Is there any point to using AI with BI?
- Thread starter cmx
- Start date
It has been an interesting ride LOL. As AI was being introduced in BI, the cameras AI was also improving.
So if you have cameras with AI and all you care about is human and vehicle detection, the AI from the cameras may be all you need.
You may find that the camera AI has got so good that doing camera AI and then BI AI is kinda overkill and adds more complexity, time delay, and potential for issues.
Whether you use the camera AI or BI motion and then send to BI AI, there are scenarios in each situation that could cause the BI AI to miss it, in particular if the camera AI was slow to react, by the time BI AI gets a snapshot, the object may be out of view. People still have plenty of BI AI that shows up as nothing detected.
Whether to use camera AI or BI AI is obviously up to you, but of course, the AI in the camera may be more than sufficient for your needs without needing BI AI. Do you need the orange box around every object? Do you want to identify animals or logos? Or is just human or vehicle sufficient.
The camera AI is useful to many people, but BI has way more motion setting granularity than the cameras, and some people need that additional detail, especially if wanting AI for more than a car or person. For folks that want AI and alerts on animals or specifically a UPS truck then they need the additional AI.
There isn't really a best practice because every field of view is different and use case and needs are different.
To many here, BI motion without AI is more than adequate for what they do.
To many here, camera AI is more than adequate for what they do.
To many here, using the BI AI adds additional functionality that the above alone can not do.
It comes down to testing with each field of view and which one gives you the most consistent results.
While some of that third party stuff is cool like tagging was it a dog or a bear, I don't need all that fancy stuff. If my camera triggers BI to tag an alert for human or vehicle and BI can accomplish what I need by way of a text or email or push or whatever, that is sufficient for my needs. I just want to be alerted if a person or vehicle is on my property and the camera AI does a fine job with that.
However, I do run BI AI on a few cameras so that it knocks out headlight shine so that the alert image includes the vehicle. The camera AI will trigger for a car, but the alert image was always just the headlights. I also run the ANPR AI module.
The true test....I have found the AI of the cameras to work even in a freakin blizzard....imagine how much the CPU/GPU would be maxing out sending all the snow pictures for analysis to CodeProject LOL. My non-AI cams in BI were triggering all night. This picture was ran through Deepstack (without the IVS or red lines on it) and it failed to recognize a person in the picture, but the camera AI did. This pic says it all and the video had the red box over it even in complete white out on the screen:
See this thread on how using just Dahua AI may be sufficient for your needs:
Who uses Dahua AI capable cameras? Reliable AI for triggering events? Pro's/con's?
But if you are happy with what you got, no sense adding more complexity and issues. About every 4 days my CodeProject wonks out, so I am not using it for mission critical alerts.
So if you have cameras with AI and all you care about is human and vehicle detection, the AI from the cameras may be all you need.
You may find that the camera AI has got so good that doing camera AI and then BI AI is kinda overkill and adds more complexity, time delay, and potential for issues.
Whether you use the camera AI or BI motion and then send to BI AI, there are scenarios in each situation that could cause the BI AI to miss it, in particular if the camera AI was slow to react, by the time BI AI gets a snapshot, the object may be out of view. People still have plenty of BI AI that shows up as nothing detected.
Whether to use camera AI or BI AI is obviously up to you, but of course, the AI in the camera may be more than sufficient for your needs without needing BI AI. Do you need the orange box around every object? Do you want to identify animals or logos? Or is just human or vehicle sufficient.
The camera AI is useful to many people, but BI has way more motion setting granularity than the cameras, and some people need that additional detail, especially if wanting AI for more than a car or person. For folks that want AI and alerts on animals or specifically a UPS truck then they need the additional AI.
There isn't really a best practice because every field of view is different and use case and needs are different.
To many here, BI motion without AI is more than adequate for what they do.
To many here, camera AI is more than adequate for what they do.
To many here, using the BI AI adds additional functionality that the above alone can not do.
It comes down to testing with each field of view and which one gives you the most consistent results.
While some of that third party stuff is cool like tagging was it a dog or a bear, I don't need all that fancy stuff. If my camera triggers BI to tag an alert for human or vehicle and BI can accomplish what I need by way of a text or email or push or whatever, that is sufficient for my needs. I just want to be alerted if a person or vehicle is on my property and the camera AI does a fine job with that.
However, I do run BI AI on a few cameras so that it knocks out headlight shine so that the alert image includes the vehicle. The camera AI will trigger for a car, but the alert image was always just the headlights. I also run the ANPR AI module.
The true test....I have found the AI of the cameras to work even in a freakin blizzard....imagine how much the CPU/GPU would be maxing out sending all the snow pictures for analysis to CodeProject LOL. My non-AI cams in BI were triggering all night. This picture was ran through Deepstack (without the IVS or red lines on it) and it failed to recognize a person in the picture, but the camera AI did. This pic says it all and the video had the red box over it even in complete white out on the screen:
See this thread on how using just Dahua AI may be sufficient for your needs:
Who uses Dahua AI capable cameras? Reliable AI for triggering events? Pro's/con's?
But if you are happy with what you got, no sense adding more complexity and issues. About every 4 days my CodeProject wonks out, so I am not using it for mission critical alerts.
Mike A.
Known around here
- May 6, 2017
- 4,170
- 6,992
Many, many less false alerts but if you don't have a problem with that now then maybe don't need. Here in the old days I fought a continual losing battle against moving tree shadows and car lights sweeping the yard that pretty much nothing else would really effectively solve. And you can do some more selective things with it, e.g., if you only want vehicle alerts for some given view, etc.
BORIStheBLADE
Getting comfortable
Yep, since you get so few false, only take on CodeProject if you are looking for a hobby LOL
IP cameras are a hobby for me, how would the AI do at night? I don't record at night since we get a lot of bugs etc so at night i get a ton of false alerts.
You could record at night but not have it alert you?
Do you have cameras with AI?
CodeProject can struggle at night depending on your field of view. Some try to do too much with one field of view and get lots of false triggers.
It can also struggle some with the B/W infrared images as most of the AI is trained on color. Doesn't mean you won't have positive success with b/w, but color is usually better %.
As always YMMV.
Do you have cameras with AI?
CodeProject can struggle at night depending on your field of view. Some try to do too much with one field of view and get lots of false triggers.
It can also struggle some with the B/W infrared images as most of the AI is trained on color. Doesn't mean you won't have positive success with b/w, but color is usually better %.
As always YMMV.
None of mine have AI and i use the wide 180 cams from empiretech they work great for wide open spaces.
I like CPAI for the 12 Dahua cams I run that were before AI came along. These cams just don't fail and if they work, I just keep them going. Granted I have upgraded some to be able to play with the latest, I'm just not as addicted to cameras like some here 
Does it, i did not know that! I have never updated the firmware maybe that is why i never did see it.
