Once I had a sense of what I needed, I found my way to some better images recorded on a video.įor the images in video format, I used the free VLC Media Player tool to run the video and extract 300+ frames. The images were so difficult to work with that all I could really label was what constituted a “fish”! I ran the rest of this flow with just that and worked out quite a few bugs, so remember that you can start simple. The images contained a variety of locations, lighting conditions, silhouettes of children, and possible post-production modifications. I started with web scraped images of vacation photos taken at fish ladders. Don’t be dissuaded if you can’t start with ideal data there’s still plenty to learn. Whichever project you choose, you’ll need to start with data. Given how labor intensive this is, an assist from an expert tool could provide a nice boost to increase the amount of data taken, the speed at which it is available, or the number of locations where the data is recorded. Data on the number of salmon returning upstream can then be used to determine the length of the fishing season, set limits on fish per day, adjust the flow at the dam, and help us understand how well we’re doing in this balancing act.Ĭounting fish is currently performed by trained experts either as real time counts or by reviewing video recordings. Salmon ladders with viewing windows also provide us with the means to witness this migration and to collect data. Credit: Hydroelectric dams provide fish ladders (foreground) To solve this, our dams are all built with something called a ‘fish ladder.’ These constructions allow fish to jump upstream in short segments much as they would in an openly flowing river. Hydroelectric dams dot our rivers for hundreds of miles, potentially preventing the upstream migration. Salmon aren’t the only ones using the rivers though. The Pacific Northwest is home to many species of salmon whose lives follow a predictable pattern: hatch in fresh water, migrate to the ocean for the majority of their lives, and then migrate back upstream to their original fresh water hatch sites before they spawn and then die. If you have an idea and a place to grab a few images, you can use this walkthrough to help you get your own computer vision models running. This approach can be used to count other objects as well. The answer is yes, and there are enough free or open source tools available to accomplish all aspects of the task. I wanted to see if deep learning - object detection in particular - was up to the challenge of assisting with the real world problem of counting fish seen passing through a fish ladder. Living in the Pacific Northwest, the intertwined issues of salmon survival and river flow are frequently in the news, and the data we have on our salmon populations is a key piece in the conversation. She is open to new opportunities, particularly leveraging deep learning to environmental issues. The below is a guest post from Jamie Shaffer, a data scientist based in Washington state.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |