How can I wrap a system library/dependency in a catkin package, and then use that package to provide the system lib in other packages?

edit

I have a system library, such as OpenCV 3.0.0 (for example), installed on my computer in the directory /opt/OpenCV3.

I want to wrap the dependencies on OpenCV in my own package, opencv3. This way I can use catkin like this:

find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS
  opencv3
)

So I went ahead and created the opencv3 package. I'm able to find the system library's external .cmake file and build. Here are the important parts of opencv3's CMakeLists.txt :

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.3)
set(CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH ${CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH} "/opt/OpenCV3")
...
find_package(catkin REQUIRED)
find_package(OpenCV 3.0.0 EXACT)
...
catkin_package(
#  INCLUDE_DIRS include
#  LIBRARIES opencv3
#  CATKIN_DEPENDS
   DEPENDS OpenCV
)

Now when I include opencv3, my custom package, in other packages as a dependency, the other packages cannot find the OpenCV libraries, and thus they cannot link/build! The OpenCV include directories do transfer over to other packages, however. So when I have this in my CMakeLists.txt of other packages which use opencv3:

message(STATUS ${opencv3_INCLUDE_DIRS})

I get the output:

/opt/OpenCV3/include

Which is correct. I just can't find out how the DEPENDS field of catkin_package(...) makes the system dependency libraries transfer to new packages. catkin_LIBRARIES and opencv3_LIBRARIES did not have the OpenCV libraries in them either...

Edit for Dirk Thomas :

The OpenCV_LIBS variable doesn't contain the full absolute filepath to the OpenCV libraries. Doing:

message(STATUS ${OpenCV_LIBS} )

yields

opencv_videostabopencv_videoopencv_superresopencv_stitchingopencv_softcascadeopencv_shapeopencv_photoopencv_optimopencv_oclopencv_objdetectopencv_nonfreeopencv_mlopencv_legacyopencv_imgprocopencv_highguiopencv_flannopencv_features2dopencv_cudawarpingopencv_cudastereoopencv_cudaoptflowopencv_cudaimgprocopencv_cudafiltersopencv_cudafeatures2dopencv_cudacodecopencv_cudabgsegmopencv_cudaarithmopencv_cudaopencv_coreopencv_contribopencv_calib3d

So when I do as you say here:

catkin_package(
    INCLUDE_DIRS ${OpenCV_INCLUDE_DIRS}
    LIBRARIES ${OpenCV_LIBS}
)

I get linker errors. My own custom variable works however, which is:

set(exec_prefix ${OpenCV_INSTALL_PATH})

catkin_package(
   INCLUDE_DIRS ${OpenCV_INCLUDE_DIRS}
   LIBRARIES ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_calib3d.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_contrib.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_core.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cuda.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudaarithm.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudabgsegm.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudacodec.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudafeatures2d.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudafilters.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudaimgproc.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudaoptflow.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudastereo.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_cudawarping.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_features2d.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_flann.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_highgui.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_imgproc.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_legacy.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_ml.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_nonfree.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_objdetect.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_ocl.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_optim.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_photo.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_shape.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_softcascade.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_stitching.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_superres.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_ts.a ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_video.so ${exec_prefix}/lib/libopencv_videostab.so tbb /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXext.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libICE.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSM.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLU.so rt pthread m dl
)

Which is incredibly ugly, but at least the ugliness is captured in a single package opencv3 and not distributed to other packages.