OpenCV-Python is the library of Python bindings designed to solve computer vision problems. It provides a cv2 module that helps us edit or save the image in the particular filesystem.
Let’s install the Python OpenCV library in Python.
Install Python OpenCV
To work with OpenCV in Python, we have to install the opencv-python module.
Type the following command.
python3 -m pip install opencv-python # OR pip install opencv-python
To use opencv-python in our project, we must import the cv2 module into the file.
import cv2
cv2.imshow
The cv2.imshow() method displays an image in a window. The window automatically fits the image size. To display an image, read an image with an imread() function and then call the imshow() method of the cv2 module.
The imshow() function will display the image in a window, receiving the name of the window and the image as input.
In Computer Vision applications, images are integral to the development process. Often there would be a requirement to read images and display them if required.
To read and display images using OpenCV Python, you could use cv2.imread() for reading the image to a variable and cv2.imshow() to display the image in a separate window.
Syntax
cv2.imshow(window_name, image)
Parameters
window_name: A string representing a window’s name in which the image is to be displayed.
image: It is an image that is to be displayed.
Return Value
The imshow() method doesn’t return anything.
Example
See the following code.
# importing cv2 import cv2 # image path path = './forest.jpg' # Reading an image in default mode image = cv2.imread(path) # Window name in which image is displayed window_name = 'image' # Using cv2.imshow() method # Displaying the image cv2.imshow(window_name, image) # waits for user to press any key # (this is necessary to avoid Python kernel form crashing) cv2.waitKey(0) # closing all open windows cv2.destroyAllWindows()
In this example, first, we are importing the cv2 module.
In the next step, we have defined an image path.
Then read the image using cv2.imread() function.
Then we have defined a window_name that we have set to image.
Then we use the imshow() function and pass the two parameters to open the window and see the image.
To keep the image window, we have used the waitKey() function.
We passed the 0 to waitKey() method, which means it will remain open forever until we said otherwise.
That is it for the Python cv2.imshow() function.
