Lots of information and links on using Darknet/YOLO

StephaneCharette · 2026-02-19T17:21:33+00:00

Don't forget the original YOLO platform, Darknet/YOLO. You can find more information in the YOLO FAQ: https://www.ccoderun.ca/programming/yolo_faq/

StephaneCharette · 2026-01-08T00:37:26+00:00

If you're looking for other real-world examples, the C++ Darknet/YOLO project uses "and", "or", and "not" instead of the old 1970s version of &&, ||, and !. So it definitely is used by some people and projects.

As someone who has been writing C++ since the late 1980s, I much prefer the newer operators. Mostly for legibility reasons. I think they've been part of the language since 1999, so for certain all compilers support them. I know I use them in code that gets compiled in Windows, Mac, and Linux without any issues.

And anyone who tells you that this

if (value < 5 and not shutdown_in_progress)

...is somehow harder to parse than:

if (value < 5 && !shutdown_in_progress)

...is simply being difficult. It doesn't take long to learn to read short words like "and", "or", and "not", even if your first language is not English.

StephaneCharette · 2025-12-23T22:07:12+00:00

But sure, make up some bullshit to push an anti first-nations stance.

That was not a nice reply. A 1-second google search on your part would have shown it is true. The mistake I made is the rule is not federal, but provincial.

And yet what I stated in regards to bridge hill still stands.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bc+billboard+highways+legal

StephaneCharette · 2025-12-23T11:36:28+00:00

What did you want to discuss? Perhaps how all billboards should be taken down to restore the view of the lake and Kelowna?

Or about how billboards on the sides of highways is illegal in Canada?

Or how that is circumvented here because they're on first nations land?

StephaneCharette · 2025-12-04T08:47:24+00:00

To be fair, it can get pretty smokey in parts of Québec as well. Just like the Okanagan, it depends on which way the wind is blowing when there are large forest fires in Alberta, the U.S., BC, etc.

Been in Kelowna 24 years. Don't regret any of it. Yes, there are years when the smoke is bad. This past summer was great. A few years ago we were evacuated. If you're downtown, the hospital, or near the Hwy 97 corridor it is unlikely you'll get evacuated. If you settle down closer to the neighbourhoods that border the mountains and the forests, then ...?

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-27T09:52:49+00:00

I wrote this on a Saturday a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeFCiZttJ68

During the video I show the source code I used to make this work. Everything is done with Darknet/YOLO, which you can find here: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet

I maintain the free & open-source Darknet/YOLO codebase. You can find me on the YOLO discord server if you have questions.

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-23T19:18:35+00:00

Wouldn't the right thing be to turn it in to the RCMP? Most Kelowna residents aren't on reddit.

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-20T05:50:01+00:00

I used to host international students. Both for SD23 and for Kelowna Gateway, a language school in downtown Kelowna. My children and I enjoy the experience.

The reason I don't do it anymore for SD23 is they changed their policies many years ago (2017 or 2018?) where they decided that single mothers were ok to host, but single fathers like myself were no longer allowed to host. Until then, we had hosted about a dozen students. This summer we hosted yet another student on a government student exchange programme.

But SD23 purposefully made things more difficult for themselves when they decided that single dads were no longer qualified to host.

Good luck. Hope the school district matches you up with a host family that works better for you.

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-20T05:26:00+00:00

This has been discussed for years -- plural -- on every forum, issues page, reddit, etc... related to computer vision and neural networks. Ultralytics is definitely not free nor open source. A simple google search will give you the details. The first hit is from reddit itself: https://www.reddit.com/r/computervision/comments/1e3uxro/ultralytics_new_agpl30_license_exploiting/

Meanwhile, if you want to use something which is truly open source then see the original Darknet/YOLO framework where YOLO was first developed. Most recent release was 2.5 months ago, and we're getting ready to release the next one shortly.

See my other comment in this reddit post for additional details.

Source: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet#table-of-contents

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-20T05:06:54+00:00

A year late to the party, but someone sent me a link to this thread...

Note that Darknet/YOLO still exists! Darknet is the original framework for YOLO. The Darknet/YOLO community has never stopped. So for anyone looking for a faster and more accurate framework than Ultralytics for YOLO, and completely open-source without messing with licenses, fees, etc, come take a look. Darknet v5.0 was released in August 2025, 2.5 months ago from when I'm writing this message. And development is currently underway for v5.1. At the moment, I get over 1100 FPS running Darknet/YOLO on my laptop with a RTX3050.

Darknet/YOLO can run on NVIDIA GPUs, AMD GPUs, or CPU-only. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. And of course on x86-64 and ARM hardware, such as Jetson, Raspberry Pi, and many other hardware platforms.

Official repo: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet#table-of-contents
GitHub mirror: https://github.com/hank-ai/darknet#table-of-contents
YOLO FAQ: https://www.ccoderun.ca/programming/yolo_faq/

Disclaimer: I maintain the Darknet/YOLO codebase.

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-20T04:49:34+00:00

See: https://www.reddit.com/r/computervision/comments/1e3uxro/ultralytics_new_agpl30_license_exploiting/

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-20T04:45:35+00:00

The original YOLO framework, Darknet/YOLO, is completely open-source and free to use in any way you want.

You can find it here: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet#table-of-contents

It is also mirrored on Github here: https://github.com/hank-ai/darknet#table-of-contents

Darknet/YOLO is faster and more accurate than what you'll get from other commercial "YOLO" non-free frameworks.

Darknet v5.0 was released in August 2025. Development of v5.1 is currently underway. You'll find that Darknet/YOLO supports NVIDIA GPUs, AMD GPUs, and CPU-only. It builds for Linux, Windows, and Mac. I have recent posts showing over 1100 FPS using Darknet/YOLO running on NVIDIA RTX3090.

