Eyes actor as a people counter?

[eamon]

Hi all

I am not sure if this is possible or it is a rude thing to do.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, my gallery is presenting items viewable from its public facing windows. We have a current exhibition which has opened last week.

The question has been posed to me with regard to "counting" the users stopping and looking. In normal times, we have people counters at strategic points within the gallery but I am wondering if you could use the eyes actor in conjunction with the counter actor or similar?

I have not tried it but I am wondering is this a possibility I should consider. It is probably not something considered for the eyes actors but I thought I might as well ask!

Eamon

[Michel]

@eamon

In general this would work. But there are many situations where counting can get wrong. People get counted twice because they where covered by another person and then reappeared, two persons get counted as one because they stand very close together etc. I guess the higher the camera is placed the better, but an exact counting will be difficult.

Best Michel

[dbini]

i've used a kinect and Eyes to get a rough count of visitors. as Michel says, there are many ways that it could go wonky. in order to not count people that just pass by the window, i used an envelope that was triggered when someone enters the frame. if they are still there at the end trigger of the envelope, it would advance a Counter. The kinect was part of the interactive system for the artwork, so it was just a case of appending the patch to include an audience counter.

[eamon]

Hi all

Many thanks for confirming it is in the realms of possibility. I am looking for the low cost option due to the usual low cost approach that is always given when these things are spoken of.....

I have some kinects v1 I think and I have been meaning to try them out with the eyes actor for ages. 

Even if I can get a rough idea of numbers, it would help assuage the powers that be. The cost of "proper" counters is simply not achievable with respect to cost and the associated tender process. The numbers accrued are used for feedback and grant purposes so interest is quite high from the upper echelons. Some scheme is better than none etc.

Many thanks for confirming this is possible. I figured it was due to Isadora being generally amazing at most things.

I will report back and no doubt will end up needing guidance on a patch.

Thanks again.

eamon

[Aolis]

@eamon

I did this once and settled on a basic core counting system based on a webcam>video in watcher>difference actor>brightness calculator>inside range>counter

This effectively works as a simple motion detector that counts when it sees motion. Put your camera in a clever place in relation to the floor traffic in the area you are in and you get a decent counter.

I can imagine one might do the same thing with a Kinect and then include a luminance key actor to help crop out things that move slightly and would otherwise be in the background of your video causing noise in the system

I set the one that I did to watch folks that would walk by - it helps a bit if people are somehow directed to walk by it so that they only pass going in one direction- and if it saw X amount of brightness/movement it would count a person. I used some reference video recorded from where it would actually be installed and messed around with the sensitivity of the counter until it was good enough.  I also ended up using something like a 10-30 second re-trigger barrier. Where it would only count one person every so many seconds. This helped cut down on individuals that lingered in front of the camera from registering as 100's of people in just a few minutes. A fun problem to try and figure out!