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And you thought biometrics was boring? Think again.

Category: General | Date: Jul 01 2008 | By: Seamus

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that image-recognition software has been expensive and clunky in the past. An acquaintance of mine subsequently emailed me a few links. It turns out that not only is there freely available software on the web, but its quite user-friendly. The following example is a Tiger recognition package from a chap called Lex Hilby (the Conservation Research homepage), partially funded by the same people that have supported my research in the past: the Wildlife Conservation Society. In true geek fashion, the site is not prettily laid out, but there is some good stuff. Examples from the site shown below.

tiger.jpg

tiger2.jpg

And further, a group called “Wildtrack” have developed a “Footprint Identification System” with the genius-pun acronym “FITS” Pictured below is a screenshot of a rhino footprint with the markers overlaid.

rhino.gif

I don’t think any of this is quite suited to lions, for a couple of different reasons. Nevertheless, its great to see the intersection of imaging technology and wildlife surveying.


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2 Responses to “And you thought biometrics was boring? Think again.”

Wim, on 01 Jul 2008

…and there are various facial recognition packages for CCTV which must be applicable to all of these uses (whatever they may be.)
I once wandered all over Botswana in the company of a guy who was glued to his state of the art GPS. He always knew precisely where he was to within a few feet but lacking a pair of binoculars, never got to see anything else beyond those few feet…
There’s a moral in that somewhere…
Do keep posting all this scientific stuff it’s muy interesante.

Seamus, on 02 Jul 2008

You might just be describing me…. except that I didn”t drive all over Botswana, only part of it. And yes, I am still said to be geographically dyslexic, and overly reliant on my GPS.

The moral might be that people need to be given the latitude to look around in whatever way they want to? But yes, I can see the tragedy of your road trip. There is an excellent clip somewhere of man getting out of his car to take some close-up photos of some lions… same thing. “tourist with a gadget” syndrome.

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