Installing OpenCV for Python on Ubuntu, getting ImportError: No module named cv2.cv

Question

I have an Ubuntu 14.04 system, on which I want to install OpenCV and use it with Python 2.x.

I installed OpenCV using the instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/

Answer 1

For me, this problem was due to the fact that I had not appropriately sym-linked the cv2.so file in the~/.virtualenvs/cv/lib/python3.5/site-packages folder (the name of your virualenv may not be "cv", your version of python may not be 3.5--adjust accordingly).

If you go to the ~/.virtualenvs/cv/lib/python3.5/site-packages folder and ls, the cv2.so file should appear in light blue (Ubuntu 16.04) showing that it is linked. You can check the link location by typing: readlink cv2.so

If cv2.so appears in red (as mine did), rm the file and type: (for my install of python 3.5)

ln -s /usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/cv2.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so cv2.so

OR (if you have python 3.6)

ln -s /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/cv2.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so cv2.so

If you are working in python 2.6 or python 2.7, you instead type:

ln -s /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/cv2.so cv2.so

If the cv2.so or cv2.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so files do not exist in your /usr/local/lib/python***/dist-packages location, check to see if they're in a /usr/local/lib/python***/sites-packages folder. If so, adjust the path accordingly. If not, something has gone wrong with your opencv installation.

This answer was inspired by information here: https://www.pyimagesearch.com/2016/10/24/ubuntu-16-04-how-to-install-opencv/