Passing Mat in form of signal

Kira

Hello All,
I am trying to implement threading in qt. I am using it for sample camera application.
I have read on some post that sub classing of QThread is not preferred in the newer version of QT. So implementing it in form of worker thread and calling slot through signal and slot mechanism.

I have defined a thread where it captures the frame from camera and emit a signal consisting of mat object as:
emit frameReceived(capFrame);

Now i have to pass this to myLabel where i can update the value on label
I am using following signal and slot:
connect(worker, SIGNAL(frameReceived(Mat)),this, SLOT(update_lblCapture()));
Run time error:
QObject::connect: Cannot queue arguments of type 'Mat'
(Make sure 'Mat' is registered using qRegisterMetaType().)
For the error i followed the below link:
http://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/custom-types.html

My questions are following:

From the link above how i can registered mat which is always defined
If i able to emit the mat object how will i be able it to pass to update QLabel slot in the main window
What is correct approach for give below implementation

J.Hilk

@Kira said in Passing Mat in form of signal:

My questions are following:

From the link above how i can registered mat which is always defined

If i able to emit the mat object how will i be able it to pass to update QLabel slot in the main window

1: in your main.cpp: something like this : qRegisterMetaType<cv::Mat>();
2: you need to convert your mat to a QImage Or QPixmap, take a look here @Hub

VRonin

What is Mat? it's not a Qt or std class so you'll need to be more specific.

Kira

@J.Hilk :
Hi i have added the following in main function
QApplication a(argc, argv);
qRegisterMetaTypecv::Mat();
MainWindow w;
w.show();
So I am getting the following error
Type is not registered, please use the Q_DECLARE_METATYPE macro to make it known to Qt's meta-object system

So I tried declaring the following at end of my worker thread class
Q_DECLARE_METATYPE(cv::Mat);
But it gives me the same error message

J.Hilk

@Kira

move it befor your main
and register it before you create QApplication.

Q_DECLARE_METATYPE(cv::Mat)

int main (int argc, char *argv[]){
    qRegisterMetaType<cv::Mat>();
     QApplication a(argc, argv);
     MainWindow w;
     w.show();
}

And @VRonin is correct, I just assumed Mat = OpenCV libary, if thats not the case, the above changes completely

Kira

@VRonin : Sorry its cv::Mat (opencv matrix) to store images.

Kira

@J.Hilk : Hi i tried the above syntax mentioned it gives the error as follows:

Progaram:

Q_DECLARE_METATYPE(cv::Mat)

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    qRegisterMetaType<cv::Mat>();
    QApplication a(argc, argv);
    //qRegisterMetaType<cv::Mat>();
    MainWindow w;
    w.show();

    return a.exec();
}

Error:
Type is not registered, please use the Q_DECLARE_METATYPE macro to make it known to Qt's meta-object system

VRonin

If it's cv::Mat you have another, deeper, problem. Its copy constructor does not copy at all, it copies by reference and it does not detach as Qt classes do. So when you pass a cv::Mat to slot in a thread you are not passing a different object from the one you have on the main thread and you might have a race condition.
You should put a slot inbetween that calls cv::Mat::clone

Source:
https://docs.opencv.org/trunk/d3/d63/classcv_1_1Mat.html#a294eaf8a95d2f9c7be19ff594d06278e

J.Hilk

If your goal is to show the the Matrix as a QImage in a QLable, do step 2 first and convert it to a QImage and send that via Signal, QImage should be a declared Metatype from the getGo. And do use QImage and not QPixmap or you open an other can of worms!

Kira

@VRonin : Thanks for the information. Will take care of the same.

Kira

@J.Hilk : Thanks for the information. Will try to move with the second approach and try to implement the same.

Actually i am trying to implement multithreading to implement various functionality of camera.
So i wanted to capture the image and update the label in separate thread. There are various cases where i'll need to apply some algorithm of opencv over the frame and display it. Approach two is seems good for the above mentioned example but when i'll have to perform other process. I have to pass frame to slot for processing.

Please Note: In some of the examples they don't recommend subclassing thread directly, instead declare a worker and handle the thread mechanism through signal and slot.

Kira

@J-Hilk : Thanks for the help just got the stuff working.
The syntax in your first comment was the solution with bit of modification
Original:
qRegisterMetaType<cv::Mat>();

Modified:
qRegisterMetaType< Mat >("Mat");

Thanks once again. Keeping this thread as open for while, will marked as solved once i can display the frame correctly after receiving the mat object via signal.

Kira

@J-Hilk :Hi i was able to run threading example as suggest by you but there is one issue i tried searching online but could not get relevant solution

I am referring to below link for threading example:
https://fabienpn.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/qt-thread-simple-and-stable-with-sources/

With the changes suggested i was able to run the opencv code by changing to the dowork() in the example and passing the mat frame.
void Worker::doWork()
{
qDebug()<<"Starting worker process in Thread "<<thread()->currentThreadId();

mutex.lock();
bool abort = _abort;
mutex.unlock();

if (abort) {
    qDebug()<<"Aborting worker process in Thread "<<thread()->currentThreadId();
    return;
}

while(1)
{
       //Capture the frame from camera
      //Emit the captured frame
}

// Set _working to false, meaning the process can't be aborted anymore.
mutex.lock();
_working = false;
mutex.unlock();

qDebug()<<"Worker process finished in Thread "<<thread()->currentThreadId();

emit finished();

}

//Handling the following on start button clicked
void MainWindow::on_btn_start_clicked()
{
worker->abort();
thread->wait();
worker->requestWork();
}
//It works fine when i start the application.
When i again click on the start button sample application gives the following output
Request worker start in Thread 0x3020
Starting worker process in Thread 0x2f50
Request worker aborting in Thread 0x3020
Aborting worker process in Thread 0x2f50
Worker process finished in Thread 0x2f50

// When i check the logs of my application it gives the following output
Request worker start in Thread 0x1288
Starting worker process in Thread 0x28b0
Request worker aborting in Thread 0x1288

And after this the UI freezes. Also i had put a debug command in the while loop mentioned, above it starts printing it messages.

Note: When i remove the thread->wait() everything works fine and get the following logs:
Request worker start in Thread 0x27dc
Starting worker process in Thread 0xc50
Request worker aborting in Thread 0x27dc
Request worker start in Thread 0x27dc
Request worker aborting in Thread 0x27dc
Request worker start in Thread 0x27dc

My only concern in the above sample it shows the worker process thread and also aborting of it but in my case there is no such message. And if i put thread->wait() for the output UI freezes. I have searched for relevant examples on thread->wait() but was unable to figure the exact issue.

jsulm

@Kira You need to check the "abort" flag INSIDE your while loop! Checking it before entering the while loop does not make sense.

Kira

This post is deleted!

Kira

Solved the issue have messed a bit with the booleans and the loops :p
Once again thanks @J-Hilk @VRonin @jsulm for your response and support