Installing SimpleCV on Windows 7 64bit

*** UPDATE-Jan 23, 2018 *** THIS INFO IS OUTDATED.
Please see the version info, date and links on any of my posting.  If it's too old, don't follow the direction.  It seems like SimpleCV is no longer maintained, thus I suggest not to use it.


SimpleCV (http://simplecv.org/) is the easiest way to use OpenCV (http://opencv.org/).  There is a python module for OpenCV, but SimpleCV really simplifies the use of it.
On SimpleCV's site, there is "SimpleCV Superpack" that includes everything to use SimpleCV, but I wanted to use my existing Python 64-bit installation and don't want to manage another copy of Python install.

When I tried to install SimpleCV after checking out from its Git repository, of course it didn't work -- I have to install many dependent python modules.  This is a bit too much -- I do not want to spend my time installing all the dependent modules, which requires sometimes C/C++ compilation.  Here is a simple tip/trick to avoid the all the hassle:

1. Make sure you already installed OpenCV and configured properly.
2. Install OpenCV module for Windows 64bit from this site, http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#opencv -- it shows what modules are dependent and all the dependent pre-compiled modules are available on the same site.  And install PILLOWS module from the site.
3. Make sure your Python for OpenCV works.
4. Check out SimpleCV from its Git repository (https://github.com/sightmachine/SimpleCV)
5. Modify "setup.py" -- remove "PIL" requirement from "requires=" line in that file.  Make sure you have installed "Pillows" module from step #2.  Pillows module replaces PIL module.
6. Run setup.

This does the trick.  Now my one Python installation has all the modules I want to use together in one place.