Video software has come far in the last decade or so, increasing the amount of clarity available in even the smallest devices, such as my 720p HD recording Droid X. What software has yet to be able to do it accurately track an object of any sort that appears on screen, but designer Zdenek Kalal has programmed new software for just that very purpose, and he calls it Predator.
While it looks like a cyborg creation, I can assure you that this man is not building a robot/cyborg empire to take over the world with. In the picture below, you can get a taste of what the product offers. The red dot is a user designated point, and whatever the user puts the dot over, the program will track. In this image, it is simply following the dot on the eye, showing where the eye is in relation to the axis’ of the screen, but there is also more function of the camera, allowing the user to follow, say, a pen or pencil, and allowing it to act as a virtual mouse.
The user also has the option to track a whole area, such as a face or some fingers, that the camera will track to the best of its ability. This would allow for users to follow someone on screen, or even help decipher out a criminal from video footage, one of the examples given in the video demonstration. In the picture below, you get an example of not only the tracking ability (the yellow box is tracking his fingers), but also can see on the right and left sides a collection of images that the software creates and piles up, allowing it to recognize the selected area from any angle. These features are also featured in the last picture, tracking a car from an aerial view and also collecting a lot more pictures than this picture, seen on the left and right. The tracking ability of Predator only improves over time as it gains more and more images and angles of the selected area.
In the picture below, Kalal is showing how the software can also be used to stabilize very shaky video footage. Using the collection of images that it gains from the whole video, it can piece together a solid video with little to no shaking in it as well.
The Predator software has a multitude of uses, and it is certain to be something that many people will be interested in. I for one and interested to see how it will advance from here, and what practical uses we will see it used in first. The full video is here:
Want more cool camera features? Check out 5 DIY Hacks to Supercharge Your iPhone’s Camera and these 14 Amazing Rescue Robots!
Via: Wired
