Vision detection technology for hunting

[EricTheBarberic]

Hi All,

New to this forum and will admit up front that I am not a hunter but a giant computer nerd instead. I'm wondering if there would be an useful applications for hunters with an app on their phone that can spot wild game or dangerous animals and then vibrate or make another type of alert to the hunter when the phone spots the animal(s) it's looking for. The pic below kind of shows what I'm going for. Any help greatly appreciated. I was thinking more that hunters strap the phone onto their chests or arms more so than just having the phone act as a game cameras but would be interested in game camera applications too.

Best,
Eric

 

[Gerald Martin]

OOOh boy Eric. Welcome to the forum. This is going to be a collision of two worlds so I hope you have a thick skin and can enjoy the responses.

From a hunting ethics perspective, using electronic devices to provide real time notifications is a controversial issue at best and illegal in some states. You will probable get a lot of sarcastic responses reflecting this reality.

From a practical perspective as a hunter, why not just look with your eyes? Also there are already cell phone linked game cameras that transmit an image to a phone when an animal walks by. The reaction to those devices is covered above.

 

[madtom]

 

[MThuntr]

Once again Gerald said what I was thinking just much more politely.

 

[Dsnow9]

Now if it could tell the difference in size and gender of a given animal at say 1 to 2 miles you might be onto something.... as Gerald said though, most likely illegal everywhere but Texas. Would likely be more desired in the non hunting general population though. Not many times I can imagine anyone pulling out a phone to determine the species of an animal. Running that software on a game camera and filtering out different species into different categories could be cool though.

 

[madtom]

I could potentially see it being used by tourists in Yellowstone who’ve never been outside before, but hunters are definitely not your market.

 

[Irrelevant]

Sounds like Big Game Hunter for my cell phone, can it just show a red dot above the critter instead of vibrate? That way I can "track" it down.

 

[JohnCushman]

What the holy hell?????

 

[westbranch]

Yep, probably not going to get a lot of support from hunters on this forum.
But image recognition software will likely be useful for for wildlife biology. Idaho has a couple projects going on with trail cams.
Article from Bugle on pg 7 of this PDF:

https://www.cfc.umt.edu/wbio/files/HowWeWillCountem_Bugle2018.pdf

Camera surveys provide new statewide wolf population estimate

Idaho Fish and Game has a new estimate of the statewide wolf population through its new survey method using game cameras and mathematical modeling.

idfg.idaho.gov

Game cameras provide new methods for counting and managing wildlife

An innovative approach using trail cameras to capture wildlife allows Idaho Fish and Game biologists to estimate deer and elk populations in a safer, less-invasive, and less-expensive way.

idfg.idaho.gov

 

[EricTheBarberic]

Thanks for the replies and I'm no stranger to how nice people can be on forums so don't hold back on my account.

From a practical perspective as a hunter, why not just look with your eyes?

I was thinking like you have the phone strapped on or in your chest pocket with the camera sticking out and if nothing else it'd be a second pair of eyes. It vibrates, you slide it out and show's you where the animal is. Maybe attach to a pole you periodically stick up in the air, haha, I dunno if I'm sounding totally ridiculous right now or not. It's sounding to me like experienced hunters usually don't miss whatever signs y'all are looking for but maybe it could be a training aid to new or intermediate hunters. It could also look out for droppings or tracks. How far ahead of the hunter would the phone have to spot the animal first to peak your interest or if that would never peak your interest?

Now if it could tell the difference in size and gender of a given animal at say 1 to 2 miles you might be onto something.

Can you tell me a little bit more about this and why it'd be advantageous? Would you be out on a mountainside looking around spotting what would be specks to the untrained eye? I don't know if this is doable but I've come across some other applications with vision recognition to make me think this is maybe possible. Is this the case for every hunting situation or a particular one?

Running that software on a game camera and filtering out different species into different categories could be cool though.

