Motion Detection with dark vehicles at night

[g4m3r7ag]

I'm having some trouble getting motion detection to work with dark vehicles at night. I setup some zones in the middle of the driveway and a trigger when an object crosses between the zones going either up or down the drive. This is working great during the daytime, and has eliminated pretty much every false positive I was getting from shadows/sunlight. The problem is the bottom zone does not detect motion when a dark vehicle is going by at night. I've tried adjusting the contrast difference all the way down to 12 and it still does not detect the vehicle at night. Camera is a Dahua 2231 and it has all the default settings

Exposure: Auto
Backlight: Off
WB: Auto
Day/Night: Auto
IR: SmartIR

Blue Iris:
Min Contrast: 12
Min Object: 300
Make Time: 0.5
Object size exceeds: 67%

I've made two videos with motion highlighted and outlined. One with IR and one with color forced, neither triggers motion in the bottom zone (the lower part of the driveway in frame). Is there anything I can adjust to help this?

 

[wittaj]

Eliminate the object size exceeds requirement - the headlights are reflecting off trees and when that yellow box disappears, it means the target exceeded that number.

You may still have adjusting to do, but uncheck that box and report back.

 

[g4m3r7ag]

Eliminate the object size exceeds requirement - the headlights are reflecting off trees and when that yellow box disappears, it means the target exceeded that number.

You may still have adjusting to do, but uncheck that box and report back.

That's what that check box means. I've been trying to figure that out since setting up the zones yesterday. I had an understanding based on the description, but now that you mention the yellow box disappearing and I see it in action it makes sense now. Thank you. Will uncheck it, getting late to test tonight, don't want to bother the neighbors driving up and down. Will try again tomorrow night.

 

[g4m3r7ag]

I'm getting an alert when coming down the driveway now but not going up. It doesn't detect motion soon enough in the bottom zone before it crosses into the upper zone. I'm getting a lot of false positives from bugs flying around though with the contrast difference all the way down. Is there anything else I can adjust to help with dark vehicles at night or should I look into setting up an auto day/night schedule with just a single zone at night and no crossing?

 

[wittaj]

Post screen shots showing your zones. In most instances simply adjusting size or location of zone can eliminate most issues. The glare bouncing off the trees is a factor that needs to be mitigated within the camera settings itself, but let's see the zones first and see if we can get you going there.

 

[g4m3r7ag]

These are zones B and C and I have the object crosses zones setup as "B-C", I also have zone "F" setup as the entire image so there's no blind spots where motion won't be detected at all based on Youtube guides I always see posted here but don't have zone "F" anywhere on the crosses zones setting. Object travels is set to 100 pixels. Feed is 1080p.

 

[wittaj]

Post another video tonight with the motion detection setting on so we can see what happens to the yellow box.

That seems like it should pick it up. I am thinking we may need to adjust the bottom zone and/or min object size so that BI picks up the object before it is out of that zone.

 

[g4m3r7ag]

Ironically it triggered going up this time but not until I was almost entirely out of Zone C, and did not trigger on the way back down.

Min Object Size: 204
Min Contrast: 18
Object Travels: 100px
Feed: 1080p
Object Size Exceeds: Unchecked
Crosses Zone: B-C
Zones in previous post
Make time: 0.5 sec

Not sure if there are any other relevant settings

edit: I'm thinking I should clear out the area to the sides of the driveway and above Zone C from Zone F so it picks up less from the headlights?

 

[wittaj]

Ok, so several issues I see that I would change if it were my camera.

You are wrestling with all the light shine off the trees and stuff, so it is a balance of the object travels and min make time to capture what you want, but not too many false alerts either.

First I would try unchecking the object travels so many pixels. Your angle and what you are trying to capture I think this will cause you to miss a lot.

The min make time is the tough one - you can see how much the headlight shine is being viewed as an object, so changing that is a balance coming from both directions. Then different type of headlights will make a difference too.

Your corridor is so tight I do not think cleaning up the area would do much for you. You will still get a fair amount of shine off the trees.

I would try just one zone crossing - draw a block line across the screen where your two zones meet. Mine is a totally different angle than yours, but I did this as the vehicles were not in the frame long enough in two different zones for it to reliably recognize it. Sometimes simpler is the better approach



If that doesn't work, then it is time to go into the camera settings and adjust shutter speed and the other parameters to knock down that headlight shine and get you what you want to accomplish while also minimizing false alerts, but more importantly getting the alerts you want.

Which camera is it? Is it one with either AI or tripwire functions that might work better in your situation?

 

[g4m3r7ag]

So is there a Zone crosses config there or just a single zone in use and trigger on any motion in it?

I will try unchecking the object travels tonight and see if that makes a difference. The camera is a Dahua 2231, all of the settings are default right now as I didn't configure anything other than password/IP/NTP. I believe shutter speed and the other settings on that page are all set to auto. What should I try setting the night profile to?

Current

Exposure: Auto
Backlight: Off
WB: Auto
Day/Night: Auto
IR: SmartIR

 

[wittaj]

@g4m3r7ag - just simply put one letter in for whatever zone it is, then when something crosses that line (in my case Zone A), it triggers a response.

The settings for night will be dependent on what you are trying to accomplish - if you are trying to get plates, it would be 1/2,000 shutter, but given the speed you could probably get by with something a little slower. I believe that camera has zoom, so you would want to zoom in more.

Is it simply an overview to try to capture a vehicle or person walking through - in that case anywhere from 1/30 to 1/20 shutter depending on what you want to capture.

Given the headlights coming straight on, you will probably want HLC on - try 30 to start.

But don't make too many changes at once as you need to know what each setting is changing and the impact to the image.

 

[looney2ns]

You can turn on "Run Through Motion as Test" and adjust your BI settings and see what changes in real time when viewing recordings.
Start the video 20 seconds or so from the point you want to check motion.
See more in the BI manual.

 

[g4m3r7ag]

@g4m3r7ag - just simply put one letter in for whatever zone it is, then when something crosses that line (in my case Zone A), it triggers a response.

The settings for night will be dependent on what you are trying to accomplish - if you are trying to get plates, it would be 1/2,000 shutter, but given the speed you could probably get by with something a little slower. I believe that camera has zoom, so you would want to zoom in more.

Is it simply an overview to try to capture a vehicle or person walking through - in that case anywhere from 1/30 to 1/20 shutter depending on what you want to capture.

Given the headlights coming straight on, you will probably want HLC on - try 30 to start.

But don't make too many changes at once as you need to know what each setting is changing and the impact to the image.

I'm not too concerned with plates just an alert of a vehicle/person coming through. I plan to add another camera in a different spot that may be better for capturing plates. I can try changing some things one at a time to see if it improves. Reading the description, it does sound like HLC would be helpful, I didn't realize what any of these settings did so trying to read through as much as I can now.

You can turn on "Run Through Motion as Test" and adjust your BI settings and see what changes in real time when viewing recordings.
Start the video 20 seconds or so from the point you want to check motion.
See more in the BI manual.

I did not realize this was a thing, I've been trying to change settings, drive up/down, review footage, make changes rinse repeat... Thank you for pointing this out it will make my life much easier.

 

[jaydeel]

Here’s another tip that you might find useful while playing back using the motion detector...

Viewing and Extracting a clip from Blue Iris

When I am viewing a camera recording in BI Viewer, how do I turn on the crop marks so that I can export a clip?

ipcamtalk.com

The help pdf says “Position the video about 3 seconds before an event—this will give the motion sensor time to “learn” the video before it can begin to actually discriminate motion”. Like looney2ns, I find it often beneficial to start the video earlier than than this.