Any way to filter alerts based on PTZ preset?

[sorka]

I have a camera that points out to the street in an area that I don't want any AI alerts at all. That camera reverses 180 degrees pointing into my breezeway whenever one of the doors opens or motion sensor activates.

It's only during this preset that I want to detect and notify on people....or at least only notify on people. Ideally I'd have AI processing turned off except for this one particular PTZ preset so that the CPU isn't hit frequently with the stuff happening on the street.

 

[wittaj]

Not quite what you are looking for, but if this is the only external trigger to that camera, you could use the folder alert option and tell it to only show external alerts and that would show you only the ones triggered by the sensor.

 

[sorka]

Not quite what you are looking for, but if this is the only external trigger to that camera, you could use the folder alert option and tell it to only show external alerts and that would show you only the ones triggered by the sensor.

I still want all alerts shown in time timeline when facing out which is why I unchecked the "hide canceled alerts from timeline". I only want notification actions to be triggered for people when the camera is facing inward towards the breezeway.

 

[wittaj]

This has nothing to do with the uncheck hide canceled alerts from timeline - that is only relevant when using DeepStack for that particular camera, which you said you are not.

They will still show in the timeline, just the newer updates of V5 allow you to do a search by Zone, ONVIF, External, etc.

So if this PTZ only has this as the external triggers, then you go into the alerts tab and tell it to only send you alerts if the PTZ is externally triggered.

 

[sorka]

This has nothing to do with the uncheck hide canceled alerts from timeline - that is only relevant when using DeepStack for that particular camera, which you said you are not.

They will still show in the timeline, just the newer updates of V5 allow you to do a search by Zone, ONVIF, External, etc.

So if this PTZ only has this as the external triggers, then you go into the alerts tab and tell it to only send you alerts if the PTZ is externally triggered.

I never said that. I AM using deepstack for that camera but I only care about alerts for people when the camera is on a specific PTZ setpoint.

 

[wittaj]

I never said that. I AM using deepstack for that camera but I only care about alerts for people when the camera is on a specific PTZ setpoint.

My bad, I got the impression you only wanted the DS to turn on when it went to that preset.

But as I said, if this is the only external trigger to this PTZ, then in the alerts you tell it to only send an alert on an external trigger AND meets the DeepStack requirement you want.

Or there might be a way to clone the PTZ and have it inactive until that preset is selected and then it will alert on DS AI.

I haven't really thought about that option, but that is an interesting idea.

 

[sorka]

My bad, I got the impression you only wanted the DS to turn on when it went to that preset.

But as I said, if this is the only external trigger to this PTZ, then in the alerts you tell it to only send an alert on an external trigger AND meets the DeepStack requirement you want.

Or there might be a way to clone the PTZ and have it inactive until that preset is selected and then it will alert on DS AI.

I haven't really thought about that option, but that is an interesting idea.

It's Blue Iris. So often there's a solution that just doesn't seem obvious because it's hidden somewhere else. Perhaps if can be done it's part of the PTZ tab preset override and detection zones? Hmm no. Picking a different zone for a preset would allow me to completely disable motion detection and not get the alert but I still want motion detection, just not people alerts for a specific preset.

 

[sorka]

I figured it out. The AI tab can be filtered on zones. Zones can be overriden for each preset in the PTZ tab.

An example.

First configure the preset that you want the camera to return to after some amount of inactivtiy. In my case it's preset button 6 mapped to the camera's preset 50. This is using the default zone A. By default all the other zones are clear and don't activate on motion.

Next, configure preset 2 by overriding the zones in the presets tab. Clear zone A and draw zone B(in my case the entire view).

When the camera is on preset 2, only zone B will be used. When it's on 6(50), only zone A will be used.

Next configure the AI trigger filter to use only zone B.

Tested and working. The only downside is that on preset 6(50) which is using zone A, it's still using the AI module to process images even though the alert will be canceled because there's no motion in zone A. It's completely unnecessary. This could be optimized by avoiding the AI step if there's no chance of an AI detection event because the only zone it's configured for is completely empty when preset 6(50) is selected.

Note that I still have motion events recorded "Hide canceled alerts in timeline" unchecked. When that box is unchecked and I have the alert filtering to only filter on a zone that isn't active in the current preset there's no reason to run run images through DS since we won't get alerted and all events will be considered canceled no matter what.

