Skip to content

Motion Detection Frustration

edited October 2014 in SecuritySpy
I overall like SecuritySpy and purchased it to interface with Indigo but I'm having considerable difficulty with the motion detection. I'm only on my second day so maybe I'm suffering from operator error. I have the sensitivity set at 49 and 2 seconds. If I set it below that threshold it misses a dog. However, at 49 it triggers on rain and leaves blowing which creates gigabytes of files on the server - too much to begin to review. This seems to occur more often at night when the image is grey scale.

I have a Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I camera.

Comments

  • BenBen
    edited October 2014
    Hi Steve,

    Sorry to hear this - sometimes the variation between day and night is significant enough that the same set of motion detection settings aren't ideal for both, and we're looking into ways of improving this. Also, when a camera is pointing outside, make sure that you use SecuritySpy's mask feature to mask off trees/bushes etc. that could trigger the motion detection when it's windy.

    To help us out, are you able to email us some short clips to demonstrate some false-positive captures? If the files are large, please send then using WeTransfer. Thanks.
  • I don't want to send multi-GB files. It's raining now and my UNF file is huge. I have the camera on it's smallest resolution (720) and it's recording almost continually at 49/2. It's pretty easy to see the problem and I imagine most camera's own motion-detection software would have the same issue.

    However, a quick google search provides some computer algortihms capable of removing rain or snow. For example, see: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/publications/pdfs/Garg_CVPR04.pdf
    where their published algorithms effectively removed rain from movies. I also know traffic camera software is pretty effective at just counting vehicles in rain or snow.

    I know you're a smart programmer because I've looked at some of your "cynical code". Maybe a simple solution would be to allow the user to create a mask object threshold size to compare against. If that has enough opacity it would stop rain/snow/leaves false triggers (which are "big" close to the camera but they also have identifiable fuzzy/translucent edges).

    Another idea for Indigo users is I could install an outdoor PIR which could trigger camera recording in SS. Maybe I can do this now with scripting but I haven't looked into it yet.

    Anyway, I appreciate your efforts and think the SS software is way better than what came with camera.
  • Hi Steve,

    If the file is multi-GB then that's totally understandable. But if you can set SecuritySpy to capture "separate movie per event" rather than "one movie per day", you should end up with some short clips that would demonstrate the problem to us.

    SecuritySpy is in fact normally immune to rain, and this is the first time we have heard of rain triggering the motion detection, which is why I'm keen to see what the actual footage looks like. SecuritySpy employs noise-cancelling algorithms that adjust to the amount of noise in the image, and rain should look just like random noise. Obviously this is not working in your case and this is something that I am keen to get to the bottom of. I'll have a look at the document you linked to.

    Installing a PIR is a good solution - you would hook this up to one of the cameras IO ports (also known as "digital input" or "external input" ports), as long as SecuritySpy supports the IO ports of your particular camera (Axis, Canon and D-Link are currently supported for this).
  • I'll email.
    I don't think Hikvision will support the PIR.
  • Ben,

    I'd like to add something. I know you mention using Masks to eliminate swaying trees, etc., but my problem at this time of year is tree shadows on the ground on windy days.

    This one particular camera is mounted high up in the eave of a porch with a downward view of the porch and front yard. Due to the neighbor's trees on the southern edge of my lot, mornings from about 0800 to 1300 mean that I get a lot of swaying tree branch shadows over the entire camera view. I have to set motion detection way down or I'll get 50 emails a morning; but too low and it doesn't sense people.

    I'd like to see Sighthound-style "human" detection at some point if you're able to offer it. Otherwise I might try your suggestion from a different thread of using another camera's motion (that doesn't see the shadows as much) as trigger for the main one.

    Thanks
    James
  • Upvote on this - I put some comments in a while back about the same issue - see items #1 and #2 on this list:

    http://www.bensoftware.com/forum/discussion/579/feature-requests#Item_6

    In my experience, SecuritySpy is quite susceptible to rain at night with infra-red illumination, as well as moving vegetation during the day. I'm starting to use Indigo to change sensitivity at scheduled times, and I'm moving to triggering things with PIR in important locations instead of motion detection, using the Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave Multi-Sensor. This is not using SecuritySpy, though - it's using Indigo, which then tells SecuritySpy via the API to start recording on a particular camera. I hate doing this, though - it's ugly and I know SS could do the right thing with some better knobs.

    JT
  • Hi everyone, we have been working on the motion detection algorithm, please see this forum post if you would like to participate in testing.
Sign In or Register to comment.