These questions are important when researchers want to analyze and understand our behavior in our daily foodscapes. They are equally important when designers want to design our supermarket or canteen in a healthier way. Thorough analysis by hand is time consuming and expensive but AAU researchers have started work on a convenient and cost effective automated alternative.
New technology that can automatically extract data on human movement now makes it possible to provide researchers with answers to these questions when, for instance they intend to design a new food choice architecture. Researchers from the Department of Media Technology at Aalborg University has for several years been working to develop software that can detect and follow the movements and automatically analyze consumer movements. It's all done through a thermal camera that measures only the heat profile of the foodscape. This exclude any problem with sensitive personal data since it is not possible to recognize individuals from this data. Another advantage of this technology is the high-resolution data.
The position of each person is detected 30 times per second with an error less than half a meter. Compared with the best available GPS equipment that has an error of a few meters. The technology is now on display during the Aalborg University exhibition at Festival of Research (Forskningens Døgn) in Shopping Mall Spinderiet in the village of Valby in Copenhagen. Researchers will be stand by with their prototype that can visualize human activity movements around the Intelligent Buffet (IB). The event takes place Friday 16-18 and Saturday 11-15 and it is arranged by AAU's Visual Analysis of People Lab, AAU-Foodscape Lab and Multi Sensory Experience Lab.