Canon, in partnership with Discovery Reply, announces a Business Imaging Intelligence solution

4 June 2014

Canon, the world leader in the imaging sector, has announced — in conjunction with Discovery Reply, a division of the Reply Group that is specialised in Digital Asset Management — a new solution aimed at revolutionising the way we monitor environments, particularly in department stores and retail outlets.

Thanks to their experience in video surveillance and high definition network cameras, today Canon offers a unique opportunity to analyse high density traffic areas, such as schools, businesses, airports, churches, stadiums, hospitals, banks, and shopping centres, as well as to enhance security and study consumer behaviour.

The new Business Imaging Intelligence solution gathers quantitative and qualitative data from numerous applications, which is especially useful in large scale retail trade. The system is, in fact, capable of estimating the number of people in a given public or commercial area (by monitoring all of the entryways) and of calculating crowding in a certain area — a department, a window display, a shelf — also indicating the amount of time clients remain there.

“The Business Imaging Intelligence video analysis system produces exclusively statistical data: in order to fully protect privacy, no images are stored”, said Massimiliano Ceravolo, the Professional Imaging Director of Canon Italia. “The statistics generated can help us understand the most "beaten" paths and examine the effectiveness of display points, so as to develop new merchandising strategies. Additionally, by using a map of the "hot" and "cold" areas — that is, the areas with the highest or lowest densities during a given interval of time — we can systematically analyse the crowd levels of a specific area, thereby optimising resources (personal, electrical, air-conditioning, etc.) devoted to a single department".

Ceravolo further stated that "the ability to estimate crowds in virtual areas and signage — in any area — at entry points is also important in terms of safety. For example, the immediate registry in Canon's Business Imaging Intelligence system of irregular or sudden movement, either involving a single individual or a group of people, can alert you to potentially dangerous situations and allow for timely and decisive reactions".

According to Gaetano Torrisi, a Discovery Reply Partner, "through a customisable dashboard that can be integrated into business systems, the application gathers all of the data on the behaviour of people in a given virtual area and makes this information available by providing valuable analyses for market strategy purposes. The solution is the result of integrating the most advanced real time video flow analysis techniques and methodologies, and a Cloud version will soon be available as well".