Woody

We have 8 robots driving around on a stage (indoors). The stage is quite big (say 50 by 50 meters), has controlled lighting and will be for the robots only.

What we need to do is get the position of each robot into max/msp.

I guess the challenge is to track all 8 of them, AND keep them apart.

If we could just give them some unique beacon...

PS. color tracking seems not an option: the robots will be fully rigged with RGB leds, and they change colors all the time :-)

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

What we need to do is get the position of each robot into max/msp.
I guess the challenge is to track all 8 of them, AND keep them apart.
If we could just give them some unique beacon...  

position-tracking-of-multiple-moving-objects

did you have a look at the cv.jit library? that should give you a good starting point.

did you have a look at the cv.jit library? that should give you a good starting point.
http://jmpelletier.com/cvjit/


I think we could track multiple (IR) beacons on the top of the robots, looking from above with one or more IR cameras. cv.jit.blobs.sort would make sure that we track all the blobs the right way.

Still, I'm trying to find better, more reliable ways, because it's going to be in a major exhibition, running 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. If, for some reason, we would lose track of one of the robots, there's no absolute way of knowing which one is which, right?

Yeah I did look at it.
I think we could track multiple (IR) beacons on the top of the robots, looking from above with one or more IR cameras. cv.jit.blobs.sort would make sure that we track all the blobs the right way.

Still, I'm trying to find better, more reliable ways, because it's going to be in a major exhibition, running 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. If, for some reason, we would lose track of one of the robots, there's no absolute way  of knowing which one is which, right?

cv.jit.blobs.sort will only do it partly, as the blob indices can swap when they cross each other's X-axis. To remedy this there is cv.jit.touches in the latest cv.jit library, which should do what you need. It's essentially like monitoring a big multi-touch screen where light sources become the "touches".

Sounds like an awesome project. got any videos of the madness?? :)

Color tracking might still work. The robots could deliver some extra information, for example what color they shine in. They could also approximate their position according to their movements. It s just a question of analyzing the redundancy to to correct the information of each sensor.

The blobs of cv, would be exact positions, but eventually the assignment to a certain robot is blurry. Then the color might decide, or the rough position of the robot might decide how the assignment has to be corrected. Then the exact position could be fed back to the robot for his recalibration...

Color tracking might still work. The robots could deliver some extra information, for example what color they shine in. They could also approximate their position according to their movements. It s just a question of analyzing the redundancy to to correct the information of each sensor.
The blobs of cv, would be exact positions, but eventually the assignment to a certain robot is blurry. Then the color might decide, or the rough position of the robot might decide how the assignment has to be corrected. Then the exact position could be fed back to the robot for his recalibration...

Position tracking of multiple moving objects