Why won't vision.Dep​loyableVid​eoPlayer work in MATLAB compiler deployed executable?

I am trying to deploy some code using the fast video display calling the Computer Vision Toolbox vision.DeployableVideoPlayer. This system object is supposedly supported with the MATLAB Compiler.

Here is some quick demo code:

%************

function TestVid()

% Quick test of MATLAB compiler on vision.DeployableVideoPlayer

vidp = vision.DeployableVideoPlayer;

for i=1:1000,
    step(vidp,rand(2048,2048,3)),
end

release(vidp)

%*************

I compile with MATLAB compiler deploytool, and the weird thing is that it works fine on my PC (64-bit Windows 7 Pro), but will exit without giving an error if I install and try to execute on two other laptops (64-bit Windows 7 Pro & Windows 8)

I just upgraded to 2015b from 2015a hoping would fix, but did not. Seems like there is some file or .dll that is not getting installed, but I have no way of finding out what the issue is. There is no previous information I could find regarding this on the internet either.

[Harsheel]

to see what error you get, can you try running the exe file from the Windows DOS prompt?

[Alexander Kuyper]

thanks, good tip, also am saving a .log file

Creates the system object OK, but crashes on call to step function.

In a nutshell:

vision:System:toVideoDisplayStart Access Error ...

second process in stack trace is

tvdmask2hostlib.mex64

MATLAB exit with fatal error

Answer 1

[Alexander Kuyper]

I think I figured it out. After inspecting the tovideodevice.dll with the Dependency Walker utility, one of the calls was to sdl2.dll. Or Simple Direct MediaLayer, https://www.libsdl.org/index.php

I packaged this with my applications and they all work now. A caveat is that I HAD tried this before with MATLAB 2015a and did not appear to fix, but seems OK with 2015b. Seems like the compiler is missing something in its bundling, and had found no documentation on this. Would need to include the library as well if using Coder for the library calls.

Hope this helps others that run across a similar issue.

[hannson]

Hi Alexander, I'm experiencing a similar issue. May I ask how you packaged the tovideodevice.dll into the executable? Did you use the packNGo function as hinted in the error message? Thanks in advance!

[Sabina]

Hello, Alexander, please explain what you need to add when compiling so that the video plays on another computer?

[Alexander Kuyper]

Hi Sabina,

sdl2.dll (from https://www.libsdl.org/index.php ) needs to be packaged with the distribution, though if this doesn't work, manually copy it into the compiled executable directory.

[Sabina]

Hi Alexander! Thank you very much! Everything worked out!

Answer 2

[Birju Patel]

Hi,

That's strange. What happens if you try to reduce the image size from 2048x2048x3 to something like 10x10x3? Does it still fail?

[Alexander Kuyper]

Still fails if do smaller (128x128x3 in this case). Something a little more revealing that before I was using -C option to create a .ctf file (another error I was getting with deploying), but only created the binary .exe this time.

Says: Error using DeployableVideoPlayer/step

Could not open library:tovideodevice.dll

The library is on the computer and even if I copy to the same directory still fails.