Turn on/off camera overlay with command?

Mattias

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Is there a way to turn on/off the Blue Iris overlay trough HTTP command or similar. I want to be able to turn on and off the overlay from my arduino.
 

pozzello

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Not sure if the differing BI 'profiles' include different OSD setting per cam (?), but that might be one way to do it.

OR you define an overlay to grab its content from a file (.png), which you can update (leave empty) whenever you like via external scripting.
I think that's how BIT (Blue Iris Tools) works for the 'dynamic weather' overlays...
 

jaydeel

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Try this...

/admin?macro=x&text={text} Set macro number x=1‐9 to value {text}

Setting {text} to blank will clear the specified overlay.

Unless there is an http command I’m unaware of, getting the current contents of a macro (and restoring it!) is more complicated (programmatically). This requires directly accessing the registry ('HKLM\SOFTWARE\Perspective Software\Blue Iris\Macros').

Btw, ‘x’ can actually go up to 99, but you cannot edit macros higher than 9 from BI’s GUI.
 
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jaydeel

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BTW, a cool tip is that you can use the ‘/admin?macro=x&text=’ command to programmatically ‘flash’ information to the video feed of any camera. Use a loop and send a command to set the macro, wait a bit, then send a ‘blank’ command to clear it.

I use this technique with presets assigned to scripts to verify that my script has successfully performed its task.
 

pozzello

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I don't think there's any way to SET a preset via http commands.
(I usually do it in the cam's UI) Is it really needed from BI to get the functionality you seek?

from the help file section on 'web server':
/admin?camera=x&ptzcycle=1 or 0 Enable or disable PTZ preset cycle on camera x
/admin?camera=x&preset=n Goto PTZ preset n on camera x (short name)
 

jaydeel

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As pozzelo notes, the above preset http command can be used to execute camera-defined presets via the Blue Iris webserver. It can also execute BI-defined http commands & scripts (Camera Properties>PTZ/Control>Edit Presets).

Note that BI’s range for n is 1-40... I have tried to directly edit the registry to create BI presets >40, but had no success getting them recognized by BI’s GUI (see this post). That said, I just realized that I did not try to test a registry created preset >40 with the above http command. I’ll give that a try later today.

While you cannot ‘set’ a BI preset with an http command, you can probably modify existing preset definitions (manually or programmatically) via the registry. I hedge a bit as I’ve not personally experimented with this. If I have time, I’ll experiment today.
 
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jaydeel

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UPDATES:
  • I've successfully created working presets up to 99 using the procedure in this post.
  • I've directly modified the registry to make existing presets execute different http commands & scripts
NOTE: These apply only to presets that are BI-defined http commands & scripts.
 
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