Major problem w/sensing large objects

[MikeyOnline]

I set up a new telephoto camera that looks like the attached. When a smaller object like a person walking, motorcycle, lawn tractor, or bicycle passes by, an alert is triggered as expected. The problem I'm having is that when a larger object like an SUV, panel truck, UPS truck, or FedEx truck passes by, nothing is triggered. I can sit and watch the vehicle go right through the frame and nothing is triggered so I know it's not frame-loss. I've tried everything I can think of including turning object detection off completely, NOT checking cancel shadows, setting object size both larger and smaller and contrast both higher and lower. I even split left to right into 4 zones and tried that. Nothing fixes it. BTW I have a hot spot area set up too, covering about the lower 1/3 of the image (where the road is). Even with that hot spot, it's not triggering on most vehicles. Larger vehicles which take up most of the frame go left to right or right to left and never trigger anything. In addition, this camera is running 10 FPS and at this distance, the vehicles take about 10 frames to get from one side to the other so it's not like it doesn't have enough frames. It "feels" like it's just ignoring motion if the object is large and sweeps the frame. How can I fix this? I'm using this camera as license plate detection. It'd work great... IF I could get BI to behave and actually trigger. Crazy that it'll catch a motorcycle or bicycle the instant it goes into the frame but not a vehicle. Oh, one thing I forgot... I set the make time to zero as well.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[bp2008]

If you have object detection enabled, turn that off. Also shorten the "MAKE time" to a fraction of a second if you did not already.

 

[pozzello]

Mikey, I've noticed the same thing with my zoomed-in huisun/imporx v2 license-plate cam.

Vehicles that fill significant portion of the entire frame don't trigger BI's motion detection.

I've also tried 'object detection' on/off, and have my make time set to 0.1 sec.
running 10 FPS, with iframe interval at 10, max bitrate on the cam,
direct-to-disk on BI, 10MB buffer and 22 frame pre-trigger...

 

[MikeyOnline]

Thanks. At least I know it's not just me. I already have object detection off and I've tried 0.1 make time and right now have it set to 0.0 make time. Nothing works. Smaller cars, bikes, motorcycles, all trigger but larger vehicles like SUV's, minivans, and panel trucks that tend to sweep the entire frame left to right or right to left just won't set it off. I can sit there and watch a motorcycle set it off and then see an SUV going the same speed roll through minutes later with no alert. Leaves me scratching my head thinking "Wow, that's a massive change frame to frame... but no alert?"

Mike

 

[pozzello]

oh, forgot to mention it seems more likely to miss motion going from left-to-right (cars moving from closer to further in my angled setup)
than coming from right-to-left (cars coming more towards the camera). you?

perhaps the decreasing size of the 'thing' as it moves across is contributing to 'missing' the action?

 

[MikeyOnline]

oh, forgot to mention it seems more likely to miss motion going from left-to-right (cars moving from closer to further in my angled setup)
than coming from right-to-left (cars coming more towards the camera). you?

perhaps the decreasing size of the 'thing' as it moves across is contributing to 'missing' the action?

I thought something similar at first, although mine seemed to be the reverse of yours: same direction but left to right would be farther to closer for me. But as I watched more, it seemed missed triggers were almost as likely from either direction. A UPS or FedEx truck is actually larger than the entire frame so with either of those, it just appears as a full frame "swipe" from side to side: no object size change, just one huge "shutter" swipe from left-right or right-left. With a 10 FPS frame rate, any part of the vehicle only moves about 1/4 of the way across so it's not like it's just an on/off "flash". There's definite movement and a LOT of change frame to frame but still no trigger.

Let me ask you this. Have you tried it with object detection completely off and also "Cancel Shadows" NOT checked? I've been through so many combinations I can't remember what combos I've tried but I'm having better luck now with object detection turned off and Cancel Shadows not checked. So far, the last 4 vehicles (and one was another white FedEx truck) have triggered it with that setup. Maybe there's a bug in the "Cancel Shadows" where it thinks a full frame sweep is a cloud even though it's clearly not just a brightness change (there's a color change too with the green grass and other things being obscured).

I'm going to keep an eye on this particular setup and will report back. 4 successful triggers in a row could just be a fluke, so I'll keep monitoring it. Not sure yet.

Mike

 

[MikeyOnline]

Sorry... one more thing. Been at this for almost a full day so I forgot that I also removed my hot spot zone. So the setup that, so far, seems to be working for me is:

- Object detection off
- Cancel Shadows not checked
- NO hot spot zone

Come to think of it, I think it actually started working when I removed the hot spot zone. Go figure.

Mike

 

[pozzello]

i'll play with it this evening (no access to make these changes atm). i don't have a hot spot on this cam.