Now this is easy to do but sounding like hunters are gonna hate it.

tourists in Yellowstone who’ve never been outside before

I def see the application here but think I've seen a few other applications to suggest I'm late to the race for this

Sounds like Big Game Hunter for my cell phone, can it just show a red dot above the critter instead of vibrate? That way I can "track" it down.

Hahaha, yea why not? Could make it so that it sticks a picture of your favorite politician over the animal.

 

[EricTheBarberic]

Yep, probably not going to get a lot of support from hunters on this forum.

Sounding like it. Sounding like I need to get out and hunt to understand why. I get the wildlife applications but feel like I'm behind a couple thousand people already working on this and was hoping hunting might be that niche application nobody's done yet

 

[EricTheBarberic]

I've also heard that most hunting restrictions don't apply to wild pigs. "Use dynamite if you like" I was told. Is this the case and if so can anybody nudge in the right direction towards making this useful?

 

[520 Road Sow]

I can't imagine what "hunting" is going to be like in 2030 or 2040 or 2050 if this rock is still spinning. Heat seaking Drones equipped with 6.5s or .277 furys

 

[MO Betta]

Yep, probably not going to get a lot of support from hunters on this forum.
But image recognition software will likely be useful for for wildlife biology. Idaho has a couple projects going on with trail cams.

I've seen a commercial a couple hundred times about Microsoft involving AI for snow leopard studies to analyze tons of trail cam photos and filter the data to only ones it recognizes as the target species.

 

[Dsnow9]

I've also heard that most hunting restrictions don't apply to wild pigs. "Use dynamite if you like" I was told. Is this the case and if so can anybody nudge in the right direction towards making this useful?

Subs you should get in touch with the game preserve/high fence outfits in Texas. Even if it was legal we smell/hear animals at close distances often before they are visible. If you can’t Id with your eyes you shouldn’t shoot anyways. I don’t see it being applicable in a public land hunting scenario really at all

 

[MO Betta]

Running that software on a game camera and filtering out different species into different categories could be cool though.

Now this is easy to do but sounding like hunters are gonna hate it.

Don't be so sure on this one, game cameras get a lot of extra photos of animals that aren't the target (squirrels, raccoons, dogs, etc.) and random photos caused by movement. If the baked in programming was intelligent enough to eliminate those photos it would save memory space and flipping through a bunch of photos you didn't want. For the LTE enabled cameras it would eliminate getting those same photos sent to you. You'd be better suited to sell the application to game camera manufacturers than as a phone app, imo.

 

[fishing4sanity]

Now this is easy to do but sounding like hunters are gonna hate it.

I'm not sure if there's a financially feasible market for categorizing photos from a trail camera, but that's probably the best application from what you've been talking about. Trail cameras often get pics of nothing, or some people may not want the bird pics, or they may want all the wildlife pics but prefer to be able to quickly focus in on the deer, etc. Again, I have no idea if there's $ in it, but that's an application of the technology that would be acceptable to many.

While I hunt-n-peck my way across the keyboard, JeffJ explained a good option for you.

 

[EricTheBarberic]

Thank y'all for the feedback... sounding like this idea's a dud except for trail cams.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Running that software on a game camera and filtering out different species into different categories could be cool though.

Now this is easy to do but sounding like hunters are gonna hate it.

This would be awesome. I check a trail cam and have 8,777 pictures and only 112 of say deer. The other 8,000 plus are just wind blowing grass back and forth. I dont wanna scroll thru the 8000 plus wind blowing pics. I just wanna see the deer.

 

[EricTheBarberic]

This would be awesome. I check a trail cam and have 8,777 pictures and only 112 of say deer. The other 8,000 plus are just wind blowing grass back and forth. I dont wanna scroll thru the 8000 plus wind blowing pics. I just wanna see the deer.

Hmm... do you have a link or brand name for the current system you use? I'm thinking I could put out a total system to ship for $125-175 depending on a few more unknowns and a couple months of development. How's that price sounding?