Deepstack confirming alerts despite zone exclusions

[ultradianguy]

Hi there - I've tried to review threads and read the BI help docs carefully, but I think I must still be missing something essential about how the various settings work.
I have a camera pointed out my driveway, where our two cars park. It also includes the road in front of our house in the view.
I'm not interested in cars driving by or people walking past the house, but I want to get alerts for cars entering/leaving our driveway and people walking on or along the driveway.

For object detection, I've set up Zone B to include only the portion of the view that is on my property - ie it excludes the road and sidewalk. I've also excluded the upper part where leaves on trees move around a lot.
Then I've set Zone C to include the road and sidewalk because someone getting out of a car would appear in that zone.
I've set the object detection to require that objects are either in Zone B, Zone B&C, or move between B and C. (Config screenshots below).

I've set the Deepstack zone to B &C - which may be part of the problem. I'm unclear on the relationship between zone checkboxes on the AI page for Deepstack vs the zone settings on the Object Detection setup screen. There are also zone checkboxes on the Alerts screen - it's not clear to me how these 3 different sets of zone choices interact with each other.

I continue to get confirmed car alerts for cars driving by, despite being clearly in zone C only and never crossing into Zone B.

I'm also unclear on how to incorporate camera-based triggers into this whole system. The trigger page has a checkbox for Camera motion alarm, but there is a separate checkbox on the Video configuration screen for ONVIF alerts. I'm not clear on why this is on Video configuration rather than the trigger or alerts tab.

Also in screen 5 below, checking Only When Triggered doesn't seem to do anything - I'm still getting yellow rectangles on every single car that drives by in the live view. Checking or unchecking that doesn't seem to change anything.

On screen 8 below (deepstack AI), it's unclear which way the logic for Detect/Ignore static objects goes - ie is a checked box "Detect" or "Ignore" ? I think the label should say either Detect or Ignore but not both.

Thanks!
Michael

 

[sebastiantombs]

Try the KISS principal. Set one zone for what you want to watch for motion and ditch everything else. Use Edge Vector for detection. If you have problems with Edge Vector, switch to Simple.

 

[ultradianguy]

Well, I want to watch both Zones B and C for motion - but Zone C only when there is also motion in Zone B.
Still not clear on the 3 different places that specify zones.

 

[cambaas]

Well, I want to watch both Zones B and C for motion - but Zone C only when there is also motion in Zone B.
Still not clear on the 3 different places that specify zones.

Same issue, still searching for a solution!

 

[ultradianguy]

I've made some progress with this - I'm hoping for some clarification from the experts. @sebastiantombs @Swampledge @wittaj would you be able to help with the following?
There are three places where one can check off different zones:
1) In the Object Detection dialog under Motion Sensors on the trigger tab - where you can set conditions like AB, B>C, etc
2) Within the AI setup dialog where there is a list of zones
3) On the Alerts tab, there is also a list of zones to check off

It's unclear to me ow these all interact. My initial assumption was that the conditions set up on the motion configuration under Triggers determined when motion would cause triggering, and those alerts would then get passed to Deepstack which would either confirm or cancel them. So I'm assuming that Deepstack only sees the alerts that passed the logic set up on the Motion zones configuration. Therefore, if my conditions are B, BC, then an alert caused by motion in Zone C ONLY would never get sent to Deepstack.

But it seems like that is not the case. Do the zones checked on the AI screen bypass the conditions set under Motion? And what about the zones checked on the Alerts page?
More generally, I'm unclear on the flow of input and subsequent processing: there are ONVIF triggers from the cameras , motion sensor triggers from BI, and potentially other sources. BI has zone set up and conditions which presumably apply only to the triggers BI generates. But it's not clear to me whether triggers from all sources go through deepstack or only some - and why deepstack has its own zone filtering. Deepstack confirms or cancels - all or some of those triggered alerts - but then what about the Alerts tab? Does that act on the output of deepstack or independently?

I've read the documentation pretty carefully but these topics are dealt with fairly generally and the issue of this interaction and interdependency is not addressed.

Thanks!
Michael

 

[ultradianguy]

Bumping this again. Folks have responded very quickly to other questions, so not sure if this one got lost, or if I asked too many questions, or people don't actually know the answers ..or something else.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I'd suggest the following.

Create two clones of the camera you're having difficulty with. Use one for motion detection for each zone only. That will eliminate any possibility of "cross" triggering. Clone cameras use very minimal additional resources.

 

[Swampledge]

I‘m just seeing this now. Not sure how I missed your request. But I think your first mistake is considering me to be an expert worthy to be included in the group of sebastiantombs and wittaj.

Give me a hour or so to finish my coffee and go feed the chickens, and then I‘ll head into my server room and send you some screenshots of how I’ve got a scenario like yours working.

 

[Swampledge]

This is the scene I'm dealing with
:


And this is the image that Deepstack analyzed when my wife returned home:


Here are the various BI settings I use:

 

[Swampledge]

Just to add some clarifications that may not be obvious:

That's our house at the top left. Our driveway enters from the highway, then tees to either the attached garage at the house or towards the building where the camera is.

If you look closely at Zone A, you'll note that it excludes parts of two trees, because under certain lighting conditions, DS was identiying them as persons.

I'm not certain that all my settings are the "right" way to do it, but this is working wonderfully for me. I never get alerts from passing traffic on the road.

I think the key is selection of only Zone A on the Alerts page.

 

[ultradianguy]

Just to add some clarifications that may not be obvious:

That's our house at the top left. Our driveway enters from the highway. the tees to either the attached garage at the house or towards the building where the camera is.

