OpenCV Invalid background description file

Question

When I try using this Command: opencv_createsamples -img image.jpg -bg bg.txt -info /info/info.lst -pngoutput info -num 2600 it tells me: Invalid background descrip

Answer 1

I was experiencing the same problem and it was very frustrating. But now it's solved.

1) CTRL + A ; CTRL + C; on your background description file to copy all it's content.

2) Create a new background description file (e.g.: bg2.txt), and CTRL + V to paste all the content you copied. Save it.

3) Run your command again, using, of course, the new bg description file (-bg bg2.txt).

It worked for me and might work for you.

Cheers,

Geraldo Neto

Answer 2

I had the same problem and tried many different things (adding full path names in the bg.txt, convert to UTF-8,...) - which resulted in getting slightly different looking errors - but still, no success. I am following this tutorial - and I am preparing all the files on my windows laptop & then pushing them to a ubuntu server.

Then I read it might be caused by difference in line ending (CLRF and LF) and checked my file (on the ubuntu server):

$ file bg.txt  
bg.txt: UTF-8 Unicode (with BOM) text, with CRLF line terminators

I converted the file from dos2unix:

$ sudo apt install dos2unix
$ dos2unix bg.txt
dos2unix: converting file bg.txt to Unix format ...
$ file bg.txt
bg.txt: ASCII text

And now the opencv_createsamples command worked.

Answer 3

I had the exact same problem. I tried changing the bg.txt encoding and it made no difference. I deleted all instances of OpenCV on my Ubuntu server and rebooted. I typed:

git clone https://github.com/Itseez/opencv.git

into the terminal.

Once downloaded, rebooted the server and proceeded with:

opencv_createsamples -img image.jpg -bg bg.txt -info /info/info.lst -pngoutput info -num 1500

That seemed to fix my "Invalid background description file" error.

Bear in mind that I tried to create a new folder and add a fresh download of OpenCV to use on a separate project and it just copied my existing file.

Delete all instances of the OpenCV folder before rebooting and redownloading it!

Answer 4

On Linux (Ubuntu) adding one more empty line doe snot work. File was in utf-8 encoding. Resolved with converting from "linux" to "dos" line ending format.

Answer 5

I had this problem too and I solved it by changing encoding of my bg.txt to UTF-8. Also, my file looks like:

neg/1.jpg
neg/2.jpg