PTZ Without a Human Operator

[Q™]

By now most of you guys have figured out that I'm pretty much Qlueless...so please be kind. PTZ: without a human operator I simply don't see the point of running one. Certainly a PTZ such as the well received Huisun 10x is useful as an inexpensive varifocal (which is left zoomed in to capture a specific region)...or for use as a LPR camera...but without a human operator what use it it to me?

It seems like a heckuva lot of fun to sit back and make the camera pan, tilt and zoom...but both of my Blue Iris installations use fixed position cameras whose purpose is to monitor specific static areas...what use would PTZ be in such a use case?

I can also see how a PTZ would be useful due to it's varifocal flexibility making it useful to move to various locations (where each location needs a different focal length). I can also see how an auto-patrol feature might be useful, although I'm not clear on precisely how I might be able to employ auto-patrol for my installations.

In fact, the only use I can see for NON-MANNED PTZ camera is atuo-tracking which -- as I understand it -- it pretty much an ineffective gimmick at this point in time.

Other than these exceptions it seems to me that UNMANNED PTZ doesn't have a lot going for it unless a human operator is running it.

What am I missing fellas?

Or am I right?

 

[Del Boy]

If you want to tweak the install you don't have to go up a ladder and do it. (also handy to get rid of spiders on reset!). You also get a motorised zoom which is handy.

I don't think auto-tracking is a gimmick. I just think it shouldn't be a replacement for fixed lens cameras covering that area. In fact I feel the same for PTZ cameras. Good for additional coverage but not for only camera.

 

[bp2008]

Some people use motion triggers from other cameras to make their PTZ look at the area with motion. E.g. person at the front door? PTZ moves to look at the front door. Person at the mailbox? PTZ moves to the mailbox.

 

[Del Boy]

Some people use motion triggers from other cameras to make their PTZ look at the area with motion. E.g. person at the front door? PTZ moves to look at the front door. Person at the mailbox? PTZ moves to the mailbox.

I do like this but again not a replacement for full coverage.

 

[pozzello]

It's an augmentation of full coverage. imagine you have various cams covering everything of interest, and a PTZ located such that it could pan around to each area of interest (ROI) for a different angle and possibly closer view with zoom. When a cam triggers (say your front door,) BI could send itself a signal (via json POST) saying to move the PTZ to the front door (and trigger recording if needed). When the front door action subsides, BI could send the PTZ back to 'park' (or patrol or whatever you like). This look pretty easy to set up if you only have one ROI per cam. If you had different zones (or ROIs) on a cam, I don't see how to tell which zone caused the trigger, but there maybe some way to do it. One hack would be to clone the cam for each extra ROI and each clone would send a differnt PTZ preset command when triggered. That could get ugly with many ROI's, and maybe someone can suggest a better way to achieve @nayr -style PTZ control thru BI... that siad, I haven't tried this yet -- just a thought experiment, but I'll bet it's been done...