Question

It turns out that using cvCaptureFromCAM creates a memory in initialization. Usage of cvCaptureFromCAM creates a 48 byte memory leak of a NSAutoreleasePool object. I initially thought my program had a bug, but when replaced with a much simpler program, the memory leak still occurs.

For example:

#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>
int main()
{
   IplImage *frame = 0;
   CvCapture *capture = cvCaptureFromCAM (-1); //leak occurs on this line  
   //using 0 instead of -1 creates a leak too

   cvNamedWindow ("Output", CV_WINDOW_AUTOSIZE);

   while (1)
   {
      frame = cvQueryFrame (capture);
      cvShowImage ("Output", frame);
   }

   cvDestroyAllWindows ();
   cvReleaseCapture (&capture);

   return 0;
}

I am using Xcode Leaks to find memory leaks and am obviously using the Xcode IDE on Mac OS X 10.6. Does anyone know a solution to the leak? Am I doing something wrong or it a bug in OpenCV or a problem with my computer? I double checked my code and the OpenCV code but couldn’t really find a problem. The memory leak is a one time thing – it doesn’t keep building. However I am not comfortable with leaving ANY leaks in my program. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

I was unfortunately unable to find the leak in cvCaptureFromCAM, so I switched to the C++ interface and used a VideoCapture object, which appears to be free of leaks.