BoobieCam Planned Installation

[CanCuba]

Instead of continuing to hijack another thread, I'll post what I want to accomplish with pictures of the planned installation and the zones I need covered. We will be using the 2x 4MP BoobieCam.

Here's what I want to accomplish:

To have a clear view of both my front door and the gate from the street. The purpose is to be able to capture the faces of every person who exits the house or approaches the house via the walkway. The camera's built in face detection will be used to capture the faces. No other areas are required to be covered by this camera as the front of the house has a total 4 cameras not including the to-be-installed BoobieCam.

Location:

In between the front door and the gate, there is a straight walkway approximately 9.5m (31 feet). There are 5 steps 4m (13 ft) before the door and the camera would be located approximately 2.2m (7.2 feet) above the top step on a column. The view from the front door is southwest. The 4m between the camera and the front door is covered. The height of the ceiling is 5m (15 feet).

The covered area is well-lit with a 12W LED (100W equivalent) bulb hanging overhead. The bulb has a sensor so it comes on at dusk and turns off just after dawn. The uncovered area is lit by both a 60W LED (600W equivalent) and 120W (1000W equivalent) reflectors mounted on the front of the house. The both zones I want to cover are well lit and the camera should never go in IR save for a power outage.

Coverage areas:

The blue squares are the areas that need to be covered for facial detection. Anything more than these areas would be a bonus, but not required. These pictures were taken from the exact planned mounting position shown later.






Planned placement:

The red square at the top of the picture is the current camera in a less than ideal location. The BoobieCam will be replacing this camera. The blue dot is the planned installation location. On the column about 2.3m (7 feet) above the floor of the covered section.



Notice the base of the column (painted white). That lines up exactly with the opening for the door. I will mount the camera directly on the wall with a waterproof junction box above it for the connection.

Focal length:

Since the camera comes with either 2.8mm or 3.6mm lenses, I will be going with the 3.6mm lenses initially. I have a couple 2.8mm lenses that I swapped out of other cameras (matching M12 mount). But I ran some calculations with this calculator.

For the door zone, I set the target height at 2.3m, distance to target at 4m, 1/2.7" sensor, 4MP (2560x1440) and installation height at 2.3m.

I could easily put a 6mm lens on the sensor covering the door. This would give me 725ppm (pixels per meter) which is more almost triple what the calculator's DORI shows for identification (250ppm). The entire width of the door (1.35) would be covered plus a lot more (calculator shows 3.5m).

This would be getting great face captures which is the primary/sole purpose of this installation.

Regarding the gate zone, I have to account for the extra height of the steps (1m). So target height of 2.3m, distance to target at 5.5m, 1/2.7" sensor, 4MP (2560x1440) and installation height of 3.3m.

Here's a 8mm lens would give us just under 600ppm. A bit less than the door zone with 725ppm with a 6mm lens but still more than double to 250ppm for identification. The issue going any longer than 8mm for the gate is there's an issue with the vertical angle. But the 8mm lens gives us floor to 2.3m coverage vertically and 3.8m horizontally. This is almost double the 2m width of the gate.

I have excellent coverage of everything within 15m (50 feet) of the perimeter of the property. This camera is just for face captures of persons exiting the door and people coming into the walkway off the street. Fortunately, the walkway provides the perfect opportunity to "corral" people and force a face capture.

There is another camera (not pictured) above the door. I'm planning on lowering to about 1.25m (4 feet) off the floor and disguising it as something else. This would get me faces even of those wearing a hat and looking down.

Summary:

Even the stock 3.6mm lenses work but going to 6mm and 8mm for the door and gate coverage areas, respectively, would give me the ideal coverage and video/pic quality for face captures. I'm not interested in the wall opposite the camera.

My AirBNB at this location will be opening in a month or so and I want/need to know exactly who is coming and going. We are very proactive in dealing with security in general. I find face detection (running FD currently on two cameras) has been very useful in knowing who is passing by the property and when.

All input is greatly appreciated. But I believe I'm on the right track.

 

[carteriii]

I offer one consideration based on what you showed. It appears you could (if you wanted) just as easily put the camera on the wall opposite the column. Might that be a better position? You might consider it for 3 potential reasons.

1.) There would appear to be more of interest to see to the left of the front door, and to the right of the gate, which would be more visible if the camera was mounted on the opposite wall.

2.) Is there is other lighting during the day or evening that could impact the best exposure for faces, making it better or worse (e.g. direct sunlight on the lens, or too much light reflected off the wall)?

3.) Perhaps the most important consideration would be potential rain on the lens covers, which seriously distort/destroy the image on these cameras. If one location is more susceptible to rain (e.g. wind more often comes from one direction or another) I would try to avoid that (or consider something else to shield the camera from the rain) since water on these lens covers will kill the image until it dries.

