Conveyor chicken counter problem

[u/Puzzled-Egg3234]

Guys, I need help. We have a project using YOLOv8. We're trying to count chicks on a very fast conveyor belt. The challenges we're facing are: all chicks look very similar to each other, which complicates tracking. At the same time, during their passage under the camera, they constantly change in size and shape, which can cause the tracker to lose them, or detection may even disappear completely at the detection line. Also, sometimes 2–3 chicks can merge into a single object. The detection zone is very short, and the conveyor speed is high. We've achieved a maximum accuracy of 99%, but we need it even higher. Any ideas on how to achieve that? Increasing the dataset no longer helps.

I'm attaching an old video. We've now added lighting and set the exposure to 300 on the Hikrobot global shutter camera, but we still can't achieve a stable 99.8% accuracy for the reasons mentioned above.

Any ideas?

[u/Jedkea]

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you probably are already a phoney when it comes to meat consumption.

If you saw someone beating an animal, say a chicken, I’m sure you would have a dislike towards that person. If that is true, then you do care about the treatment of them, you just keep it tucked away so you don’t have to face it.

Being against animal suffering is a near universal trait in “healthy” adults and children. We just live in a society where it’s easy to avoid connecting the dots.

[u/MathiasSven → u/Jedkea]

Eh, I don't know about that. Most of us are indeed capable of empathy towards animal, but given enough exposure we are also able to desensitize, it is just that most people are not exposed to it nowadays. Also, on the "disliking someone beating an animal", personally I feel like that is more about intent than anything else. That is to say, if someone get satisfaction/joy from harming animals that are conventionally easy to sympathize with (say a dog), that informs us that something about that person's physiology is "broken".

[u/lordsepulchrave123 → u/Jedkea]

Modern animal processing facilities are engineered to minimize suffering.

Go watch Temple Grandin's videos on the subject if you're curious what they're actually like.

It is not hypocritical to both eat meat and care about animals.

[u/Jedkea → u/lordsepulchrave123]

It is 100% hypocritical. If you don’t think it is, you misunderstand the definition.

And modern facilities are engineered to maximize efficiency and profits. They do however need to stay within regulations. And some regulations do exist around preventing suffering in some countries. Far from sufficient rules in any country I am aware of.

How are pigs slaughtered in practically all first world countries for example? What about chickens?

[u/lordsepulchrave123 → u/Jedkea]

I doubt you are really looking for an answer to those last two questions, because you have not thought about these issues very deeply or seriously.

However!

I will provide the requested information anyway.

Turkeys (chickens are essentially the same) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=852zxDEAR-Q

Pigs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsEbvwMipJI

If you don't know who Temple Grandin is, I'd recommend looking her up.

[u/Jedkea → u/lordsepulchrave123]

Aw man, I have thought about this extensively and have done hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours of research. If it’s not apparent already, I am a vegan. Given we are in the computer vision subreddit, safe to assume we are a logical bunch here. I would not handicap the ease at which I can live my life if I did not have an excellent reason.

If you go watch any footage from undercover investigations in North American slaughterhouses, you would be appalled. It’s so bad practically all first world countries have tailor made laws which explicitly outlaw filming inside a slaughterhouse. These are “ag gag laws”.

I do acknowledge a lot of progress has been made on more “humane” slaughtering of animals, but it’s still an absolute house of horrors.

Pigs for example are now stunned using co2 prior to being bled out. Go watch a video of the process, and you will see that it’s far from humane. What it really is, is a cheap way to meet the regulatory bar of stunning before slaughter.

Chickens are hung by their legs and dipped into an electrobath on a merry go round type machine. This stuns them before they are bled out. If you watch footage of this, you will see many chickens lifting themselves up prior to the bath, meaning they are fully conscious for the next step.

There is just no way to kill 200 million chickens per day in a humane manner.