R&D key to business growth

Reveal’s pedestrian counting monitoring systems linking video imaging to point-of-sale data can now be found in stores, shopping malls and casinos around the world.

Back in December 1999, Innovate ran a front page story about Reveal, the first company in the world to come up with a pedestrian counting system for shopping centres and casinos which also supplied retailers with the information they needed to help turn window-shoppers into buyers.

Rather than being a simple pedestrian numbers system that counted people as they broke a laser beam, the Reveal approach used new video-imaging technology, driven by software originally prototyped by the IRL computer vision team, to produce a much more comprehensive range of information.

The system told retailers where and how their customers were moving around the store and, when linked by software developed by Reveal to point-ofsale information, could indicate the percentage of customers that were actually buying. That information could then be used by the retailer to improve their store layout and design to encourage sales, as well as roster staff to match the peaks and troughs in their business.
 
Now, ten years on and with further development of its retail analysis software, Reveal’s system can be found in stores, shopping malls and casinos not only in Australia and New Zealand but also in Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East.

In that time the company has grown from three staff to 14 within New Zealand; it now has distributors throughout the world, and its revenue has increased by over three thousand percent. The latest installation of a multi-million-dollar system in Macau’s vast Venetian hotel, casino and convention centre is testament to the ongoing international success of the technology.
 
Reveal’s Managing Director, David Corrick says the funding from the Foundation of Research, Science and Technology’s TBG (Technology for Business Growth) scheme helped the company develop the system into a world-leading product.

“The TBG funding meant we could approach IRL to do a feasibility study to see if we could overcome the problems that we’d seen with other systems internationally. IRL’s computer vision scientists developed the first working prototype, which we then went on to commercialise.”

The computer vision technology has evolved from its early beginnings in simple counting to a sophisticated behavioural-based system with the focus not on people numbers, says David Corrick, but on their movements.

“Our system provides retailers with information they can use to ensure their customers are getting the best possible service – and it is well known that good service translates into good sales. Many large format retail stores have a need for an on-the-floor sales manager or sales coach – a kind of “Mr Peacock” – but this role seldom exists. We have produced our concept of a real-time “electronic sales coach”, he says.

“The key focus here is to provide instant feedback and encouragement for excellent performance ensuring that successful people receive recognition. At the same time it also highlights underachievement and provides motivation to improve.”

Chris Bowman, manager of IRL’s Imaging and Sensing Platform (now Imaging and Detecting) at the time, recalls that it was a challenging project but one that in the end produced a very successful result.

“We implemented a system based on overhead cameras looking at the entrances to shopping malls,casinos and individual shops. We bought the hardware off the shelf but the challenge was to develop the computer vision algorithms that would ensure the system could identify moving objects, track them over successive camera shots, and count them.”

David Corrick is quick to emphasise that traffic counting, however, whilst a core component of the business, is only part of the rich information environment that they are providing to their customers.

“After IRL’s initial research, we went on to become the first to integrate traffic data with financial data, essentially by bringing in sales and retail data,and property management data in shopping malls and so on – and often meaning a more than 50% increase in profits for retailers,” he says.

“As far as we know, no-one else in the world has produced such a sophisticated system. Business growth has got to the point where customers are coming to us rather than us having to go to them. We are working with customers who have a key focus on customer service and being at the top of their game, and we’re seeing huge growth worldwide – it’s very exciting.”