cv2.imread file with accent (unicode)

Question

I am trying to load the following file: 'data/chapter_1/capd_yard_signs\\Dueñas_2020.png'

But when I do so, cv2.imread returns an error: imread_('data/chapter_1/capd_yard_signs\Due├▒as_2020.png'): can't open/read file: check file path/integrity load file

When I specified the file name with os.path.join, I tried encoding and decoding the file

f = os.path.join("data/chapter_1/capd_yard_signs", filename.encode().decode())

But that didn't solve the problem.

What am I missing?

known problem that OpenCV has with unicode file names. -- workaround: read file contents, then use `imdecode`. — Christoph Rackwitz, Nov 14 '22 at 15:24
Does this answer your question? [opencv imread() on Windows for non-ASCII file names](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24769623/opencv-imread-on-windows-for-non-ascii-file-names) — Christoph Rackwitz, Nov 14 '22 at 15:24
Gotcha. Didn't know that. I'll try reading the file content than use imdecode. Thanks. — Damon C. Roberts, Nov 14 '22 at 15:37

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 14 '22 at 16:00

1

This is how I ended up getting it to work:

from PIL import Image
pil = Image.open(f).convert('RGB') # load the image with pillow and make sure it is in RGB
pilCv = np.array(pil) # convert  the image to an array
img = pilCv[:,:,::-1].copy() # convert the array to be in BGR

answered Nov 14 '22 at 16:00

Damon C. Roberts

122
12

2

Seems rather pointless pulling in yet another dependency, when you already have OpenCV, numpy and Python standard libraries available, that provide several ways to accomplish this. e.g. `cv2.imdecode(np.fromfile('foo.png', dtype=np.uint8), cv2.IMREAD_UNCHANGED)` – Dan Mašek Nov 14 '22 at 16:18

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 07 '23 at 06:36

0

This shall work:

import cv2, numpy as np

pic = cv2.imdecode(np.fromfile(os.path.join("data/chapter_1/capd_yard_signs", filename).replace('\\','/'), dtype=np.uint8), 0)

np.fromfile reads the non-ASCII characters first, .replace('\\','/') should also solve your nonuniform / and \ issue. Then imdecode does its work.

Here it is for grayscale. For colour, replace 0 with cv2.IMREAD_COLOR.

edited Apr 07 '23 at 06:36

Ania Warzecha

1,796
13
26

answered Apr 02 '23 at 17:28

Sissel Ng

1
2

the slash replacement makes no difference. `np.fromfile` is a required dependency of OpenCV for Python, so this is okay to depend on (vs. PIL which is not already required). – Christoph Rackwitz Apr 02 '23 at 17:39
Probably true, will check it later. – Sissel Ng Apr 04 '23 at 01:10

cv2.imread file with accent (unicode)

2 Answers2