openCV imread limit for large or huge images Mat bug #3258

Question

I've been searching for days about this issue and didn't find any solved thread. I need loading pretty large images (4 GB and beyond, either .tiff / .png) into openCV code, by means of a simple

src = imread(filepath, 1);

I'm using Visual Studio 2013, C++.

Though I'm using a 96Gb-RAM machine, runtime alerts are coming out when loading these large images by OpenCV's "imread" function. Been trying with smaller and smaller images/files untill the point they are indeed read/loaded, so we know it's a matter of memory/allocation since smaller images are correctly loaded and processed.

Console is throughing the following message, extracted by "catch (...)"

OpenCV Error: One of arguments' values is out of range (The total matrix size does not fit to "size_t" type) in cv::setSize, file C:\builds\2_4_PackSlave-win32- vc12-shared\opencv\modules\core\src\matrix.cpp, line 126

On the other hand, VS2013 shows the following alert while running (no compilation issues at all):

Unhandled exception at 0x76385608 in poblacion.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: cv::Exception at memory location 0x00C7EA70

also arguing "no symbols loaded". We are compiling in Win32, Debug mode.

This issue is bug #3258 but no solved thread is found out there, just discussion regarging size_t type leading to no clear solution... There should be a way of reading large images without going through openCV libraries...

Did this happen to anybody there who can help us?? I will spread any satifying solution.

THANX in advance!

Alex

Answer 1

size_t size differs between Win32 and x64 platforms. Error tells that matrix dimensions do not fit in size_t type.

Consider switching to x64 configuration and your problem should disappear.

In addition to that, Win32 configuration is not suitable for applications which are expected to use >4GB of RAM per process. That means you will not be able to use the full power of your machine with 96GB RAM running Win32 application.