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Techniques for automatic real-time calculation of user wait times

  • US 10,339,544 B2
  • Filed: 07/01/2015
  • Issued: 07/02/2019
  • Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2014
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

  • receiving, at a computing system from an overhead camera system, the computing system having one or more processors, overhead images of a group of users in a line at a venue, wherein the overhead camera system includes at least one overhead fish-eye lens camera (i) mounted to a ceiling in an area above the line and (ii) configured to capture the overhead images;

    wherein the overhead camera system is configured to capture the overhead images at a frame rate based on a mounting height of the ceiling to which the camera system is mounted, wherein higher mounting heights correspond to higher frame rates and lower mounting heights correspond to lower frame rates;

    performing, by the computing system, edge correction on the overhead images by adjusting the edges of the overhead images to account for distortion caused by curvature of the fish-eye lens to obtain corrected overhead images;

    applying, by the computing system, a set of filters to the corrected overhead images to at least obtain filtered overhead images, wherein each filter of the set of filters further distinguishes humans from noise;

    generating, by the computing system, an x-y coordinate system for each of the filtered overhead images and identifying each user in the filtered overhead images as a point or a circle having a specific x-y coordinate or a specific range of x-y coordinates;

    monitoring, by the computing system, the group of users using vector representations in the x-y coordinate system to obtain a user wait time for the line, the monitoring including;

    (a) identifying the group of users and a user of the group of users that is second in the line to obtain a target user,(b) detecting when the target user becomes first in the line to obtain a start time,(c) after the target user becomes first in the line, detecting when the target user leaves the line to obtain an end time,(d) determining a period from the start time to the end time, and(e) calculating the user wait time by calculating a product of (i) the determined period and (ii) a quantity of the group of users in the line after the target user leaves the line; and

    outputting, from the computing system, the calculated user wait time.

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