US 11,303,960 B2Granted

Methods and apparatus to count people

AssigneeThe Nielsen Company (US), LLC

InventorsPadmanabhan Soundararajan, Marko Usaj, Venugopal Srinivasan

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to count people are disclosed. Example apparatus disclosed herein include means for discarding existing characteristic datasets from a list; means for populating the list with first characteristic datasets obtained from a first plurality of images representative of an environment during a first period of time of a media presentation; means for limiting a number of the first characteristic datasets stored in the list for a first location represented in the first plurality of images; and means for comparing the first characteristic datasets to each other to determine a first number of unique faces in the environment during the first period of time, wherein the means for discarding is to delete the first characteristic datasets from the list, and the means for populating is to re-populate the list with second characteristic datasets obtained from a second plurality of images representative of the environment.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An apparatus comprising:

means for discarding existing characteristic datasets from a list;
means for populating the list with first characteristic datasets obtained from a first plurality of images representative of an environment during a first period of time of a media presentation, respective ones of the first characteristic datasets representative of corresponding faces detected in the environment during the first period of time;
means for limiting a number of the first characteristic datasets stored in the list for a first location represented in the first plurality of images;
and
means for comparing the first characteristic datasets to each other to determine a first number of unique faces in the environment during the first period of time, the means for comparing to limit the comparisons of the respective first characteristic datasets to other first characteristic datasets obtained during the first period of time, wherein the means for discarding is to delete the first characteristic datasets from the list after the first period of time has ended, and the means for populating is to re-populate the list with second characteristic datasets obtained from a second plurality of images representative of the environment during a second period of time of the media presentation, the second period of time subsequent to the first period of time.

2 more elements

A people counting apparatus comprising:

means for calculating a degree of similarity between a first characteristic dataset representative of a first face detection in a first image at a first image location and a second characteristic dataset representative of a second face detection in a second image at the first image location, the first and second images included in a plurality of images representative of an environment during a first period of time of a media presentation;
means for storing the first characteristic dataset and the second characteristic dataset in a plurality of characteristic datasets associated with the first period of time when the degree of similarity does not satisfy a threshold, the means for storing to store the first characteristic dataset in the plurality of characteristic datasets and discard the second characteristic dataset when the degree of similarity satisfies the threshold to limit a number of stored characteristic datasets associated with the first image location;
and
means for comparing the plurality of characteristic datasets to each other to determine a number of unique faces in the environment during the first period of time.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 17/087,335Filed 2 Nov 2020 · continuation
Priority: 2 Mar 2015
Published: US 2021/0051366 A118 Feb 2021
Granted: 12 Apr 2022
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification46 codes

H04N 21/44218
Monitoring of end-user related data: detecting physical presence or behaviour of the user, e.g. using sensors to detect if the user is leaving the…
G06F 16/5838
Using metadata automatically derived from the content: using colour
G06V 20/53
Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects: recognition of crowd images, e.g. recognition of crowd congestion
G06V 40/161
Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions: detection; Localisation; Normalisation

Family

Application14/635,360Parent of this continuation · filed 2 Mar 2015
Application15/990,367Parent of this continuation · filed 25 May 2018
US 9,986,289 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 29 May 2018
US 10,506,285 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 27 Sep 2018
Application16/706,396Parent of this continuation · filed 6 Dec 2019
US 2021/0051366 A1Pre-grant publication · published 18 Feb 2021
US 10,827,218 B2Parent of this continuation
US 2016/0261911 A1Published application
US 2018/0278996 A1Published application
US 2020/0221175 A1Published application
US 11,303,960 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.