there.

We need to create two capture objects, one for each camera:

CvCapture* capture;
CvCapture* capture2;

Also, create two IplImage objects for the two cameras:

IplImage* image;
IplImage* image2;

The CvCapture and IplImage objects have to be initialized before use, add a button to your form and add these initialization lines:

int w = 640;
int h = 480;

// creating the capture fwom webcam #1
capture = cvCreateCameraCapture(0);
capture2 = cvCreateCameraCapture(1);

// parameter setting
cvSetCaptureProperty(capture, CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, w);
cvSetCaptureProperty(capture, CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, h);

cvSetCaptureProperty(capture2, CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, w);
cvSetCaptureProperty(capture2, CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, h);

// initialization of iplimage object
image  = cvCreateImage(cvSize(w, h), IPL_DEPTH_8U, 3);
image2 = cvCreateImage(cvSize(w, h), IPL_DEPTH_8U, 3);

Then the next thing is to declare a function for capturing the images:

private: System::Void ProcessFrame(System::Object^ sender, System::EventArgs^ e)
{              // query the frame and capture
image = cvQueryFrame(capture);
image2 = cvQueryFrame(capture2);

cvShowImage("camera 1", image);
cvShowImage("camera 2", image2);
  
if(blnGrabImage)
{
cvSaveImage("image_left.bmp", image);
cvSaveImage("image_right.bmp", image2);
blnGrabImage = false;
}
}

We have to register this function to be called by the system, add these lines after the initialization of the capture and the images:

Application::Idle += gcnew EventHandler(this, &OpenCVImage::Form1::ProcessFrame);

There are two important parts in this line, the first one is

Application::Idle += gcnew EventHandler

which tell the system to add an event handler to the system when the system is idle and the other thing is this part:

&OpenCVImage::Form1::ProcessFrame

which tells the system to call this function every time there's a new event in the system, in this case OpenCVImage is the name of the project, Form1 is the name of the Form, and ProcessFrame is the function that is going to be called.

So, that's it, tidy up the code a little bit and ready to run. If you're successful you'll get something like this:
1. For single camera:
2. For multiple cameras:
- left camera:
- right camera:
Left and right are seen from the objects' viewpoint facing the camera...

Good luck!