 

[sorka]

I suggested this as an optimization and it looks like it was just deployed today in 5.5.1.11.

 

[wittaj]

WOW that is awesome! Since you have that figured out, see if you can figure out if the optimization request you put it would work for something I had posted years ago but BI wasn't there yet:

I have been playing with and trying to improve the "poor man's" auto track for a PTZ by using the "clone and zone" method. I have 10 cloned cameras and each one has a designated zone and if something enters that zone, it calls up the PTZ preset for that particular area. I may have gone a little overboard LOL and may dial some back, but the results are fairly promising.

I have seen this action zone map option and hoped it would also allow you to designate different zones for each PTZ preset (since it allows you to create Zone A through G and a hotspot for each PTZ preset) and then do object detection zone crossing for each PTZ preset, but I guess that is asking for too much?

For example, for PTZ Preset 1, I would love to use the Zones A,B, C that I can delineate in that Preset 1 and have it call it another PTZ preset to go to for zone triggering based on motion (for example, if the PTZ is at Preset 1and the object goes from A to B then PTZ preset 2 is called; if it goes from A to C, then PTZ preset 3 is called, etc.). I'd rather have it in the PTZ menu than lot's of clone cameras.

From the PTZ menu you get the menu above you posted and you can select "Override motion zones" to create Zone A through G and a hotspot for each preset, but that is it... there is no way to call out what to do about zone crossings? Shouldn't we then get the option in the PTZ settings to do this like we can in the fixed cams?

 

[sorka]

WOW that is awesome! Since you have that figured out, see if you can figure out if the optimization request you put it would work for something I had posted years ago but BI wasn't there yet:

I have been playing with and trying to improve the "poor man's" auto track for a PTZ by using the "clone and zone" method. I have 10 cloned cameras and each one has a designated zone and if something enters that zone, it calls up the PTZ preset for that particular area. I may have gone a little overboard LOL and may dial some back, but the results are fairly promising.

I have seen this action zone map option and hoped it would also allow you to designate different zones for each PTZ preset (since it allows you to create Zone A through G and a hotspot for each PTZ preset) and then do object detection zone crossing for each PTZ preset, but I guess that is asking for too much?

For example, for PTZ Preset 1, I would love to use the Zones A,B, C that I can delineate in that Preset 1 and have it call it another PTZ preset to go to for zone triggering based on motion (for example, if the PTZ is at Preset 1and the object goes from A to B then PTZ preset 2 is called; if it goes from A to C, then PTZ preset 3 is called, etc.). I'd rather have it in the PTZ menu than lot's of clone cameras.

From the PTZ menu you get the menu above you posted and you can select "Override motion zones" to create Zone A through G and a hotspot for each preset, but that is it... there is no way to call out what to do about zone crossings? Shouldn't we then get the option in the PTZ settings to do this like we can in the fixed cams?

View attachment 104873

10 clones is a lot. Does BI treat those as separate streams? Hopefully not.

What BI really needs is an action list override per preset in addition to the existing zone preset overrides. If I were going to approach this problem trying to auto track based on zones and zone crossings, I think I I would try and do this with a script. I'd still rely on the preset zone overrides and organize the zones for crossing detection(the same zones but in possibly different locations for each preset).

I'd then have an "immedate action" if you don't need deepstack object detection driving the alerts....or just in the action list in the alerts if you do. I'd pass in the variable &PRESET which is the last called preset i.e basically the preset that the camera is currently on. You could then decide what command you want to call back into BI from your script based on the preset that your on currently. You may need to do different sets of zone crossings and call different script actions based on those pairings. i.e. A->B and then filter an alter on zone B where you call your script with a "B" parameter and the $PRESET variable.

If you want to get fancy, you can also pass in the &MOTION_RECT variable as well.

Then you could dispense with having clones. Just a thought.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, this was before I got an autotrack PTZ, so I called this the poorman's autotrack and it worked surprisingly well. I have since moved that camera to the back, so now I am down to 4 clones LOL.

Fortunately the clones do not count as separate streams! There is a little overhead, but not much.

Interesting on a script, I will have to think that through and see if I can figure it out for the back PTZ

 

[sorka]

I didn't see a parameter for zone that the motion ended up in which is why I said "B" parameter. i.e. a cloned alert for each zone where you pass in a hard coded string as a parameter to identify the zone...along with the preset variable.