Find contours speedup #26834
It is an attempt, as suggested by #26775, to restore lost speed when migrating `findContours()` implementation from C to C++
The patch adds an "Arena" (a pool) of pre-allocated memory so that contours points (and TreeNodes) can be picked from the Arena.
The code of `findContours()` is mostly unchanged, the arena usage being implicit through a utility class Arena::Item that provides C++ overloaded operators and construct/destruct logic.
As mentioned in #26775, the contour points are allocated and released in order, and can be represented by ranges of indices in their arena. No range subset will be released and drill a hole, that's why the internal representation as a range of indices makes sense.
The TreeNodes use another Arena class that does not comply to that range logic.
Currently, there is a significant improvement of the run-time on the test mentioned in #26775, but it is still far from the `findContours_legacy()` performance.
- [x] I agree to contribute to the project under Apache 2 License.
- [x] To the best of my knowledge, the proposed patch is not based on a code under GPL or another license that is incompatible with OpenCV
- [X] The PR is proposed to the proper branch
- [X] There is a reference to the original bug report and related work
- [ ] There is accuracy test, performance test and test data in opencv_extra repository, if applicable
Patch to opencv_extra has the same branch name.
- [ ] The feature is well documented and sample code can be built with the project CMake
Reverted contour approximation behavior #25680
Related issue #25663 - revert new function behavior despite it returning different result than the old one (reverts PR #25672).
Also added Coverity issue fix.
Reworked findContours to reduce C-API usage #25146
What is done:
* rewritten `findContours` and `icvApproximateChainTC89` using C++ data structures
* extracted LINK_RUNS mode to separate new public functions - `findContoursLinkRuns` (it uses completely different algorithm)
* ~added new public `cv::approximateChainTC89`~ - **❌ decided to hide it**
* enabled chain code output (method = 0, no public enum value for this in C++ yet)
* kept old function as `findContours_old` (exported, but not exposed to user)
* added more tests for findContours (`test_contours_new.cpp`), some tests compare results of old function with new one. Following tests have been added:
* contours of random rectangle
* contours of many small (1-2px) blobs
* contours of random noise
* backport of old accuracy test
* separate test for LINK RUNS variant
What is left to be done (can be done now or later):
* improve tests:
* some tests have limited verification (e.g. only verify contour sizes)
* perhaps reference data can be collected and stored
* maybe more test variants can be added (?)
* add enum value for chain code output and a method of returning starting points (e.g. first 8 elements of returned `vector<uchar>` can represent 2 int point coordinates)
* add documentation for new functions - **✔️ DONE**
* check and improve performance (my experiment showed 0.7x-1.1x some time ago)
* remove old functions completely (?)
* change contour return order (BFS) or allow to select it (?)
* return result tree as-is (?) (new data structures should be exposed, bindings should adapt)
