Problems building OpenCV with CMake

Question

I'm trying to build OpenCV from source using CMake. Following the official OpenCV instructions, I've changing directories to my binary directory, then I'm entering the following:

michael@GNU:~/opencv-3.1.0/release$ cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/michael/opencv-3.1.0

However, CMake keeps Showing me an error stating:

CMake Error: The source directory "/home/michael/opencv-3.1.0/release/CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/michael/opencv-3.1.0" does not exist.

What am I doing wrong? This is the documentation I'm following:

http://docs.opencv.org/3.1.0/d7/d9f/tutorial_linux_install.html#gsc.tab=0

Answer 1

Take a closer look at the cmake command in that tutorial. At the end is the path /usr/local (the directory to install the compiled program to), followed by a space and .. (which indicates the parent directory, presumably as the directory containing the source code).

So if you want to compile the program to your /home/michael/opencv-3.1.0/ directory, all you need to do is add a space and two dots to your original command. Like this:

cd ~/opencv-3.1.0/release

cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/michael/opencv-3.1.0 ..

Please let me know if that helps, if you're still getting the same error, or if you have additional questions. Good luck!

--Nick