 

[MikeyOnline]

Turns out the issue goes deeper than I thought. I was able to solve the full-frame-sweep problem by turning off all object and shadow detection but now I'm having problems with picking up taillights and headlights going through the frame at night. I have the camera set so that you can see the shape of the taillights and sometimes an illuminated plate but they pass either left to right or right to left on an otherwise almost-black screen. I have all object detection and shadow detection turned off, the object size at the minimum, and the contrast at minimum, yet when headlights sweep left to right, nothing is triggered. Same with taillights going right to left. If you watch the live feed in BI, you can easily see the bright lights moving across the frame but they never trigger anything. Even more odd, it'll trigger when a car moves laterally across the frame from a driveway in the distance with even smaller headlights and taillights but the bigger (and brighter) ones closer to the camera don't trigger it.

I've come to the conclusion that motion detection is just unreliable in 4.0.3.7.

Mike

 

[ruppmeister]

Turns out the issue goes deeper than I thought. I was able to solve the full-frame-sweep problem by turning off all object and shadow detection but now I'm having problems with picking up taillights and headlights going through the frame at night. I have the camera set so that you can see the shape of the taillights and sometimes an illuminated plate but they pass either left to right or right to left on an otherwise almost-black screen. I have all object detection and shadow detection turned off, the object size at the minimum, and the contrast at minimum, yet when headlights sweep left to right, nothing is triggered. Same with taillights going right to left. If you watch the live feed in BI, you can easily see the bright lights moving across the frame but they never trigger anything. Even more odd, it'll trigger when a car moves laterally across the frame from a driveway in the distance with even smaller headlights and taillights but the bigger (and brighter) ones closer to the camera don't trigger it.

I've come to the conclusion that motion detection is just unreliable in 4.0.3.7.

Mike

Try setting your server to record 24/7 during the night when you want to test things. Then you can run the motion detection algorithm against the clip during playback to see if BI is picking up on motion. You can also just turn on the motion highlighting and box to see if BI thinks anything of your motion during the night.

 

[MikeyOnline]

Try setting your server to record 24/7 during the night when you want to test things. Then you can run the motion detection algorithm against the clip during playback to see if BI is picking up on motion. You can also just turn on the motion highlighting and box to see if BI thinks anything of your motion during the night.

Thanks for the suggestion: I had not tried that feature! I do have some clips where I was triggering the camera as a group based on another camera and I caught some taillights in that clip. No alert though. And when I run it with the test run enabled, I don't see any motion indicated. I've attached a frame in the middle of the clip: these taillights went from right to left over a sequence of 9 frames. Don't know why it wouldn't catch that, but it didn't with all object detection off and both sensitivities all the way to the left (100/12) - most sensitive.

Mike

 

[MikeyOnline]

Yet it DID catch these set of headlights gong from left to right last night. And they're even smaller.

I don't get it.

P.S. Forgot to mention: make time is 0.0. I tried it at 0.1 too. So it's not like it isn't in the frame long enough (unless make time isn't working).

Mike

 

[pozzello]

does it behave the same if you let the cam go to night mode (b&w) ?

 

[MikeyOnline]

does it behave the same if you let the cam go to night mode (b&w) ?

Haven't tried that but I have tried checking "Black and White" on the motion detection page. No difference. Just now, I deleted and readded the camera and set everything up from scratch just to be sure something didn't get fouled with the setup. Exact same behavior in daylight: large trucks that sweep the entire frame will just never set off an alert unless you completely turn off object detection. I've spend days on this: this version just does not work properly!

Mike

 

[ruppmeister]

Haven't tried that but I have tried checking "Black and White" on the motion detection page. No difference. Just now, I deleted and readded the camera and set everything up from scratch just to be sure something didn't get fouled with the setup. Exact same behavior in daylight: large trucks that sweep the entire frame will just never set off an alert unless you completely turn off object detection. I've spend days on this: this version just does not work properly!

Mike

Sounds to me like it is time to email Ken and see what he has to say about it.

 

[MikeyOnline]

Sounds to me like it is time to email Ken and see what he has to say about it.

Done.

Mike

 

[MikeyOnline]

UPDATE

Ken replied and said that there's an upper limit on motion detection at about 67% of the frame. Said he would make that adjustable so I'm grateful he's adding that adjustment. Waiting for an answer on the inability to detect taillights and headlights at night as those certainly don't take up more than 67% of the frame so I'm guessing that's a separate problem.

Mike

 

[pozzello]

interesting. that would seem to explain a lot of my missing grabs. looking forward to testing a 'fix'...

 

[MikeyOnline]

Wow, Ken is like me in my software business. Doesn't take him long to add needed features. The new feature can be found on the "Edit" tab of the object detection in 4.3.0.8. I can't test it until daylight but hoping it fixes the daylight "full frame sweep" issue. I'm sure it will. But I already know it doesn't do anything to fix detecting headlights and taillights moving across a black frame: that's still not working even when the headlights are bright and large and NO object detection is being used. That problem still exists. Maybe in 4.3.0.9.

Mike

 

[pozzello]

the software biz. never time to do it right, always time to do it over.

that said, i do appreciate the support.