I understand that to compile and install something from source, in a Unix System, the three steps involved are:
1) ./configure
2) make
3) make install
When I checked the installation of OpenCV from source, I noticed that it had no ./configure step, but it had a cmake step. This gave me the idea that cmake was equivalent of ./configure. I also read that cmake can generate build systems such as Makefiles, which is what the ./configure step does.
However, this article (See first paragraph of what is the difference?) says that cmake performs the actual build as well. If that is the case, why does OpenCV installation instruct for make after cmake? Also, I often see that cmake is compared to make, not ./configure. So, where does cmake actually fit in?