Tracking now is not a problem! Get the AnTS tracking system for free

AnTS stands for Analysis and Tracking System, and it is a tool that I developed in the past for my PhD.  When I started, 8 years ago, I needed a very versatile tool that would allow me to track the behavior of small and fast insects, and also of different types of robots. At that time - and I believe that applies still today - there were no (FREE) out of the box systems that could be used for that. This is why I developed AnTS.

During the last years, this piece of software has grown and I developed a Graphic User Interface (GUI) for it and became more intuitive and easy to use. I have used it to track insects, robots, rodents, and even humans in a variety of EU projects and multimedia interactive installations (check this page). At some point I brought it to the point that was commercialized and licensed by a company. After 3 years of it being in the market I have concluded that it would be best to post it on the web and offer it for free to the community. The reasons are simple: I have no time/patience to provide full costumer support; and I have focussed my research interests towards interactive and motor rehabilitation technologies. Whereas there is plenty of possibilities to use AnTS in interactive installations, I'm not planning to be tracking mice or ants any longer in the near future. Thus, I'm not having an enormous interest in pushing it further, but if I see people are using it and request new features I will try to maintain it.

AnTS is quite simple to use. It runs on linux using Qt3 (yes, still using version 3...) and Intel's opencv library. It can process a live video stream or read from a vide file (at the moment only MPEG files, if there is demand for it I can upgrade it to work with more standard file formats). The main concept behind it is that you just add a number of filters that will sequentially process the video stream, and the tracking process is performed on the resulting filtered images. This makes it extremely versatile and programming free, which I believe is a plus. You can change filters and parameters in real time, so you can play with the system and then save your configuration once it is tuned for your purposes. The detection of objects can be done automatically or manually by clicking with the right mouse button on your moving target. AnTS also allows for color tracking, and in fact, a modified version of it is the one powering the Rehabilitation Gaming System as shown in the picture.
In addition it performs a quite intuitive perspective correction, and a brute but effective lens distortion correction. One of the most interesting bits of AnTS is that it does not save files, it just sends the data over the network wherever you want using a UDP connection. The good thing about it is that you can connect it very easily to LabView, Matlab, SimuLink or whatever your preferred tool is. The best thing is that you can basically define - within the GUI - the protocol to be used when you send your data.

At the moment I'm distributing the RPM of it together with an opencv rpm, that will be required if you do not have opencv installed in your computer. Please, be aware that for the moment I'm distributing this as a proprietary software, no source code for you to edit yet. Once you install it, you will find the icon in the menu under Science & Math or a similar label. If it does not show up, you can always run it from a terminal by typing 'AnTS'. With AnTS comes a manual in pdf (developed for and with g.tec GmbH) that you can access from the help section. 

Although the time I have to invest in AnTS is limited, I'm happy to receive feedback, comments and suggestions for future releases.

------------- Updated on the 02/08/2012 -------------

Given that the development on AnTS is more active than I expected, files, upgrades, etc are from now on posted in a separate page: http://sergibermudez.blogspot.pt/p/ants-downloads.html