Table of Contents

Installation

This page creates a .NET console application and installs the packages selected in Choose a Version and Package. The commands require the .NET 8 SDK or later.

Create a project

dotnet new console -n OpenCvSharpExample
cd OpenCvSharpExample

Windows x64

The all-in-one package is the simplest option for Windows x64:

dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.Windows

For the reduced module set, use OpenCvSharp5.Windows.Slim instead.

Windows ARM64

dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.runtime.win-arm64

Use OpenCvSharp5.runtime.win-arm64.slim instead of the full runtime when the reduced module set is sufficient.

Linux x64

For a desktop application that uses native OpenCV windows:

dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.official.runtime.linux-x64

For a service or container that does not use Cv2.ImShow, Cv2.WaitKey, or other highgui APIs:

dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.official.runtime.linux-x64.headless

The full runtime requires GTK3. On a minimal Ubuntu or Debian installation, install it with:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libgtk-3-0

The official Linux x64 packages require glibc 2.28 or later.

Linux ARM64

dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.runtime.linux-arm64

macOS

For Apple Silicon:

dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.runtime.osx.arm64

For an Intel Mac:

dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.runtime.osx.x64

WebAssembly

WebAssembly uses static native linking and requires a Blazor WebAssembly project rather than the console project created above. Install the WebAssembly build tools and create a standalone Blazor WebAssembly application:

dotnet workload install wasm-tools
dotnet new blazorwasm -n OpenCvSharpWasmExample
cd OpenCvSharpWasmExample
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5
dotnet add package OpenCvSharp5.runtime.wasm

Add the following properties to the project file:

<PropertyGroup>
  <WasmInitialHeapSize>268435456</WasmInitialHeapSize>
  <WasmAllowUndefinedSymbols>true</WasmAllowUndefinedSymbols>
</PropertyGroup>

The larger initial heap accommodates the statically linked OpenCV runtime. WasmAllowUndefinedSymbols is currently a package and toolchain-specific linker workaround: it allows the static link to complete even though the managed assembly declares APIs for OpenCV modules that are not included in the WebAssembly build. Calling one of those unavailable APIs will still fail at run time. This property does not configure exception handling; the runtime package supplies the native archive and its required WasmEnableExceptionHandling setting.

See the OpenCvSharp Blazor sample for a complete browser application.

Verify the package references

dotnet list package
dotnet restore
dotnet build

The package list should contain OpenCvSharp5 and exactly one runtime package for the deployment target, unless you selected a Windows convenience package.

Next step

Continue to Your First Application.

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