Testing Color Analytics Performance

Can this form of analytics be more usefull with thermal units delivering a colorized output?

Simone de Titta

In reply to Birger Kollstrand

Hello Birger.

No, unless you use radiometric thermal cameras giving the absolute temperature. The "standard" thermal cameras for video surveillance are differential, not radiometric: this means that they percept and show bodies with different temperatures, but you don't know if that temperature is 37° or 15°.. You just know that it is different, and the false colors (never use them with analytics; always black/white mode) are definitely relative and built frame by frame by the camera normalizing the whole image according to the different temperatures of the different bodies present in the scene in that moment.

This means that those colors are even much less reliable to search and track than when you search a color in an optical camera.

Cheers,

Simone

(TechnoAware)

Birger Kollstrand

In reply to Simone de Titta

Thank you for a very informative answer Simone.

/Birger

Simone de Titta

Finally!

Thank you so much John for this great report!

I will forward it to all people against whom I "fight" daily trying to convince them how much it is difficult to consider "color" as a reliable feature for analytics! And to all the writers of tenders who believes always to unlikely commercial brochures (not only from Bosh of course!..) without simply reasoning on the practical phisical issues..

Have a great time,

Simone

(TechnoAware)

Christopher Freeman

Thank You Ethan & John

Great Report , Goes beyond the traditional reviews of the color dynamics of past reviews .

Great Job

Chris Geller

Curious how it would work in a "perfect" scenario?

ie: assembly line, parking lot entrance/exit, doorway, etc. Basically if you had a setting with perfect lighting and small FOV.

John Honovich

IPVM

In reply to Chris Geller

Chris, parking lot entrance/exit and doorways are going to be especially challenging as varying light levels and strong backlighting are going to change the color appearance of objects over time.

Chris Geller

I was thinking of possible applications that were made "perfect" vs "real world" applications.

Where you could control lighting and the "scene" at all times, possibly even the colors (no variations).

John Honovich

IPVM

In reply to Chris Geller

Yes, so if you can control things 'perfectly' it should work well. For example (I am making this up but I suspect this would work well), you have a conveyor carrying fruit and you want to automatically detect and flag fruit with 'off' colors. In such a scenario, you could carefully set it up and optimize it to accurately identify those off color fruits.

Chris Geller

Yes, that would be a fine example.

So in a "perfect" scenario it should have a high % of accuracy otherwise don't bother...

I would assume it would also be best to pilot test the application before selling it ;-)

Simone de Titta

Chris, actually the point it's exactely this one you wrote, about making tests before.. Actually it's the main problem of this analytics market.. The problem is when the "smart" commercial always makes tests or shows demos in perfect scenarioes, with perfect stable conditions, for few minutes.... But unfortunately maybe that is not the reality.. Maybe that's just a trick, because unfortunately in the real world then the conditions are slightly never that stable for long time..

But after buying, the Customers verify in real life that it's all fake, that instead nothing works, and then none wants to see analytics anymore....... Of course Customers watch CSI in the evening and they want miracles; so "smart" commercials of course feel in need to show miracles.. But maybe it's not that "smart" and healthy to go on that way..

There are for example still many many products working by fixed background reference.. And believe me, there is no better method at all if you have 5 minutes of indoor perfectly stable and controlled environment, no shadows, no reflections, perfect stable light.. Uh, you can count the hair of a person by that method!.... But for 5 minutes... ...maybe! Nice trick..

As I always say to our Partners who tell to me "oh but what you say, I saw it by my eyes!....": yes, me too yesterday evening I was in a show of a good magician and I saw by my eyes a woman divided in 2...... But that doesn't mean the woman was really divided in 2, right?....;)

Cheers,

Simone

Chris Geller

In reply to Simone de Titta

You got it ;-)

Guess that's why we are all here (reading IPVM), we appreciate the work they area doing in clearing the smoke screens and verifying reality...

Undisclosed Manufacturer #1

We are using the color filter mostly for searching in the recorded video. It can help a lot to retrieve a certain person.

John Honovich

In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #1

IPVM

Thank you Bosch employee for that vague undisclosed endorsement. Care to elaborate on what people, situations, accuracy, and time frames you are doing this in?

Chris Dearing

•Dec 24, 2013

John, perhaps you should add the additional caveat of 'Identity will be known to site admins' right after the "Post Without Disclosing Your Name" checkbox.

Some people must think they are truly anonymous, how else can you explain their audacity?

Chris Geller

In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #1

How's that? Guess we have to buy Micro SD cards then and record on the camera then run the analytics after the fact?

How does that help with alerting of an issue while it's happening vs hrs/days/weeks/etc after when it's realized, if the video is still on the card?

I would seem to think that analytics would be most powerful being run pro-actively vs re-actively, no?

Good luck finding which box the off color fruit is in, after you finally get time to run the analytics against the recorded video...

Simone de Titta

Yes, for "forensic analysis"...... Of course, because the issues of color when they come from an off-line video instead of a live one magically are solved, right?.. Wow, magic hard disk!....

Or maybe he was meaning that they open the off-line video in a Video Editor, they go to paint with bright red color the dresses of the person they want to search, then they run the analytics searching for red color and say "Oh! That's it!!..."........;)

John Honovich

In reply to Simone de Titta

IPVM

The typical rejoinder for search is that it does not need to be as accurate as alerts. For example, if I search for a red car and get 50 matches and only one is really red, I can quickly scan through the 50 thumbnails rather than scan the full video over hours. This of course is premised on the fact that the true red car is not missed entirely.

Simone de Titta