OpenCV not working properly with python on Linux with anaconda. Getting error that cv2.imshow() is not implemented

Question

This is the exact error that I am getting. My OS is Ubuntu 16.10.

OpenCV Error: Unspecified error (The function is not implemented. Rebuild the library with

Answer 1

Although this is already answered, for me conda-forge solution worked with a hack. My workstation is a centos 6 machine, and I use conda virtual environment (anaconda 2). Create an environment

conda create --name test python=2.7

and then activate it

conda activate test

Now install opencv from conda-forge

conda install -c conda-forge opencv

Now install matplotlib in this environment (and this is hack 1)

conda install matplotlib

Let's check now imshow works or not. In a terminal, activate test environment and start python. In the interpreter, do

import cv2
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt # hack 2
img = cv2.imread('your_image_file',0)
cv2.imshow('image',img)

This should pop up a window showing image. I did not further research how this solved the case.

Note 1: You may see some error related to xkb, then in your .bashrc file add

export QT_XKB_CONFIG_ROOT=/usr/share/X11/xkb

Note 2: You may see some error related to XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, then in your .bashrc file also add

export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=.tmp/myruntime and define myruntime by mkdir -p .tmp/myruntime