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| language: |
| - en |
| base_model: |
| - Ultralytics/YOLOv8 |
| pipeline_tag: object-detection |
| --- |
| |
| W.A.L.D.O. |
| Whereabouts Ascertainment for Low-lying Detectable Objects |
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| [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y5y9yklj2U) |
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| Welcome to the WALDO v3.0 public release |
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| WHAT IS WALDO? |
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| WALDO is a detection AI model, based on a large YOLO-v8 backbone and my own |
| synthetic data pipeline. **The model is capable of detecting these classes |
| of items in overhead imagery ranging in altitude from about 30 feet to |
| satellite imagery!** |
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| Output classes: |
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| 0 -> 'LightVehicle' --> all kinds of civilan cars, including pickup trucks, vans etc... 🚗🏎️🚓🚐🚑 </br> |
| 1 -> 'Person' --> people! all kinds of people including ones that are on bikes or swimming in the sea 🧍♀️🕺💃🧜🏽♀️🏂🧞</br> |
| 2 -> 'Building' --> all kinds of buildings 🕌🏛️🏭🏡</br> |
| 3 -> 'UPole' --> utility poles, power poles, anything thin and sticking up that you should avoid with a drone 🎏</br> |
| 4 -> 'Boat' --> boats, ships, canoes, kayaks, surf boards... all the floaty stuff 🚢🏄</br> |
| 5 -> 'Bike' --> bikes, mopeds, motorbikes, all stuff with 2 wheels 🚲</br> |
| 6 -> 'Container' --> shipping containers, including on the back of an articulated truck... 📦🏗️</br> |
| 7 -> 'Truck' --> large commercial vehicles including articulated trucks or big box-on-chassis delivery trucks 🚚</br> |
| 8 -> 'Gastank'--> cylindrical tanks such as butane tanks and gas expansion tanks, or grain silos... pretty much anything that looks cylindrical for storing liquids 🫙</br> |
| 10 -> 'Digger' --> all kinds of construction vehicles, including tractors and construction gear 🚜</br> |
| 11 -> 'Solarpanels' --> solar panels ▪️🌞▪️</br> |
| 12 -> 'Bus' --> a bus 🚌</br> |
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| --> In general the lower the class number the better-trained you can expect it to be. |
| For users of previous versions of WALDO: note that I removed the military class and smoke detection. This is meant to be a FOSS tool for civilian use and I don't want to pursue making it work for military applications. |
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| WHERE IS WALDO? |
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| Right here on HF! |
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| Example of P2 model boost over regular models: |
| [] |
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| Modes are somewhat-modified MIT license and you can freely use and share them. |
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| WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? |
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| People are currently using versions of WALDO for: |
| 1. disaster recovery |
| 2. monitoring wildlife sanctuaries (intruder detection) |
| 3. occupancy calculation (parking lots etc..) |
| 4. monitoring infrastructure |
| 5. construction site monitoring |
| 6. traffic flow management |
| 7. crowd counting |
| 8. some fun AI art applications! |
| 9. drone safety (avoiding people / cars on the ground) |
| 10. lots of other fun stuff... |
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| The main reason for me to make WALDO free has in fact been discovering all these cool applications. Let me know what you build! |
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| FOR AI NERDS ! |
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| It's a set of YOLOv8 model, trained on my own datasets of synthetic and "augmented" / semi-synthetic data. |
| I'm not going to release the dataset for the time being. |
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| The weights are completely open, allowing you to deploy in any number of ways this time! |
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| HOW CAN I START WITH WALDO? |
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| Check out the boilerplate code in the repo to run the models and output pretty detections using the wonderful Supervision annotation library from Roboflow :) |
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| GOING DEEPER |
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| Of course if you know your way around deploying AI models there is a lot more you do |
| with this release, inclusing: |
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| 1. fine-tuning the models on your own data (if you know what you are doing, this is probably your starting point) |
| 2. building a nicely optimized sliding-window inference setup that works nicely on your edge hardware |
| 3. quantizing the models for super-duper edge performance on cheap devices |
| 4. using the models to annotate your own data and train something of your own! |
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| Enjoy! |
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| PREVIOUS VERSIONS |
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| I am retiring the old versions, this is the only one that will stay online. |
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| CAN YOU HELP ME WITH X? |
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| Sure, email me at stephan.sturges@gmail.com |
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| DETECTION OF X ISN'T WORKING AS EXPECTED: |
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| I'd love to see example images, videos, sample data, etc at: |
| stephan.sturges@gmail.com |
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| SUPPORT WALDO! |
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| Visit [] to support the project! |
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| LICENSE |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| Unless otherwise specified all code in this release is published with the |
| licence conditions below. |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| modified MIT License |
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| Copyright (c) 2026 Stephan Sturges / Aircortex.com |
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| Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy |
| of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal |
| in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights |
| to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell |
| copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is |
| furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: |
|
|
| The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all |
| copies or substantial portions of the Software. |
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| The software cannot be used commercially by individuals or companies active |
| in defense or the production of military systems or equipment without prior |
| written agreement. |
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| THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR |
| IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, |
| FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE |
| AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER |
| LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, |
| OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE |
| SOFTWARE. |
