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I think what the CountThings app is doing is great. There are too many industries where tasks are being performed inefficiently due to a lack of applying readil

I think what the CountThings app is doing is great. There are too many industries where tasks are being performed inefficiently due to a lack of applying readily available technology. They had the foresight to develop a product for a very common problem and make a business out of it. I’m a bit surprised that this is making the rounds of HN though. OpenCV and other computer vision libraries have trivialized such counting applications for decades now. ML isn’t really necessary. The watershed algorithm for example, comes built-in and allows segmentation which can then be followed up with blob counting: http://www.cmm.mines-paristech.fr/~beucher/wtshed.html http://www.cmm.mines-paristech.fr/~beucher/wtshed.html I don’t want to diminish OP’s work since the product seems to be well-developed and respond to a real need. I guess the challenge must have been making the app robust enough to support different workloads, lighting conditions, etc. I suppose the novelty factor is seeing to what extent the technology that we as developers and engineers work on every day is often disconnected from practical application.

pokoleo 5y ago
This article is perfectly within HN's audience! • Clever way to distribute "the future" to a niche/under-served audience • MVP (likely) buildable in a week/weekend • Marketing material demonstrating success • "This could be my passive income side project" appeal to bored tech company engineers It underlines the thesis in some patio11's content: > The future is here, it's just not widely distributed yet.
- varjag 5y ago
  The thesis is originally from William Gibson.
  - wavefunction 5y ago
    Just for reference for those unfamiliar, William Gibson said "The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed"
bobthepanda 5y ago
For a non-tech company, implementing it may be easy but the hard part is getting someone around when it stops working. This saves 3 months for the pearl company, they're not paying someone full time for an implementation of computer vision counting. SaaS allows this cost to be distributed across many clients, making it accessible for businesses that can't afford to keep around a full infrastructure and the engineers required to keep it running.
varjag 5y ago
LOL you're not getting this done trivially with OpenCV. https://countthings.com/en/counting-templates https://countthings.com/en/counting-templates
- cogman10 5y ago
  Count things isn't trivial, but this specific use case (counting circles) is trivial with opencv. I've done it myself making a robot follow a ball :)
  - chrischen 5y ago
    Agree. Especially if you can control the image quality, background, etc, this can be done with less fancy methods. Heck, they probably don’t even need an image based solution. They could have also used mostly mechanical machines like how coin counters/sorters work, or used a bigger version of their old counting plate method but with detectors in each slot.
    - varjag 5y ago
      They could even make people count them by hand!
      - chrischen 5y ago
        Well no that wouldn't be fully automatic. A counting machine that just funnels the pearls through a switch is simple, automatic, non-patent encumbered, and cheap.
    - cogman10 5y ago
      Background helps a lot, but if your things are relatively the same color, it's pretty easy to just filter out anything not within that color range and look for circles, even with an inconsistent background (though, admittedly it's harder). That's effectively what I did with the ball tracking. I had a red ball and filtered out everything that wasn't roughly that shade. Certainly someone could have messed with me by wandering into frame with a red shirt :D
suifbwish 5y ago
Yet we still have humans counting pills in pharmacies
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Maybe in USA/Canada. In a lot of Europe, you’re getting sealed boxes. Often without any stickers applied. 7 day course? Here’s two boxes of 5. Do what you do with the last 3. A lot of homes are basically supermarkets of unused meds. Though there are plenty of counting machines nowadays. Here’s a primitive version from the UK: https://youtu.be/foLAXcrYxF0 https://youtu.be/foLAXcrYxF0

pokoleo 5y ago

This article is perfectly within HN's audience! • Clever way to distribute "the future" to a niche/under-served audience • MVP (likely) buildable in a week/weekend • Marketing material demonstrating success • "This could be my passive income side project" appeal to bored tech company engineers It underlines the thesis in some patio11's content: > The future is here, it's just not widely distributed yet.

varjag 5y ago
The thesis is originally from William Gibson.
- wavefunction 5y ago
  Just for reference for those unfamiliar, William Gibson said "The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed"

bobthepanda 5y ago

For a non-tech company, implementing it may be easy but the hard part is getting someone around when it stops working. This saves 3 months for the pearl company, they're not paying someone full time for an implementation of computer vision counting. SaaS allows this cost to be distributed across many clients, making it accessible for businesses that can't afford to keep around a full infrastructure and the engineers required to keep it running.

varjag 5y ago

LOL you're not getting this done trivially with OpenCV. https://countthings.com/en/counting-templates https://countthings.com/en/counting-templates

cogman10 5y ago
Count things isn't trivial, but this specific use case (counting circles) is trivial with opencv. I've done it myself making a robot follow a ball :)
- chrischen 5y ago
  Agree. Especially if you can control the image quality, background, etc, this can be done with less fancy methods. Heck, they probably don’t even need an image based solution. They could have also used mostly mechanical machines like how coin counters/sorters work, or used a bigger version of their old counting plate method but with detectors in each slot.
  - varjag 5y ago
    They could even make people count them by hand!
    - chrischen 5y ago
      Well no that wouldn't be fully automatic. A counting machine that just funnels the pearls through a switch is simple, automatic, non-patent encumbered, and cheap.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    Background helps a lot, but if your things are relatively the same color, it's pretty easy to just filter out anything not within that color range and look for circles, even with an inconsistent background (though, admittedly it's harder). That's effectively what I did with the ball tracking. I had a red ball and filtered out everything that wasn't roughly that shade. Certainly someone could have messed with me by wandering into frame with a red shirt :D

suifbwish 5y ago

Yet we still have humans counting pills in pharmacies

Scoundreller 5y ago
Maybe in USA/Canada. In a lot of Europe, you’re getting sealed boxes. Often without any stickers applied. 7 day course? Here’s two boxes of 5. Do what you do with the last 3. A lot of homes are basically supermarkets of unused meds. Though there are plenty of counting machines nowadays. Here’s a primitive version from the UK: https://youtu.be/foLAXcrYxF0 https://youtu.be/foLAXcrYxF0