Fond of computer vision? Ivideon is calling you to Sri Lanka!

Over the past year, the Ivideon team has done a great job. Launching applications for iOS and Android , creating a server for Mac OS X, entering foreign markets, as well as launching a decentralized CDN network with servers in the USA, the Netherlands, Germany, Korea, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Thanks to this, Ivideon has become the only international video surveillance service that works equally well all over the world. As a result, followed by a variety of offers from manufacturers of IP-cameras to integrate with our cloud. Why integrate your cameras separately with a service in Europe, and then separately with a local service in the USA, when you can once support Ivideon, which is everywhere.
We have concluded a number of strategic contracts for the installation of the business version of Ivideon in the corporate network of large enterprises.
In general, it was a great year for our company, so we decided to change the situation and give our team the opportunity to relax. Somewhere from mid-December, we will fly to the tropical island of Sri Lanka, where we will stay a whole month. And we have two empty seats. Want to go with us?

Sri Lanka

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The island state of Sri Lanka, or until 1972 better known as Ceylon, is located east of the southern tip of India and is washed by the waters of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. In the period from December to January, the most comfortable weather is set in Sri Lanka. There is no sweltering heat and high humidity typical of the rainy season.
Perhaps additional information about this amazing island and its inhabitants can be found at specialized resources on the Internet. I can only say that for all who have been there, Sri Lanka seems to be different. For each - its own. On the one hand, tourism is developed there, on the other hand, it is not as developed as in Thailand. Therefore, there are still places in Sri Lanka and people who were not spoiled by our brother. Although for quite some time Sri Lanka has been popular among surfers around the world.



But still, despite the fact that there are many kilometers of wild beaches on the island, where you can relax for a very long time and not meet anyone else, spending the night in coastal houses, where there may even be no electricity, we still go to very comfortable conditions.



In addition to its own culture on the island, a lot was brought by the Portuguese and the British. Including houses and villas in the colonial style. In one of these villas, we plan to stay. More precisely, during our stay we will change 3 villas to visit different parts of Sri Lanka. Combine a beach holiday with travels to the ancient capital of Kandy, see the high-mountain tea plantations of Nuwara Eliya and visit the local nature reserve.

Who we want to take with us

As you have probably already guessed from the content of the title, we really want to take along a person for whom computer vision is one of the biggest hobbies in life.
We expect that by the end of 2013 there will be about 2 million users of our service around the world. And in order for this to happen, the important thing is to increase the convenience of working with it and add analytical capabilities, including those already in top-end expensive systems. But we want to make them much easier and more accessible to the user. Are you ready to help us with this?

And in order to find the best candidate (or candidates), we will organize a small contest, the winner of which will travel with us to Sri Lanka , and on return will receive a job offer in our company.

So, before December 1, 2012, you need to write an application in C / C ++ using OpenCV, which will capture video from a webcam, analyze it and provide the following features:

- steady tracking of several objects in the frame even in the case of their joint crossing or temporary “disappearance” behind the obstacle;

- the possibility of counting objects crossing a certain zone and taking into account the direction of the intersection;

- detector of the appearance and disappearance of the object / object in the frame. I really want to hover the mouse on the dirty cup on the table and find the moment in the video archive, when it appeared there and who left it!

Of course, all of these features may not be realized in such a short time. Therefore, we will look at the most complete and high-quality solution.
And in early December, we will record a few test video clips that will allow you to test the work of all applications sent to the competition.
I think that we should not say that for the contest you can only use your own code in conjunction with OpenCV, so that it does not have legal problems.
In addition to the results of the application in terms of performance and operation errors, we will also analyze the quality of the code.

As a result, we will publish an article on the results of the competition in early December. If there are a lot of worthy candidates, we will start voting.
And after the trip, wait for a detailed story about what came of all this.



And most importantly. We are more than open to dialogue and ready to hear counter offers! For example, it seems to me very cool that in the New Year unfamiliar constellations will burn over us, and the sound of the surf, exactly the same as thousands of years ago, will remind of eternity. But if you want to participate in the competition, and the idea of ​​Sri Lanka because of the noise from peacocks strolling at night on the roof, as well as the cries of wild monkeys does not entice you, we can come up with an alternative prize together!



Subscribe to our blog to not miss the results of the competition and the report on the trip!

UPD: Explanation of tasks.

Ivideon is primarily a video surveillance system. Therefore, in most cases the role of objects will be people, cars, possibly animals. In the process of tracking the object can change quite strongly (in terms of transformations). But from frame to frame, these changes will be such that it will be possible to identify the object. All objects are part of the real world and we assume that they cannot suddenly disappear or teleport. Certainly tracking errors will be. The main thing is that there are not many of them.

The zone is indicated at the beginning of the program. For example, a camera may be installed above the entrance to a store to count people passing by. Or a door is allocated with a rectangle in order to determine whether a person enters / exits from it or just passes by.

For the competition, we assume that the camera is installed statically and does not change its position during operation.

UPD2: Gathered frequently asked questions in a separate topic .