TRex, a fast multi-animal tracking system with markerless identification, and 2D estimation of posture and visual fields
Abstract
Automated visual tracking of animals is rapidly becoming an indispensable tool for the study of behavior. It offers a quantitative methodology by which organisms’ sensing and decision-making can be studied in a wide range of ecological contexts. Despite this, existing solutions tend to be challenging to deploy in practice, especially when considering long and/or high-resolution video-streams. Here, we present TRex, a fast and easy-to-use solution for tracking a large number of individuals simultaneously using background-subtraction with real-time (60 Hz) tracking performance for up to approximately 256 individuals and estimates 2D visual-fields, outlines, and head/rear of bilateral animals, both in open and closed-loop contexts. Additionally, TRex offers highly accurate, deep-learning-based visual identification of up to approximately 100 unmarked individuals, where it is between 2.5 and 46.7 times faster, and requires 2–10 times less memory, than comparable software (with relative performance increasing for more organisms/longer videos) and provides interactive data-exploration within an intuitive, platform-independent graphical user-interface.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 26, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.7554/elife.64000
Entities
People
- Iain Couzin
- Tristan Walter
Organizations
- Division of Integrative Organismal Systems
- German Research Foundation
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
- Max Planck Society
- Office of Naval Research
- University of Konstanz