Solutions for Tomorrow: Canon's Advanced Facial Recognition and AI Technologies Powers Up Four New Solutions
Canon has always been at the forefront of innovation. With its cutting-edge solutions that enable businesses to stay ahead of the competition, Canon has earned a reputation as a leader in the technology industry.
Canon's innovative approach to problem-solving has resulted in game-changing technologies that benefit a wide range of industries. With a commitment to ongoing research and development, Canon continues to push the boundaries of what's possible and provide businesses with the tools they need to stay ahead in an ever-changing world.
Here we showcase four of the latest technologies from Canon.
Facial recognition
Facial recognition technology has become increasingly popular for person identification in a variety of fields. Unlike other biometric authentication methods, facial recognition is contactless, easy to use, and does not require additional devices.
With the advancements in deep learning, facial recognition based on deep learning has enabled a level of precision that exceeds human performance. Canon’s facial recognition technology harnesses the image analysis technologies it has cultivated through the development of digital and network cameras. It has a large-scale database and high-precision, high-speed AI deep learning architecture, which allows highly accurate facial recognition even for low-resolution images and those shot from challenging angles.
Canon's technology is capable of high-accuracy recognition, even with masks or sunglasses, and is highly rated in prestigious tests such as the Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT). We are looking forward to seeing wider use of this technology in a variety of solutions, across various applications in the near future.
Crowd counting technology
Canon’s AI-powered crowd-counting technology counts the number of people in an area instantaneously, using AI to detect and count the number of heads for a precise count of people in a crowd.
The technology was tested during an international rugby match in 2018, where it accurately counted approximately 6,000 people in a few seconds with a margin of error below 5%. Canon’s Crowd People Counter technology can be applied in a wide variety of fields, such as marketing, security, and event management. By recording the time series of the number of people entering a venue, trends in crowd flow can be analyzed and applied to marketing or to ensure optimal allocation of security personnel.
Additionally, by working with camera hardware developers, the technology can detect human heads even under low-light conditions, and support for a wide range of angles allows for cameras to be installed in a greater variety of locations.
Crack detection with AI technology
Concrete structures such as bridges and buildings can deteriorate over time, leading to tragic accidents. Therefore, inspection and repair of concrete structures are crucial for safeguarding our way of life. The traditional method of visual inspection by civil engineers is time-consuming and costly, leading the industry to look towards using cameras for image-based inspection.
Canon has developed an image-based inspection system that leverages their expertise as a camera manufacturer and image-related AI technologies to detect cracks in concrete structures. Canon’s crack detection system is trained to recognize wall surface cracks using deep learning, enabling it to accurately identify cracks without erroneously detecting dirt or joints.
Civil engineers can generate highly accurate inspection data simply by checking the detection results output, significantly reducing the number of man-hours. With a rapid increase in the proportion of infrastructure over 50 years old, there are high expectations that an image-based infrastructure inspection system could enhance work efficiency and detect issues earlier, which Canon's technology will continue to evolve to address.
Mixed Reality (MR) systems
Canon's Mixed Reality (MR) technology seamlessly integrates the real and virtual world, delivering a realistic experience when viewing objects from any angle. Using a head-mounted display (HMD), the system allows for a wide range of experiences, such as virtual trips around the world or immersion in a virtual world. The technology has various applications, from manufacturing sites to construction sites, car dealerships, and sporting events. Canon's MREAL system consists of an HMD, base software, and 3D display applications, including the MREAL Visualizer, which displays 3D data.To enhance the MR experience, Canon has developed Spatial Feature Positioning Technology that uses stationary objects to enable positional alignment, significantly reducing the work involved in setup and enabling immediate use at outdoor locations.
The system is comfortable and easy to use, with various adjustment mechanisms for a comfortable fit. The technology helps reduce the need for reworking during development and design processes, leading to new insights in manufacturing. Mixed reality is poised to be applied to more and varied use applications and Canon is ready to ride the wave of adoption with its advanced technologies in this area.
The CR-N500 and CR-N300 cameras will now be able to facilitate high-quality VR and AR video production workflows that rely on video capture information such as camera pan and tilt, thanks to their newly added support for the widely used FreeD Protocol in virtual studio software. This update allows for seamless integration into virtual production, expanding the potential applications of these cameras.
Canon's advancement in facial recognition, crowd counting, AI-powered crack detection, and Mixed Reality technologies indicates its commitment to innovation and progress. Canon’s advanced technology has the potential to revolutionize various industries, from security and surveillance to infrastructure maintenance and manufacturing. We are excited for the progress these technologies will bring.
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