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Introduction

Large open spaces in or between buildings can be used by people in various ways. The dimensions of that space, the surrounding boundary typology, the designed purpose, can affect the way the people eventually use that space. Over time patterns can appear if the experience of that space depicts a way it should be used. If so, people that use that space in an ‘abnormal’ way can be recognized as well.

My project was to focus on these abnormal behaviors of people using a square. Could I distinguish abnormal human paths from common used paths?
This project was done as part of my study here at the University of Sydney, Australia.

My goal was to program a video tracking system that visually would describe the way a space is used, distinguishing common paths and abnormal paths of a space.

For the programming environment I used Processing. Instead of using a live camera feed I recorded a 2 minute video footage of an inner square. The advantage is that I could analyze the video footage to recognize things I should take into account that could affect the video tracking’s behavior.

In the chapter Method I explain in general how my video tracking system works. Which techniques did I use and why.
The process of my project is described in the chapter Progress. This is useful to understand why I used some techniques and why some techniques didn’t work for me.
If you are interested in the further developing the script or just curios how it works, you can download the test video footage and the processing script at the Get chapter.

Rob Saunders, thanks a lot for helping me with this project!

Enjoy!