I like all the rest of your logic.

 

[CanCuba]

I offer one consideration based on what you showed. It appears you could (if you wanted) just as easily put the camera on the wall opposite the column. Might that be a better position? You might consider it for 3 potential reasons.

1) There would appear to be more of interest to see to the left of the front door, and to the right of the gate, which would be more visible if the camera was mounted on the opposite wall.

2) Is there is other lighting during the day or evening that could impact the best exposure for faces, making it better or worse (e.g. direct sunlight on the lens, or too much light reflected off the wall)?

3) Perhaps the most important consideration would be potential rain on the lens covers, which seriously distort/destroy the image on these cameras. If one location is more susceptible to rain (e.g. wind more often comes from one direction or another) I would try to avoid that (or consider something else to shield the camera from the rain) since water on these lens covers will kill the image until it dries.

I like all the rest of your logic.

Thank you for your input. Great points which I didn't cover in my initial post.

1) Yes, there's a lot more going on on the opposite side of the column. Currently, everything is covered with other cameras. But this brings us to point 2.

2) I chose the column over the wall because of sunlight. The wall gets a lot of direct sunlight from about noon to dusk as the sun sets in the west. Yeah, I can see how having the camera on the wall gives better overall coverage but the sun on those domes would wreak havoc on the image quality.

On the column, the camera will get some direct sunlight.

3) This is about my only concern: rain on the lens. The camera would just be under the covered section but would still get some rain blown in with the wind.

The wind normally comes from the open side of the walkway so mounting to the inside of the column provides the best location, IMO.

I like your idea of a rain cover. If the lenses are zoomed in so much, the umbrella shouldn't even appear in the FOV.

Worst case scenario is the umbrella is visible in the FOV but out of the desired coverage areas. Not a huge deal. And this may also help mitigate some of the sunlight which may hit the camera during late-morning and noon.

Thanks again for your feedback. I think we covered all the bases but I'd love to hear from more people.

 

[CanCuba]

I offer one consideration based on what you showed. It appears you could (if you wanted) just as easily put the camera on the wall opposite the column. Might that be a better position? You might consider it for 3 potential reasons.

1.) There would appear to be more of interest to see to the left of the front door, and to the right of the gate, which would be more visible if the camera was mounted on the opposite wall.

2.) Is there is other lighting during the day or evening that could impact the best exposure for faces, making it better or worse (e.g. direct sunlight on the lens, or too much light reflected off the wall)?

3.) Perhaps the most important consideration would be potential rain on the lens covers, which seriously distort/destroy the image on these cameras. If one location is more susceptible to rain (e.g. wind more often comes from one direction or another) I would try to avoid that (or consider something else to shield the camera from the rain) since water on these lens covers will kill the image until it dries.

I like all the rest of your logic.

Did some quick snaps of the other cameras to show the coverage of the front of the house.

Camera 1 (Color4K/X):



In the upper left, cameras 2 and 12 (PTZ) can be seen. The black device is an IR illuminator.

Camera 2 (IPC-HFW2431S):



Camera 12 (SD1404XB):



The spotter cams point the PTZ at anyone entering or leaving the alleyway. I'm not too worried about needing more coverage behind the column lol

I also found that Dahua makes a rain cover. Never seen it advertised outside of AliExpress or European websites. But it looks like it would work with the BoobieCam despite it not being listed on the Accessories tab on the Dahua website.

For $200, the BoobieCam is a great deal, IMO. My requirements would mean I could run it at 10fps, or even 5fps, and get all the information that I want.

 

[carteriii]

FYI, earlier in that other thread you'll see pictures & comments of mind that the metal mount of the cover has to cut/drilled/Dremel'ed to work. I believe this link should take you to my post with the 2nd picture that shows where I made cuts, and two messages above is a picture I shared showing why it doesn't work "out of the box". I did it, so it can be done, and I'm happy with the rain cover itself, but the metal of the mounting plate is thick so it takes a lot more effort than cutting through thin aluminum.

 

[looney2ns]

Plan looks good @CanCuba

 

[CanCuba]

FYI, earlier in that other thread you'll see pictures & comments of mind that the metal mount of the cover has to cut/drilled/Dremel'ed to work. I believe this link should take you to my post with the 2nd picture that shows where I made cuts, and two messages above is a picture I shared showing why it doesn't work "out of the box". I did it, so it can be done, and I'm happy with the rain cover itself, but the metal of the mounting plate is thick so it takes a lot more effort than cutting through thin aluminum.

Yes, I saw that and it looks a bit onerous to do but does work, like you say.

Thanks so much for the help and direction! I'll keep you updated!