This page describes the how to build OpenCV using [Apache Maven](http://maven.apache.org/index.html). The Maven build is simply a wrapper around the existing CMake process but has the additional aims of creating Java OSGi-compatible bundles with included native support and also allow the build to be carried out on RaspberryPi (ARM) architecture. There is nothing preventing using the POM on x86 Linux however.
The following assumes building on Debian-based Linux platform.
To build using the Maven build process both `Maven` and and up-to-date `JDK` (Java Development Kit) need to be installed. If you know you already have these installed then continue to `Environment Variable` otherwise the easiest solution is to install them using the aptitude package manager:
`sudo aptitude install maven default-jdk`
Note that installing via `aptitude` you are unlikely to get the latest version of Maven or JDK although if you are not developing Java code this shouldn't matter for this build process.
The following environment variables must be set otherwise the build will fail and halt:
*`$JAVA_HOME` (the absolute path to the JDK root directory)
*`$ANT_HOME` (the absolute path to the Ant root directory)
It is recommended that advantage is taken of multiple processor cores to reduce build time. This can be done by setting a MAKEFLAGS environment variable specifying the number of parallel builds e.g.:
*`$MAKEFLAGS="-j8"`
However if this flag is not set the build will NOT fail. On a RaspberryPi 2 typical build times are 5 hours with `-j1` (which is the default if `$MAKEFLAGS` is not specified) and a little over 2 hours with `-j4`.
All of the above environment variables can be set on an ad-hoc basis using 'export'.
Under `build` are the standard OpenCV artifacts. Under `build/maven/opencv/target` can be found the OSGi compatible Java bundle. When deploying the bundle into an OSGi framework e.g. [Apache Karaf](http://karaf.apache.org/), loading of the native library is automatically taken care of. An integration testing module is created under the `open-cv` directory and is only of use during the build. The standard Java library as created by the CMake process is also available as specified in the existing OpenCV documentation.
One of the first things the build will do is check the required native dependencies. The Maven build indicates the status of the required dependencies and will fail at this point if any are missing. Install using the package manager e.g. aptitude or apt-get, and restart the build with the above command.
Once the build succesfully completes the OSGi compatible artifacts are available as described above in 'Build Directory'.
Similar to the x86 architecture the native dependencies are first checked so install any that are missing, however at the time of writing there are no official `libtbb2` and `libtbb-dev` packages in Raspbian. Version 4.4.3 of Intel's Thread Building Blocks library are available [here](http://www.javatechnics.com/thread-building-blocks-tbb-4-4-3-for-raspbian) as a Raspbian-compatible Debian packages.
**PLEASE NOTE THESE ARE NOT OFFICIAL RASPBIAN PACKAGES. INSTALL AT YOUR OWN RISK.**
OpenCV is built using CMake and the Maven build process uses the the [cmake-maven plugin](https://github.com/cmake-maven-project/cmake-maven-project). The cmake-maven plugin by default downloads CMake at build time but unfortunately there is no binary for ARM architecture currently available. As a work around it is possible to use the native CMake (which is checked for availability in the above dependency checks). Assuming all native dependencies are available the build can be started with the following command:
