c++ - OpenCV 3.x only contains one lib - opencv_world.lib?

Question

I'm trying to update my OpenCV version from 2.4.9 to the newest version, 3.10. I downloaded the Windows binary from here, having navigated there from the official OpenCV site. I then ran the installer, but the opencvuildx64vc12lib directory only contained a couple files:

• opencv_world310.lib
• opencv_world310d.lib
• OpenCVConfig.cmake
• OpenCVModules.cmake
• OpenCVModules-debug.cmake
• OpenCVModules-release.cmake

In the past editions though, this directory used to contain the required libraries, like opencv_calib3d249d.lib, opencv_contrib249d.lib, opencv_core249d.lib, etc.

I imagine there's something I need to do with CMake, but I can't seem to figure it out--the old binaries used to compile everything for you. I also can't find anything in the documentation explaining this. Has anyone else come across this recently and have a solution?

Answer 1

By default, the binary version of OpenCV-3.x doesn't contain the separate libs like opencv_core.lib. Instead, these modules are integrated in opencv_world.lib, so you only need to link to it.

On the other hand, if you do want separate libs, i.e. uniform APIs with OpenCV-2.x, you can build it yourself using CMake by enable the libs that you want. Like

This will generate opencv_core.lib.