Smart Motion vs IVS Intrusion for areas without passerbys / interior areas

flatface

Young grasshopper
Apr 29, 2023
50
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North America
I currently have 9 Empiretech cams (5442T, T22IR, D54IR, 5449H) around the property.

I have trouble getting some of them to trigger reliably. I use only IVS intrusion zone as recommended here. They are set to ID humans, but they are so much better at identifying squirrels.

Only 2 of the cams have views of the street, and I don't get many pedestrians, so I wouldn't really mind much if those triggered a few times a day for passersby.



So I am wondering, for areas (like the backyard) where I want it to trigger on every human that the camera sees, is there any point in using IVS?

Or would it be better to use "Smart" motion with a human filter as I don't need to worry about false triggers from people walking down the street?

Ultimately everything records 24/7 and clips themselves aren't recorded, only markers added to the 24/7 recordings. So there is no extra storage used, but it's a slog to go though my clips and half of them are squirrels.



I am also going to soon be installing cameras inside. For interior cameras, do most people (without pets perhaps?) set the trigger to ANY motion, as there should be no false motion triggers from leaves, etc?

Thanks!
 
You should have far less false triggers with IVS and human/vehicle filters vs SMD. Not sure what you're using as a VMS but for the cams that are picking up squirrels, double check that regular motion detection isn't turned on in some way.

I don't use alerts with most of my interior cams. Too much activity and too hard to set up otherwise. Multiple outside cams pick up any intrusion before that. So mostly I just record 24x7 without alerts. Two exceptions to that: one camera facing a basement door which nobody should ever enter and where there's no daily traffic (which I really don't need, just had an extra cam), and one in a shed/workshop where I have tools and stuff but there's little day-to-day activity so I want to be alerted if anyone's there.
 
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Outside IVS all day every day over MD or SMD. You will get FAR more false alerts using MD

Inside yes, MD could work fine

I use a combination of Intrusion zone and zig zag tripwire, much more reliable than either by itself. Different scenes can favor one or the other.
That said it matters how you draw your IVS lines. They have a 3d element.
Intru-Trip-Combo.jpg


Example
The woman has walked "under" the Intrusion box and was not detected yet. The man, taller, did trip the Intrusion box. The woman was picked up a few more feet by the Tripwire
2.jpg
 
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I currently have 9 Empiretech cams (5442T, T22IR, D54IR, 5449H) around the property.

I have trouble getting some of them to trigger reliably. I use only IVS intrusion zone as recommended here. They are set to ID humans, but they are so much better at identifying squirrels.

Only 2 of the cams have views of the street, and I don't get many pedestrians, so I wouldn't really mind much if those triggered a few times a day for passersby.



So I am wondering, for areas (like the backyard) where I want it to trigger on every human that the camera sees, is there any point in using IVS?

Or would it be better to use "Smart" motion with a human filter as I don't need to worry about false triggers from people walking down the street?

Ultimately everything records 24/7 and clips themselves aren't recorded, only markers added to the 24/7 recordings. So there is no extra storage used, but it's a slog to go though my clips and half of them are squirrels.



I am also going to soon be installing cameras inside. For interior cameras, do most people (without pets perhaps?) set the trigger to ANY motion, as there should be no false motion triggers from leaves, etc?

Thanks!
IVS requires that the camera be properly adjusted for it's field of view. Are you running everything on defaults.
Camera tuning Tips.
 
You should have far less false triggers with IVS and human/vehicle filters vs SMD. Not sure what you're using as a VMS but for the cams that are picking up squirrels, double check that regular motion detection isn't turned on in some way.

I don't use alerts with most of my interior cams. Too much activity and too hard to set up otherwise. Multiple outside cams pick up any intrusion before that. So mostly I just record 24x7 without alerts. Two exceptions to that: one camera facing a basement door which nobody should ever enter and where there's no daily traffic (which I really don't need, just had an extra cam), and one in a shed/workshop where I have tools and stuff but there's little day-to-day activity so I want to be alerted if anyone's there.

Thank you very much!


Outside IVS all day every day over MD or SMD. You will get FAR more false alerts using MD

Inside yes, MD could work fine

I use a combination of Intrusion zone and zig zag tripwire, much more reliable than either by itself. Different scenes can favor one or the other.
That said it matters how you draw your IVS lines. They have a 3d element.
View attachment 203504


Example
The woman has walked "under" the Intrusion box and was not detected yet. The man, taller, did trip the Intrusion box. The woman was picked up a few more feet by the Tripwire
View attachment 203502

Thank you, I have a bit of trouble understanding the 3D element of the Intrusion boxes, and how people can walk "under" them preventing a trigger, especially when I have the "appears" as well as enter/exit boxes checked. I have read a bunch here about that but never really understood how the 2D box translates to the camera interpreting a 3D space.


IVS requires that the camera be properly adjusted for it's field of view. Are you running everything on defaults.
Camera tuning Tips.


Thank you, I do have all my cams tuned using the recommended specs from IPCT, then 'fine'-tuning them a bit more for each location. They certainly aren't perfect but they are better than defaults. I don't think any of my cameras have anything set to "auto".

I even did the Global config with the cam that's giving me the most issues not IDing human intrusions, using actual meter sticks, but the validation step never measured the calibration rulers properly despite trying several different ruler locations and 'triangle' layouts. 1M ruler somehow turns into a 0.75m measurement 30 seconds after calibrating. The closer rulers tended to be somewhat accurate but anything further than about 40 ft away had trouble.

I understand that consumers are not dahua's targeted customers. But where would the 'pro' installers learn how to calibrate the cameras? The dahua wiki is kinda insufficient with the explanations sometimes.
 
'Appears" only works under ideal lighting and scene conditions for me. I dont rely on it
 
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Have to set the Minimum Size of target in the Camera IVS rules?

Nope - best to leave at 0,0 and let the AI do its thing. You only do that if it is triggering for smaller objects.

I only have one camera that I had to set a min size for.
 
Nope - best to leave at 0,0 and let the AI do its thing. You only do that if it is triggering for smaller objects.

That was his problem, triggering on smaller objects. Why do you think Dahua includes this function? I set all my cameras with Min target size.
 
I think it is just a left-over from the old MD days without AI. And some field of views are problematic and need to include a min size.
 
But you do not know for sure? The new IVS selections in the camera GUI are not left over from MD, because they were not there in old GUI.