BI Motion zone rules?

New user. I find the help file on motion zones pretty ambiguous. Would there be a decent description of the "logic" of the zone rules? I've tried searching and haven't found anything.

For example, i understand the A>B, but not really AB>C. Are there "normal" logic rules that apply like:

• (A AND B)
• (A OR B)
• (A AND NOT B)
• etc

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

As for what I'm trying to see is it possible to set up zones to avoid false trigger as much as possible, like:

• (A AND B) and NOT C

Mainly caused by car headlights at night changing the whole camera exposure so the area of motion interest "changes"...

From the manual, AB>C means the object must have been in zones A AND B before moving to C. I guess for the NOT condition you can have an area with no zone.

Geo Ya said:

New user. I find the help file on motion zones pretty ambiguous. Would there be a decent description of the "logic" of the zone rules? I've tried searching and haven't found anything.

For example, i understand the A>B, but not really AB>C. Are there "normal" logic rules that apply like:

• (A AND B)
• (A OR B)
• (A AND NOT B)
• etc

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

As for what I'm trying to see is it possible to set up zones to avoid false trigger as much as possible, like:

• (A AND B) and NOT C

Mainly caused by car headlights at night changing the whole camera exposure so the area of motion interest "changes"...

Click to expand...

A AND B by definition does not include C.
See the video tutorials linked in the wiki

Hi - Thanks for the reply - maybe my logic explanation is faulty but...

To me (A AND B) and NOT C means A AND B must be triggered, and C must not be... i.e. if C is triggered then A and B states do not matter.

So if a car is driving down the street (triggering zone C), then my real trigger zones A and B don't matter. I do realize that creates a security hole

Thanks
gny

Geo Ya said:

Hi - Thanks for the reply - maybe my logic explanation is faulty but...

To me (A AND B) and NOT C means A AND B must be triggered, and C must not be... i.e. if C is triggered then A and B states do not matter.

So if a car is driving down the street (triggering zone C), then my real trigger zones A and B don't matter. I do realize that creates a security hole

Thanks
gny

Click to expand...

no it does not work that way. You cannot select a zone that must not be triggered.

Thanks again. Bummer on that - I would think that would be useful to some.

So I'm wondering about the exact logic of AB? As in the exaple AB>C? I understand the transitional stuff I think (the > aspect) but I don't really understand the AB part in the help file explanation...

gny

Maybe the attached BI Help File will help you @Geo Ya...

Hi Q - thanks for the file. I have read that part in the help file, and the specific thing I'm wondering about is this statement:

• "more complicated movement, such as AB>C, meaning the object must have been in both A and B before moving to C."

Specifically "must have been in both A and B." Does that mean before moving onto C:

1. It was in A and it was in B, but not necessarily at the same time?
2. It was in A and it was in B simultaneously?

I'm hoping to use "AB" in the sense of #2 above. I have two horizontal zones, and I want to eliminate false triggers by requiring both zones to be triggered simultaneously i.e. pets in the lower zone only won't trigger it, and moving car lights in the upper zone won't trigger it, but people walking through are tall enough to be in both zones at once. It seems to be "kind of" working but not always so I'm not sure if it is really doing what I hoped.

Thanks
Geo

To avoid a lot of false triggers my object zone crossing rules often look like this: AB>C, CB>A, BC>D, DC>B, CD>E, ED>C
It seems both situations you list above will meet the requirements of the rule. A and B can be triggered simultaneously followed by C or they can be triggered individually in sequence.
Maybe add a third zone and create zone sizes that fit your specific needs. I don't know if it matters or not, but I purposely do not overlap zones even by one square. I do make sure each zone is adjacent (connected) to one another except in the example below:

Or you could even create two groups of zones--ABC and DEF in two different locations in your field of view--just keep each group's variables separate (don't make a rule that includes C & F together). I think you'll notice far less false triggers. Clouds and headlights will still occasionally sneak past the rules, but far less than before. Adding a lower percentage to the "Object Size Exceeds" will further reduce major lighting false triggers. So if an object size exceeds 50% of a zone, then the motion detector will reset (not fire). Remember to size the zone accordingly. If you want to detect a car entering the driveway for example and your zone isn't much bigger than the car, then you'll need to be mindful of how much of a percentage you set. If you set 50%, you'll miss the alert because the trigger was more than 50% of the zone. So size accordingly....and think of oddball situations like a huge UPS truck entering your driveway.

If you use a separate profile between day and night, consider setting up different motion zones/rules for each. Consider using vertical shaped zones vs horizontal vs oddshaped best suited for your application.

Thanks for that - much appreciated. I will give some of your suggestions a try!

You answered one of my other questions too BTW - is the Object Size Exceeds % setting only for the zone masks, or the whole scene? As per your info, it is the former, and it seems to be % per zone. Thanks again.

geo

BTW, once you get some solid zone filtering setup, you can decrease object size, contrast and maketime filtering quite a bit if it suits your situation. That way you won't miss the alert when a skinny tall person breaks both of the zones in your example above.