I believe a solution without making too many copies of the original image would be:
// Make a new IplImage
IplImage* img_src_cpy = cvCreateImage(cvGetSize(img_src), img_src->depth, img_src->nChannels);
// Crop Original Image without changing the ROI
for(int rows = roi.y; rows < roi.height; rows++) {
for(int cols = roi.x; rows < roi.width; cols++) {
img_src_cpy->imageData[(rows-roi.y)*img_src_cpy->widthStep + (cols-roi.x)] = img_src[rows*img_src + cols];
}
{
//Now copy everything to the original image OR simply return the new image if calling from a function
cvCopy(img_src_cpy, img_src); // OR return img_src_cpy;
I tried the code out on itself and it is also fast enough for me (executes in about 1 ms for 332 x 332 Greyscale image)