- From NFGworld! http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/1009-Measuring-a-crowd Thu, 20 Jun 2013 18:22:53 GMT FeedCreator 1.8.0-dev (info@mypapit.net) Measuring a crowd (In Egypt and elsewhere) http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/1009-Measuring-a-crowd
1. get a photo, the higher the better
2. take a sample of the density.  Basicaly, count heads for a small area of the photo.
3. extrapolate: how many similarly sized areas are there here? multiply the number of sample spaces by the count of the sample.  Presto, a rough estimate of the crowd size.

Wired's Dangerroom discusses the science and basically agrees with me, but they add one step I never considered, and come up with a maximum value for a given space.

Basically, a person comfortably takes 5 square feet of space, and can be packed into half that space if they really really need to.  I imagine Brisbane's Southbank during RiverFire, and I can see 2.5 square feet as quite a luxury.  ;)

Anyway, that's the science of it: Count, extrapolate, and crush the bastards with hard facts using Google satellite views.  I knew most of that already, did you? ]]> no_email@example.com (NFGworld.com - NFG) Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:10:31 GMT http://nfgworld.com/mb/1009#3326