ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area counting people

Bjarney:

I've heard of this type of system, which can also be used to sort other things. A self-learning computer was used, which was taught what "good" and "bad" products looked like simply by showing one of each kind to the computer and pushing "good" or "bad". The more specimens you show to it, the better it gets at sorting them.

Counting people with a camera is definitely possible, but to me it seemed like much work to do something that can be done in a rather simple way.

Trainwire:

You see, one in every million people is a terrorist. The counter makes them easy to find: When 999,999 people have passed, the counter tells the police to arrest the next person to pass. Coming soon to Homeland security...

works for me!

TW

Keeping track of people seems to have become a national obsession. It's almost impossible to venture into the downtown area of any large town here these days without being captured on the CCTV cameras that have sprung up in recent years.

It's "all for our own good", of course. George Orwell was just out by a few years....

I am in the CCTV industry and using a camera as a people counter would be rather expensive and definetly not the best way to do things. The process they were using to get rid of bad peas is called machine vision, somebody programs the things to look for and when the camera sees a bad product it can take care of it. They are coming out with cameras that can learn patterning, it leans the normal flow of people and can flag somebody if they are doing something out of the ordinery, such as entering an exit. It may be a bit overkill for your application. I have installed photoelectric turnstiles that would serve your purpose, and if you went the wrong way it could set off some alarm. I will try to get some more information for you.

Just brainstorming but maybe you can follow along with my logic.

To count people, you'll need to get them to pass through your turnstyle one at a time, so the entrance door has to be narrow.

To get a count, you just set up one of those IR beams used at the door of alot of stores in the mall to ring a bell.

But you want to count people comming and not going. So you need two such IR beams, about 3" apart. When both beams are broken there must be a person in the way. If one beam is broken first, it means the person is comming. If the other is broke first, it means the person is going.

So you set up a couple of relays so that beam two clicks the counter only if beam 1 is already broken. So you only count the goers in and not the goers out.

There are digital counters off the shelf that will keep a count based on voltage pulses, NO or NC switching, or lots of other types of inputs.

And by setting the beams 3" apart, you don't ever have a person thin enough to slip between them and they are close enough together that the space between people is at least that large.

Set it up at chest height and you don't count swinging arms, pocketbooks, or legs.

Actually it's an interesting project, wonder if it would work?

hope so, I ordered the pieces!

TW

If you actually build this thing, definately let us know how it turns out.

Please post photos, also!

oof: almost scared to for fear I violated the code somewhere!
TW

Trainwire:

I just checked out your profile. I didn't realize you worked at Strasburg. I'm in southern NJ and we took our 3yr old daughter on your railroad a few months ago. Had lunch on the dining car. We all had a great time. Very nice operation you guys have there. World class.