General Discussion Triathlon Talk » Race Photo-- software Rss Feed  
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2011-06-06 1:23 PM

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Subject: Race Photo-- software

Ok how do the race photo companies do it.   the part where you just plug in your name or bib number and presto all the photos of you that were taken magically pop up..

Is it a custom program that each company writes, or is there a software that can be purchased to do that

anyone know?



2011-06-06 2:49 PM
in reply to: #3535146

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software

I've often wondered that.  I am a photographer All I know is that every image has a unique identifier.  They could easily have a search engine that pulls your bib number or name (Or whatever unique tags they assign to each image).  The problem is, they have to name or tag every image.

Good question.  I'll be checking back for the answer...

2011-06-06 3:38 PM
in reply to: #3535146

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
I have this vision in my head of underpaid overseas workers looking at every picture and tagging it with a bib number.  lol
2011-06-06 3:38 PM
in reply to: #3535371

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software

I'm pretty sure most use some sort of OCR software to search for numbers in the photos, and then add that info to their race database.  I've seen cases where multiple people were in the photo and you could find that same photo searching on any one of their numbers.

For something like a big marathon, it has to be automated as much as possible.

2011-06-06 3:39 PM
in reply to: #3535517

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software

tuwood - 2011-06-06 1:38 PM I have this vision in my head of underpaid overseas workers looking at every picture and tagging it with a bib number.  lol

Somehow this wouldn't surprise me Undecided

 

Edit: the toughest thing for software to pick up would be the handwritten numbers on swim caps.  I could see that requiring some people.



Edited by spudone 2011-06-06 3:40 PM
2011-06-06 3:48 PM
in reply to: #3535146

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software


2011-06-06 3:51 PM
in reply to: #3535146

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software

btw, i must be really bored at work to be looking this stuff up....

I found another discussion that said people take finish line photos and have a program that matches the picture time with peoples names from the results page with their finishing time.  So if you enter your name it pulls up the picture that was taken at that time.

2011-06-06 4:36 PM
in reply to: #3535543

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
tuwood - 2011-06-06 3:48 PM

I found the patent for it:

http://www.photocrazy.com/Patents/Patent6985875.pdf

that is a case that has a few people interested but doesn't really hold up..

I think that is the company that literally has automated cameras all over the place and your chip triggers the photo,  the photos are then matched up with what chips were going over that particular mat at that time way to advanced for me.  they were literally suing anyone that had a system of you typing in your bib number and your photo's showing up.

slight disclaimer.  I've been working on the side at races doing photo's,  From what I'm told after the race the main person basically pays someone to go through all the photos and link up the bib numbers, names etc. to each pic.  The tri this weekend ended up with 12k+ pictures from the four of us easily  

I'm more wondering what type of software/code they are using/running to make it so when you go to the website and put in your bib number and/or name all your pics show up..   I"m pretty sure I could do the same thing on my smugmug account, but I"m thinking there must be an easier and cheaper way.   Thats a lot of time and I can see why it takes a few days for pics to get online.

2011-06-06 5:31 PM
in reply to: #3535638

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
Gaarryy - 2011-06-06 4:36 PM
tuwood - 2011-06-06 3:48 PM

I found the patent for it:

http://www.photocrazy.com/Patents/Patent6985875.pdf

that is a case that has a few people interested but doesn't really hold up..

I think that is the company that literally has automated cameras all over the place and your chip triggers the photo,  the photos are then matched up with what chips were going over that particular mat at that time way to advanced for me.  they were literally suing anyone that had a system of you typing in your bib number and your photo's showing up.

slight disclaimer.  I've been working on the side at races doing photo's,  From what I'm told after the race the main person basically pays someone to go through all the photos and link up the bib numbers, names etc. to each pic.  The tri this weekend ended up with 12k+ pictures from the four of us easily  

I'm more wondering what type of software/code they are using/running to make it so when you go to the website and put in your bib number and/or name all your pics show up..   I"m pretty sure I could do the same thing on my smugmug account, but I"m thinking there must be an easier and cheaper way.   Thats a lot of time and I can see why it takes a few days for pics to get online.

Yeah, the site i found linking to it was in reference to their patent thuggery.

I did some sluething and the marathon I ran in appears to be using ASI (http://www.asiorders.com) which is back ending their photo stuff at http://www.brightroom.com/

I'm sure it's some kind of paid service though.

