ID'ing People By How They Walk

thedude writes "Just stumbled upon this article about a system for ID'ing people by the way they walk. Maybe a combination of facial, voice, and gait recognition will increase the accuracy of these systems? I'll be sure to waddle next time I'm at the airport."

Comments

Damn my waddle.

[dmorin]

Last day of high school, a friend and I dressed in gorilla suits (something that I'm sure would not be allowed these days). I worked at the supermarket across the street, so that morning we wandered over there in costume to buy some poptarts. As we were shopping a voice came over the loudspeaker, "Could we please see the gorillas at the courtesy booth?" So I sauntered up to the booth and stood there. The lady in the booth paused and said, "That's Duane!" She said she recognized my walk.

My wife is a physical therapist. As a computer geek, I tend to recognize very bizarre techie things because they catch my eye and I feel obliged to mention them. She does the same thing with gaits. Whenever we're at the mall she will point out people and tell me the name of whatever condition they have that caused them to walk like they do.

And what about different styles of shoes?

[HaloZero]

My footgear definately alters my footing and wayward demeanor, depending on what I'm wearing. Skate shoes, combat boots, soccer cleats... How would you suggest we tell the difference, and isolate who is wearing what and where?

Thoughts?

Clean Rooms

[Atomizer]

This is pretty interesting. I work a lot in a clean room at a wafer manufacturer and you can't see anything but peoples eyes when they are in the clean room. You quickly learn to recognize people from their body shape, size and of course, body language. In fact if you meet somebody in the cleanroom for the first time, it's always surprising how different they can look without a mask on.

Heinlein Referenced This

[TheWanderingHermit]

Remember Double Star, by RAH? He wasn't talking about computers recognizing how people walked, but the main character, before he gets involved in impersonating the President, tells one of the President's aids to put a few pebbles in his shoes so people won't recognize the way he walks. And that was when? I think Double Star was written in the 1950s.

Age ?

[Squid_Law]

How would this cope with people's gaits changing as they get older ??

Presumably if someone developed arthritis (sp?)or something else in their knees or developed a limp (or just faked it) it would mess up the recognition ?

Animation concept

[quantax]

In this animation book I have, the writer (the guy who animated Roger Rabbit, I forget his hame off hand), demonstrated how a walk can characterize a person. He sited an example where he saw a man walking behind a wall, with just his head showing above the wall as he walked. The man's head did not bob up and down, and the animator decided that the man had to be gay. If you've ever noticed someone walking 'elegantly', they glide more than walk. He ran up to the man to find out if his assumption was correct (never mind the non-PC nature of the observation) and found he was right. Thats a good indicator of how much you can learn about people through simple observation of their movement.

Another way to lock kids out of stuff.

[watashiwananashidesu]

Now, I don't know if this is peculiar for my age, but I'm sure it's not for say, someone five years younger than me... but my gait changes DRASTICALLY with my mood, and I'm sure this is the same for children.

Perhaps the machines are built to recognize certain patterns that simple speed and/or step variations caused by mood can lead to. But I have distinct walking styles for various moods. About half the time, if I'm not in pain, I'll lift my heels several inches in the air constantly, even though I almost never wear high-heels (and when I do, they're only one to three inches). It seems to me that this would significantly change my gait, especially when contrasted with my usual dragging-of-the-feet or melodramatic happy skipping.

For reference, this can't be TOO out of the ordinary for a person of my age and gender. I'm female, and almost sixteen. We're expected to randomly swing between moods and personalities, and thus, perhaps, gaits, right? ...We're not? Erm...

Been doing that a while..

[Sgt York]

I have fairly poor vision, but wasn't diagnosed until I was nine; same situation with my younger sister. Neither of us could make out a face that was more than a 2-3m away, so we learned to recognize people by their walks.

We both still do it unconciously, and even now I find it more dificult to recognize a person when they are motionless than when walking.

There are features that stay with people, and are consistent with age, footgear, and even injury. Crutches don't fool me most of the time, and people I haven't seen in 15 years or more still have a recognizable gait.