Okay, here’s my attempt at writing a blog post in the style you described, focusing on a “People Counting System with Integrated Security Features”:
Alright, so I’ve been messing around with this project – a people counting system. But it’s not just any counter, I wanted it to have some security features baked in. Here’s the whole story of how I went about it.
The Idea
First, I needed a reason, right? I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to know how many people are in a specific area, like a room or a small shop? And what if that information could also help with security? Like, knowing if there are too many people, or if someone’s there when they shouldn’t be.
Getting Started
I started simple. I grabbed a Raspberry Pi – because, why not? – and a basic camera module. My first thought was, “Okay, I just need to count bodies.” I played around with some open-source stuff, you know, OpenCV. It’s pretty good for image processing.
I tried a simple python scripts to capture images from the pi camera, then the images got processed with OpenCV.
The Counting Part
This was trickier than I thought. Just detecting a “person” isn’t that easy. Lighting changes, people wearing different clothes, all that messed with the initial code I found online. I spent a good few days just tweaking parameters and trying different detection methods. I ended up using something called a Haar cascade classifier – it’s not perfect, but it worked okay for my setup.
Adding Security Features
Now, the fun part. I wanted this thing to do more than just count. I added a few things:
- Threshold Alerts: I set a limit on the number of people. If it goes over, it sends me a notification. I used a simple email script for this.
- Time-Based Access: I added a schedule. If the system detects people outside of those hours, it flags it as a potential security issue.
Making it Work (and the Problems!)
Getting it all to work together was… interesting. The Raspberry Pi isn’t exactly a powerhouse, so I had to optimize the code a lot. I also ran into problems with the camera placement. It needed to be high enough to see everyone, but not so high that it missed people. Trial and error, lots of it.
The email script was a pain. It kept getting flagged as spam. I had to mess with the settings for ages to get it working reliably.
The Final Result (for now)
I’ve got a working system now. It counts people (mostly accurately!), sends alerts when it needs to, and logs everything. It’s not super fancy, but it does what I wanted. I put the whole thing in a little box with the Pi and the camera, and it’s been running for a few weeks now.
Is it perfect? No way. There’s still some false positives with the counting, and I’m sure I could add more security features. But, it was a fun project, and I learned a ton. That’s the best part, right?