With a PC to collect data acquisition (lot of point of collections) i.e: every single seet in the stadium should have point of collection to send a signal ON/OFF if the seat is occupied or not.
What's the best way to do this:
- Hardware connected to the PC
- Sensor to the seat
- Software to manage this if not API that will allow me to develop a software on this.

I am a new member, this may sound stupid, I apologize.

Thanks

 

Hi,

This could be a monster projest. I moved it over here because it seemed that the major thrust was in the programming.

You have several things to clarify. How many seats are there in the satdium? There's a big difference between 5,000 and 40,000. Have you considered the means by which the data are to get to the computer? Will it matter if you can never get a repeatable count? (due to people standing up for various reasons). What language were you planning to use for the programming? How is the data to be displayed? How are you planning to test the seat sensors to see if they are working properly?

You don't sound stupid, but you may be in over your head.

 

On a sold out footbal Saturday in Ann Arbor, U of M Stadium has nearly 110,000 fans. GO BLUE!
Sorry for shouting.

 

Hi,

And if you sample right after a touchdown, the stadium looks empty....

 

I would suggest that the easiest may be to use several cameras and get a copy of GSpy and modify it to count 'active' seats, that are seats that do not match it's recorded template of empty seats.

GSpy is a security camera monitoring program. It's very good for what it does and it should be possible to modify it for this application.
http://gspy.sourceforge.net/

A system that had a sensor in each chair would be insanely difficult to keep running. The statistical odds on a random failure could cause you to spend an inordinate amount of time repairing the system.