METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING MOVEMENT PATTERNS AT A SELF-SERVICE CHECKOUT TERMINAL

A system and method for detecting hand and item movement patterns comprising a video camera positioned to view a scene which includes therein a scanner for scanning items, wherein the video camera generates a sequence of video frames representing activity in the scene, processing means coupled to the video camera, the processing means performing steps of identifying regions of a video frame representing a hand; and tracking hand movement with respect to the scanner over a plurality of video frames. Event information descriptive of user activity at the self-service checkout terminal is generated based on the tracking information.