If you look closely at Zone A, you'll note that it excludes parts of two trees, because under certain lighting conditions, DS was identiying them as persons.

I'm not certain that all my settings are the "right" way to do it, but this is working wonderfully for me. I never get alerts from passing traffic on the road.

I think the key is selection of only Zone A on the Alerts page.

This is super helpful - thank you! And it also highlights what I'm trying to understand.
So on the Motion Sensor page, you've checked "Use zones and hot spot" - but on the object detection page, you haven't specified specific zones. But you have specified Zone A on the alerts tab. This is what I'm trying to understand in Blue Iris - how these work together, and what the choice of zones actually does in each place.

For instance, I'd have expected that you'd want to also check Object Crosses Zones and put "A" there - but apparently that isn't necessary. I don't understand why that's the case.

 

[Swampledge]

Yeah, I gotta admit I‘m a bit confused too. I spent a bunch of time getting this to work, but now it does. The zones that are still checked that Ikm not using are only that way because they were defaults that I did not change. BTW, at night I use a Zone B that is smaller than Zone A because of vehicle light spread, but I also don’t use DeepStack on that camera at night.

 

[sebastiantombs]

If it helps, I don't use object detection on any camera. That is a generalized detector for the entire scene. I do use the "object size exceeds" feature to reduce falses from lighting changes, clouds moving through. Sticking with motion zones only will cut false alerts significantly.

 

[Swampledge]

If it helps, I don't use object detection on any camera. That is a generalized detector for the entire scene. I do use the "object size exceeds" feature to reduce falses from lighting changes, clouds moving through. Sticking with motion zones only will cut false alerts significantly.

I think I starting using it because I wanted to turn on motion (object?) rectangles to help me understand where the triggers were coming from, and it seemed logical that I’d need object detection for object rectangles. Guess I should re-read those portions of the BI help file again, lol.

 

[ultradianguy]

I think I starting using it because I wanted to turn on motion (object?) rectangles to help me understand where the triggers were coming from, and it seemed logical that I’d need object detection for object rectangles. Guess I should re-read those portions of the BI help file again, lol.

I don't think that will help you. I've read these sections several times. These nuances are not addressed.

If it helps, I don't use object detection on any camera. That is a generalized detector for the entire scene. I do use the "object size exceeds" feature to reduce falses from lighting changes, clouds moving through. Sticking with motion zones only will cut false alerts significantly.

I don't get this - the Object Detection dialog seems to be the place where you specify the zone requirements. So if you don't use object detection, how do you use motion zones? You can define different zones but how do you tell BI which ones to use or not use? I've noticed that even when I exclude Zone A from the object detection and don't check it on the alerts tab, I still get Zone A alerts created.

 

[Swampledge]

…..I've noticed that even when I exclude Zone A from the object detection and don't check it on the alerts tab, I still get Zone A alerts created.

That‘s why I think it’s important to specify you only want alerts if you specify (check) that zone on the alerts tab. In the evening, when Blue Iris is being continually triggered by passing cars, I see the object rectangles from every passing car, but I don‘t get alerts because the motion is not in the zone I specify on the alerts tab.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here's 3000 words. This is the typical setup for motion detection that works for me -







I just noticed I need to fill in that detection zone. We had a big oak removed and I always keep the detection off of trees due to headlights at night. I also keep the detection zone off the area where the time stamp is because it can be triggered as the time changes.

 

[ultradianguy]

These are all very helpful - thank you both.

 

[doughboy]

And this is the image that Deepstack analyzed when my wife returned home:
View attachment 139212

This is the part that I am also struggling with. I have drawn out a zone (Zone A) that I has some objects I want Deepstack to ignore in the Motion Sensor settings page, but as far as I can tell, Deepstack doesn't ignore those areas. The images in my BI "Alerts" folder do not have this blacked out / masked area like yours does.

I am not using the object detection setting at all (it is unchecked), only the motion detection. I am not sure if that's relevant.

My goal is to ignore these holiday light bulbs DS is convinced are people (lower right/center stuff). The reindeer dog thing is funny here, but not the part I'm concerned about. The below is a screenshot of BI's alert preview with the "Testing & Tuning -> Analyze with AI" option enabled.



It seems like my settings are the same as other posters above, except I'm not using the object detection bit. From some other videos like those from The Hook Up on Youtube, I have been led to believe the object detection in BI isn't quite necessary given I'm delegating detection to DS and really only care about motion in order to trigger DS.





I used to have all the zones checked here (it was the default), but I recently changed it to just use Zone A (the zone that has the holiday bulbs masked out in the previous screenshot above, and the only zone I have), but that doesn't seem to make a difference.



So:

A) @Swampledge I am wondering where I'd confirm whether or not DS is really seeing the blacked out image like the one you posted & I quoted here. As far as I cant tell my DS is not seeing what yours is seeing, but I'm also new to BI and am willing to believe I am somehow mistaken?

B) Am I wrong to not use the object detection menu/settings? I don't really know about this one.

C) While I was taking these screenshots, I saw the below setting which seemed to be obviously the setting I was looking for. "Blackout masked areas". However, I came back here and saw that none of the other folks here seem to be using it, which confused me even more! haha



Thanks y'all for the help for a newbie here.

 

[doughboy]

Just to clarify, I think it's obvious that the holiday bulbs I am trying to avoid DS looking at will never move, so masking them out of motion detection seems silly. I'm just not sure how to communicate to BI (or really, to DS, probably via BI) to ignore a certain area. I'm sure I'm misunderstanding something.