6 ms·

Show HN: Open-sourced (road) traffic counting application

117 points by asfarley 2y ago

I was developing/selling this application under Roadometry, but sales are getting slow and I'd prefer to make it available for free. This is a desktop Windows application which can be used for counting road traffic. https://roadometry.com https://roadometry.com https://www.youtube.com/@roadometry2011 https://www.youtube.com/@roadometry2011 The application uses Multiple Hypothesis Tracking (MHT) combined with Darknet Yolo. I trained the network myself. I have a tool-chain for building a video-based training set including associations, but it's quite complex to use. I never ended up training a network to perform association, but I think a combined detector/associator network is the next step.

loftsy 2y ago
I made an Android app in this space a few years back. It's helped a few people but I never got a grip on the market or understanding of the space. www.roadcount.com
- asfarley 2y ago
  Looks like it might be using background subtraction, is that right?
  - loftsy 2y ago
    Its running EfficientDet on the phone using Tensorflow light.
haaz 2y ago
Very cool, thanks for sharing. How did you train it? Just manually labeling the data?
- asfarley 2y ago
  I hired some workers in Bangladesh
unit149 2y ago
<i>I think a combined detector/associator network is the next step.</i> Repentance for using MHT to accelerate vehicle interconnectedness might consist of V2I. Audi vehicles with 802.11p V2I capabilities have an information sharing agreement with Traffic Technology Services in certain municipalities that alert a driver of a vehicle when a red light will turn green. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/cars-that-talk-to-traffic-lights-audi-expands-service-to-washington-dc/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/cars-that-talk-to-traff...
larodi 2y ago
Just tossed it over to my GIS and metro-planning friends and they all reacted with "O-hoooo, what a good news" . Kudos!
- asfarley 2y ago
  Excellent, I'm going to post links to installers to make it somewhat more convenient, just haven't gotten to that yet
rjmunro 2y ago
It's funny that this is released the same day as a 56 minute overhead drone video of the Swindon magic roundabout, one of the UK's most iconic road junctions: https://youtu.be/CzQunCuQCJY?si=X1nbcxiWOCcnm8eO https://youtu.be/CzQunCuQCJY?si=X1nbcxiWOCcnm8eO
- asfarley 2y ago
  An interesting effect of counting at roundabouts is that MHT/basic inertial movement models tend to work quite well, because the vehicles aren't stopping and starting, and they tend to not bunch up as much as at a red light
dang 2y ago
[stub for offtopicness]
- pvg 2y ago
  your github repo link is broken, perhaps you forgot to unprivate it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - asfarley 2y ago
    Whoops, thank you. Fixed now.
- abetusk 2y ago
  From the EULA.txt [0]: """ ... DESCRIPTION OF OTHER RIGHTS AND LIMITATIONS You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. ... COPYRIGHT All title and copyrights in and to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (including but not limited to any images, photographs, clipart, libraries, and examples incorporated into the SOFTWARE PRODUCT), the accompanying printed materials, and any copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT are owned by the Author of this Software. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions. Therefore, you must treat the SOFTWARE PRODUCT like any other copyrighted material. The licensed users or licensed company can use all functions, example, templates, clipart, libraries and symbols in the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to create new diagrams and distribute the diagrams. ... """ At the bottom of the README: """ © Roadometry 2018 """ Maybe I missed something but this seems pretty closed source to me. "Source available" would be a more appropriate term for this project. [0] https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_lfs/blob/master/EULA.txt https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_lfs/blob/master/EULA.txt
  - asfarley 2y ago
    I botched the open-sourcing, I intended to post this one: https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_opensource https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_opensource I've updated the license to BSD 3-Clause and deleted the EULA.txt.
w1nt3rmut3 2y ago
Seems to be made for USA as only cars are counted. In Europe u usually want to distinguish between cars bigger cars, bicycles and pedestrians. You also need to blurr everything not related to cars and you can't just collect all video data in a central space. Or need lower res cameras.

117 points by asfarley 2y ago

loftsy 2y ago

I made an Android app in this space a few years back. It's helped a few people but I never got a grip on the market or understanding of the space. www.roadcount.com

asfarley 2y ago
Looks like it might be using background subtraction, is that right?
- loftsy 2y ago
  Its running EfficientDet on the phone using Tensorflow light.

haaz 2y ago

Very cool, thanks for sharing. How did you train it? Just manually labeling the data?

asfarley 2y ago
I hired some workers in Bangladesh

unit149 2y ago

<i>I think a combined detector/associator network is the next step.</i> Repentance for using MHT to accelerate vehicle interconnectedness might consist of V2I. Audi vehicles with 802.11p V2I capabilities have an information sharing agreement with Traffic Technology Services in certain municipalities that alert a driver of a vehicle when a red light will turn green. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/cars-that-talk-to-traffic-lights-audi-expands-service-to-washington-dc/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/cars-that-talk-to-traff...

larodi 2y ago

Just tossed it over to my GIS and metro-planning friends and they all reacted with "O-hoooo, what a good news" . Kudos!

asfarley 2y ago
Excellent, I'm going to post links to installers to make it somewhat more convenient, just haven't gotten to that yet

rjmunro 2y ago

It's funny that this is released the same day as a 56 minute overhead drone video of the Swindon magic roundabout, one of the UK's most iconic road junctions: https://youtu.be/CzQunCuQCJY?si=X1nbcxiWOCcnm8eO https://youtu.be/CzQunCuQCJY?si=X1nbcxiWOCcnm8eO

asfarley 2y ago
An interesting effect of counting at roundabouts is that MHT/basic inertial movement models tend to work quite well, because the vehicles aren't stopping and starting, and they tend to not bunch up as much as at a red light

dang 2y ago

[stub for offtopicness]

pvg 2y ago
your github repo link is broken, perhaps you forgot to unprivate it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- asfarley 2y ago
  Whoops, thank you. Fixed now.
abetusk 2y ago
From the EULA.txt [0]: """ ... DESCRIPTION OF OTHER RIGHTS AND LIMITATIONS You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. ... COPYRIGHT All title and copyrights in and to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (including but not limited to any images, photographs, clipart, libraries, and examples incorporated into the SOFTWARE PRODUCT), the accompanying printed materials, and any copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT are owned by the Author of this Software. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions. Therefore, you must treat the SOFTWARE PRODUCT like any other copyrighted material. The licensed users or licensed company can use all functions, example, templates, clipart, libraries and symbols in the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to create new diagrams and distribute the diagrams. ... """ At the bottom of the README: """ © Roadometry 2018 """ Maybe I missed something but this seems pretty closed source to me. "Source available" would be a more appropriate term for this project. [0] https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_lfs/blob/master/EULA.txt https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_lfs/blob/master/EULA.txt
- asfarley 2y ago
  I botched the open-sourcing, I intended to post this one: https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_opensource https://github.com/asfarley/vtc_opensource I've updated the license to BSD 3-Clause and deleted the EULA.txt.

w1nt3rmut3 2y ago

Seems to be made for USA as only cars are counted. In Europe u usually want to distinguish between cars bigger cars, bicycles and pedestrians. You also need to blurr everything not related to cars and you can't just collect all video data in a central space. Or need lower res cameras.