Revision history [back]

I know this is an old question, but I had to do this recently... There's a great/easy answer here which makes use of the boost serialization library:

http://stackoverflow.com/a/21444792/1072039

I know this is an old question, but I had to do this recently... There's a great/easy answer ~~here~~ on stackoverflow, which ~~makes~~ I make use of ~~the boost serialization library:~~in the below snippet. serializeMat() saves to a binary file and deserializeMat() loads from the same file.

~~http://stackoverflow.com/a/21444792/1072039~~Note that, by default (using binary_xarchive), the files are not platform-independant. Use the equivalent text_xarchive instead if you require multi-platform-compatibility of the saved files.

#include <boost/archive/binary_oarchive.hpp>
#include <boost/archive/binary_iarchive.hpp>


void serializeMat(const string& filename, Mat& mat) {
    ofstream ofs(filename.c_str());
    boost::archive::binary_oarchive oa(ofs);
    serialize(oa, mat, 0);
}

void deserializeMat(Mat& mat, const string& filename) {
    std::ifstream ifs(filename.c_str());
    boost::archive::binary_iarchive ia(ifs);
    serialize(ia, mat, 0);
}


// http://stackoverflow.com/a/21444792/1072039
template<class Archive>
void serialize(Archive &ar, cv::Mat& mat, const unsigned int)
{
    int cols, rows, type;
    bool continuous;

    if (Archive::is_saving::value) {
        cols = mat.cols; rows = mat.rows; type = mat.type();
        continuous = mat.isContinuous();
    }

    ar & cols & rows & type & continuous;

    if (Archive::is_loading::value)
        mat.create(rows, cols, type);

    if (continuous) {
        const unsigned int data_size = rows * cols * mat.elemSize();
        ar & boost::serialization::make_array(mat.ptr(), data_size);
    } else {
        const unsigned int row_size = cols*mat.elemSize();
        for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++) {
            ar & boost::serialization::make_array(mat.ptr(i), row_size);
        }
    }
}