Cantaloupe Systems, Inc.

Lee Tanenbaum

Michael Emmanuel Kotsos

Mandeep Singh Arora

Alex Brown

Justin Grant

Igor Schtein

Matthew Doyle

Martin Crnkovich

Fei Wang

John Tong

A method is described for the automatic determination of a planogram in a vending machine using image processing. Novel steps include the use of a Gaussian map in a two-dimensional color space, such as the HS plane, to create high-dimensionally color vectors for all and for selected portions of images. Multiple feature detection/extraction algorithms are run between multiple idealized reference images for a product and one image from one vending machine coil location. The large resulting candidate feature list is pruned in a series of steps using both color and gray-scale color vectors and small area image matching around features. Remaining candidate features are ranked by a RANSAC outlier removal step, with the top ranked product then being the correct product in that coil in the planogram. Steps are repeated for all coils in a vending machine.

Method and device of automatically determining a planogram in vending

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New York, CA, United States of America

Lee Tanenbaum