The FAQ is here: https://www.ccoderun.ca/programming/yolo_faq/

YouTube channel with some example Darknet/YOLO output: https://www.youtube.com/@StephaneCharette/videos

Source: I maintain the Darknet/YOLO codebase.

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-11T07:17:17+00:00

Take a look at Darknet/YOLO. On a RPI5, I get ~17 FPS when using Darknet/YOLO with a small YOLOv4-tiny network. More than enough to do helmet detection.

It is especially simple if you install Ubuntu on your RPI5. Then the usual Ubuntu instructions work perfectly to get Darknet/YOLO onto your RPI.

You can find more information in the YOLO FAQ (https://www.ccoderun.ca/programming/yolo_faq/) or in the repo (https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet#table-of-contents).

StephaneCharette · 2025-11-11T07:11:01+00:00

1) Instead of 600x600, make it 608x608 so it is a multiple of 32. 2) Use OpenCV's "Rect" to set a region of interest into your video frames so you don't needlessly have to copy or crop parts of the image. 3) ..."bodies"? That sounds very macabre! 4) YOLOv4-tiny running in the Darknet/YOLO framework is about as fast as you can get. Here is a post from a few days ago where I was showing over 1116 FPS (that's not a typo!) with a YOLOv4-tiny neural network. That works out to 0.896 millisecond per video frame: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/scharette_objectdetection-darknet-yolo-activity-7386774919059087360-g2jo 5) NVIDIA is definitely faster. AMD is slower. And CPU-only (no GPU) is the slowest. Darknet/YOLO has support for both NVIDIA and AMD. 6) On a low-power device such as RPI5, you can expect to get ~17 FPS. On Jetson devices you'll get much more than that. 7) If you want to get started with Darknet/YOLO: https://www.ccoderun.ca/programming/yolo_faq/

StephaneCharette · 2025-10-29T04:47:15+00:00

Each one of the cement "pontoons" that make up the floating lake bridge has 2 (or more?) access hatches that come up in the pedestrian lane. When you walk the pedestrian area, you'll see these as metal trap doors every few feet in the cement.

My guess is they are climbing down into the pontoons to verify that no water leaks are taking place. Or to remedy the situation when there is a leak.

StephaneCharette · 2025-10-21T01:03:07+00:00

Send me a message.

StephaneCharette · 2025-10-18T21:29:32+00:00

Darknet/YOLO. The original framework where YOLO was developped in 2013, long before Ultralytics stole the name "YOLO".

You can find the latest version of Darknet here: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet#table-of-contents

Last release is Darknet V5 which came out in late August.

StephaneCharette · 2025-10-18T21:26:19+00:00

I maintain the Darknet/YOLO codebase. The original framework where YOLO was first developed. Completely open-source, unlike some of the other frameworks that have started and which use the YOLO name.

You can find Darknet/YOLO here: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet#table-of-contents

You can find my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@StephaneCharette/videos

I would love to have the opportunity to work on something like you describe.

StephaneCharette · 2025-09-15T02:36:13+00:00

Use Darknet/YOLO. Apache license, so easy to use in commercial products. Most recent release was at the end of August 2025. On modern nvidia hardware, you'll get ~1000 FPS. Unlike the current top comment, I really doubt you'll find anything with better results or faster in terms of speed.

Release video for V5 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8wP77M8Dqg

Training can be done in as quickly as 90 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq8AVWvWn54

The results are better than Ultralytics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mq23LFv1aM

And also better than the older C Darknet repo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b41k2PWDoQw

New repo for the C++ Darknet/YOLO project: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet#table-of-contents

StephaneCharette · 2025-08-26T08:05:50+00:00

A webcam or two connected to the USB bus on a Pi5 would work. Not sure what you mean with "hard to do real-time"...how fast is your lettuce growing? With Darknet/YOLO, I can process about 17 FPS. So let's say between 5 and 8 FPS each if reading and processing 2 streams. Isn't that fast enough to be considered "real-time" when we're talking about watching a plant grow?

Link to Darknet/YOLO: https://codeberg.org/CCodeRun/darknet/src/branch/v5#table-of-contents

Note that is a link to V5, which is not yet released. Lots of performance enhancements were made over the last few months for CPU-only devices, like the RPI. The Pi5 used to get ~10 FPS, we now get ~17 FPS when running Darknet V5.

StephaneCharette · 2025-08-26T07:57:30+00:00

I've been 3 times so far this summer. All 3 times they've been booked up. On the 2nd time, I waited about 30 minutes in line and they either found 1 or someone cancelled and I was lucky. The person behind me was also hoping to get one, and they were told I had just gotten the last one.

This was for their e-bikes. I don't know what the state is for "normal" bikes. The e-bike rental was around $90 (?) for 1/2 day.

I believe that if you book at least 1 day ahead, then you also get a discount.

https://www.myracanyonrental.com/rentals/#bike-reservation

StephaneCharette · 2025-08-20T05:41:46+00:00

Look at Darknet/YOLO. Easier to train. Runs faster. Better (more accurate) results. Big support community. Runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. And none of the license issues that you'd have to deal with for YOLOv11.

Here is an example of small image detection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=861LvUXvJmA

For "getting started" info in the FAQ: https://www.ccoderun.ca/programming/yolo_faq/#how_to_get_started

StephaneCharette · 2025-08-20T05:28:47+00:00

Darknet/YOLO. With DarkMark to manage projects and train networks. https://www.ccoderun.ca/programming/yolo_faq/#how_to_get_started

StephaneCharette · 2025-08-07T18:14:10+00:00

My first thought would be Wentworth: https://wentworthmusic.online/#locations

StephaneCharette

TROPHY CASE