2011-06-07 8:39 AM
in reply to: #3535638

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
If you're looking for just the interface to allow you to search the photos, any photo gallery should work. Gallery 3 lets you tag photos and then search by the tags. It would be trivial to write a php site that searched by tag as well. I'm not really a programmer and I think I could write it in a day easily.

The hard part is really the tagging process on the photos. I sure someone makes software that will look for text in photos, and it would be pretty easy to create something that would pull from a pool of untagged photos, and let you tag them manually. 12,000 isn't really too high a number for someone to process. I could probably tag that many in a day or two if the tagging process was properly designed.
2014-01-23 10:24 AM
in reply to: Gaarryy

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
Manual race photos tagging as well as time-chips synchronizations has been the common way to tag race photos for years now.
A new race photos-tagging technology has emerged in the last years using special 2D barcodes. The barcodes are printed on runners' bibs and encode the specific bib number. Race photos are then scanned by the technology to automatically match photos to runners.

The advantages of this technology over manual tagging is speed and accuracy. It's advantage over time-chips matching is the flexibility in shooting locations as well as the risk-less matching (no need to synchronize cameras' clock with timing equipment).

The barcodes race photo tagging technology is vastly used for sponsored race photography (i.e. - runners getting their race photos posted to Facebook or other social networks).

Hope this sheds more light on the topic,
Eitan.



2014-01-23 12:25 PM
in reply to: ehefetz

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
I find it odd that software is better at reading a 2D barcode than the bib number. I assume the barcode will be significantly smaller and more intricate.

The best system I have seen is just has a chipmat near the photographer. You may have to scroll through a few pics, though to find yourself. Otherwise, if the pics would simply be tagged with the race time or time of day and location, you could find yourself pretty quick as well if you were wearing a gps watch.
2014-01-23 2:17 PM
in reply to: dfroelich

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
Holy thread resurection batman...


Anyway, Wrinklyish numbers for whatever reason must be very difficult for computers to discern. This is why those quasi annoying text captchas work to stop spam posting bots on the internet.

That said I'm not sure how a wrinkled barcode would be any easier for a computer to read...
2014-01-23 3:06 PM
in reply to: Gaarryy

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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
As you can imagine - 2D barcodes printed on bibs would be much smaller the the whole number - thus less vulnerable to issues like wrinkles or being covered by runners' arms. Furthermore - the software in charge of automatically identifying the bib numbers would perform much better identifying a standard black-and-white barcode, rather than number printed on bibs in different fonts, sizes,colors etc.

One additional important aspect is eliminating false recognition. Imagine bib number 1234 where runners arm would hide the digit - 1. Software tying to identify bib numbers by the digits would easily identify the number as - 234. Barcode-based bib recognition is optimized to avoid false identifications.

You can google "2D barcodes on race bibs to automatically tag race photos" to get more insight into this.
2018-03-10 2:50 PM
in reply to: Gaarryy


1

Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
Interesting discussion here about how to find photos of yourself from races.

www.GeoSnapShot.com is the most advanced sports photography platform. We provide face recognition (simply upload a selfie!), bib recognition and time you competed to enables you to find photos quickly.
Any photographer can use our platform and we provide it free of charge to Event organisers and photographers.

https://geosnapshotblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/10/face-recognition/

The whole idea is to use talented local photographers (club photographers, parents, partners, or local photographers) to photograph the event to keep photo prices down.

Just email us with any questions: [email protected]
2018-07-05 5:03 AM
in reply to: Gaarryy


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Subject: RE: Race Photo-- software
Hi,
if you're still interested we have just released tagily.io, a cloud-based service for automatic bib number recognition in sport events.

It's super easy to use and you'll have the results in a few minutes after you start uploading the pictures. We also provide a convenient upload tool. Depending on your internet connection speed, we can process up to 10.000 images per hour.

As the results come back, you can choose to refine them with our annotation tool (free to use) or make them available as they are. You can use it on all types of bibs, no additional code placement is required (e.g. QR or Aruco code), because we read the number directly. We don't even have camera requirements: as long as the bib number is good enough for a human to read it, our artificial intelligence system can also read it.

As of today, our biggest event has been the Marcialonga 2018, where 100.000 images were processed in one night. Yet the software smoothly works for marathons and bike races as well. You can learn more about it here: http://www.deepvisionconsulting.com/automatic-bib-recognition-kick-... or just go to the website to ask for a free trial: https://tagily.io.

Let me know if you have any further question!


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