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UCF Researchers Perform World's First Automated Mass-Crowd Count (ucf.edu)

Posted by timothy on from the national-park-service-thrilled dept.

subh_arya writes: Automatic crowd counting has been an extremely challenging computer vision problem. However, researchers from UCF, seem to have found a reasonably accurate solution using sophisticated probabilistic models. Although there has been several previous efforts in this direction, this is the first time the technology has been put to use on a realistic scenario where around 550,000 protesters participated for Catalunyan Independence. A freely available technical paper published in IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 2015 is available here.

4 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. This must be a hoax by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Funny

    We learned years ago that people from Florida don't know how to count.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:This must be a hoax by whopis · · Score: 3, Funny

      The event where people were protesting for Catalunyan independence was chosen specifically because there a very low likelihood of anyone name "Chad" being part of the protest.

      Floridians only have trouble counting when there are excessive Chad's hanging about.

  2. Yankee Nine-Niner... by freeze128 · · Score: 2

    "Food riot in progress. Approximately 1500 civilians. No weapons evident."

  3. Re:Numbers by swb · · Score: 2

    When there's no provable number involved, everybody uses the number that suits their own interests. How else can you explain estimates that vary by 3x?

    Police? If the issue isn't police malfeasance, they like the higher number. If there was a riot, the large number supports their "need" for more police officers, weapons and expanded powers (greater leniency on the use of violence, more intelligence gathering, etc). If the protest was non-violent, they get to claim the credit for successfully managing it and keeping it peaceful.

    Government? They usually like the lower number, as it allows them to claim the organizers or issues lack political support so they can keep doing whatever it is they want.

    Protesters? They like the bigger number, it shows how much support they have.