Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this idea of counting how many people come in and out of a store. You know, like a foot traffic counter. I figured it would be a cool project, and maybe useful for some small business owners.
I started by doing some digging online. I found a few different ways to do it, some with fancy sensors and stuff, but I wanted to keep it simple. So I thought, “Hey, I can probably do this with a camera and some code!”
The Setup
- Camera: I grabbed an old webcam I had lying around. Nothing special, just something that could capture video.
- Computer: I used my regular laptop. It’s got enough power to handle what I needed.
- Software: This is where it got a bit tricky. I knew I needed some way to process the video and count people. I ended up going with Python because I’ve used it before and it’s got some great libraries for this kind of thing.
The Process
First, I had to get the camera feed into my Python script. That was actually pretty easy, using a library. Once I had the video showing up on my screen, I was like, “Alright, now the real fun begins!”
The main idea is to detect when someone walks through a certain area, like a doorway. I did that using some, which looks for changes in the video. When a big change happens – like someone walking by – the code notices.
But here’s the thing: it’s not just about noticing any change. A shadow, a flickering light… those could all mess things up. So I had to do a bit of tweaking. The key was to look for changes that were about the size and shape of a person, it wasn’t perfect, but it worked!
Once I had the code detecting “people-shaped” changes, I just needed to count them. I drew an imaginary line on the video feed, and every time a “person” crossed that line, the counter went up. Easy peasy!
Making it Work (and the Problems I Ran Into)
It wasn’t all smooth sailing. I ran into a bunch of issues.
- Lighting: If the lighting changed a lot, the code would freak out and count all sorts of things that weren’t people. I had to play around with the settings to make it less sensitive.
- Camera Angle: Depending on where I put the camera, it would see things differently. Sometimes it would count the same person twice if they walked in a weird way.
- Accuracy: Let’s be real, it wasn’t perfect. Sometimes it missed people, sometimes it counted things that weren’t people. But for a quick and dirty project, it was pretty good!
Results
After all the testing I implemented the system to really count customer.
I finally tested my setup in a small store, It was surprisingly accurate, even with people walking in and out close together!
So yeah, that’s my little foot traffic counting adventure. It was a fun project, and I learned a lot. Might not be perfect, but it’s a good starting point for anyone who wants to build something similar!