How to install OpenCv in Mac Os 10.8.5

Easy way that simply works, this will install 64bit version of opencv, using python2.7.

First, install git and get opencv from github:

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

Then:

cd opencv
mkdir 64-bit
cd 64-bit
make -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/opencv-64 -D PYTHON_EXECUTABLE:FILEPATH=/usr/local/bin/python2.7 -D INSTALL_PYTHON_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON ..
make -j 8  #j 8 speeds up things by doing parallel jobs
sudo make install

CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX is the path where OpenCv libs will be installed.

FILEPATH is the path to the python you want OpenCv to use.

We need to set some env variables for when opencv library is imported inside our python code, in bold:

vim ~/.bash_profile
###-------
export PYTHONPATH=/usr/opencv-64/lib/python2.7/site-packages:/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages:
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/opencv-64/lib/

Last part (DYLD...) tells python where to find opencv libs when importing.

And that's it, you should be able to python; import cv2.