The Noldus database: Automated recognition of restaurant related activities for the restaurant of the future

Abstract

The \u92Restaurant of the Future\u92 is a futuristic approach for consumer research in food-related scenarios. Customers are closely monitored by cameras. Currently the video footage is evaluated and annotated manually. For a gradual automation of this process a video database with eating scenarios is published. The database is quite challenging with light changes, overexposure, occluded objects, and equally colored objects, such as glass, plate, skin, and cloth. Basic activities, as drinking, eating, coming in, going out, etc. are manually annotated and can be used as ground truth. A baseline system, consisting of five recognition modules and a rule-based activity recognition method is presented in this treatise. The results can be used as baseline results for comparison within the community