Dahua PTZ Spotter Cameras

Michael Garrett

Michael Garrett

Young grasshopper
Dec 20, 2018
46
14
Boise, Idaho
I use three spotter cameras with my PTZ. It's actually two cameras with one clone. I am having two issues with my setup. Once a camera triggers the PTZ, it remains locked onto that camera until the trigger time expires. This causes issues when objects are moving between different camera trigger zones. The other issue is while the PTZ is triggered the auto-tracking is disabled. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to address these issues?
 
Auto tracking is part of the PTZ and has nothing to do with BI - BI simply takes whatever video is being fed to it.

Are you sure autotracking is set up correctly?

Which PTZ model and what version of BI are you on?
 
Dahua PTZ5AK-25X. I am aware that the auto-tracking is a camera function, not a BI function. I believe I do have it setup correctly as it does auto-track when it's not triggered.
 
Does the PTZ move to the preset that the spotter cam is calling and you have confirmed auto tracking is set up for that preset? It has to be setup for every preset.

I guess it could be some fluke that BI would disable autotracking but we haven't seen that issue posted.

How do you know it is disabled- because it isn't tracking or because you have the camera GUI open and you see the IVS rules disable when the camera is triggered?

Can you post screenshots for the spotter cam and the PTZ GUI screenshot for the pre-set the PTZ is calling. And maybe a video showing what happens.
 
Yes the PTZ is triggered by the spotter camera and it moves to that location. As far as auto tracking being set for each preset this is not the case. Auto tracking is either on or off and unrelated to each preset. There isn't a function for this within each preset. I know that auto-tracking is paralyzed when triggered because it doesn't track a moving object.
 
Wow that must be a different GUI completely then. I don't have that camera, but have several other Dahua PTZ models and auto tracking is based on a preset and being set up within each preset.

Since you won't post videos or screenshots, it is all a stab in the dark, but keep in mind when the PTZ moves based on a spotter cam, it can take a few seconds before the "algorithm" is set up to start tracking, so depending on how close you set that up spotter trigger to the field of view of the PTZ, it may miss it because the object is out of the IVS rules by the time the camera settles into the preset.

Just because it isn't tracking doesn't mean is becomes disabled or paralyzed - you may have the field of view of the PTZ too close to where the spotter field of view is and it simply misses tracking due to the delay as the PTZ pulls up the tracking parameters.

The only way to know for sure is to open up the PTZ camera GUI and watch the slider - does it actually turn off when the spotter cam is triggered? I can mimic that by calling an API for the PTZ when the spotter cam is triggered to turn off an IVS rule and I can watch it turn off when triggered.

Here is great thread and example showing how the spotter cam calls the PTZ to a spot ahead of the motion so that it has time to swing to that preset and set the tracking parameters and then start tracking.

Video of how my spotter cam's IVS rules call my PTZ to auto-track.

With more people looking to get a PTZ and asking about it moving to a preset and auto-tracking I decided to put a video together. This shows how the PTZ goes from parked to a preset based on an IVS trigger from a spotter camera. From this preset the PTZ has its own IVS rules to tell it to...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
The other part of this post was the inability for another camera to be triggered while the first camera has already triggered it. Once one camera triggers the PTZ it is held hostage even when the object has moved from one camera to the next.
 

Making PTZ go to newest trigger from spotter

Is there a way to make a ptz go to the newest alert from a given spotter cam? I don’t have one spotter camera that really takes priority over the other. Should I just got to the PTZ tab and select the “cancel alerts when this preset is active” for each preset?
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
I've checked "cancel alerts" for each preset that is set to trigger. This doesn't work. Once a trigger has occurred the PTZ is still held hostage at that initial trigger.
 
If you check "cancel alerts" and spotter 1 triggers it will keep tracking for spotter 1 and ignore (cancel) spotter 2 triggers while spotter 1 is active.

If you uncheck "cancel alerts" and spotter 1 triggers and x seconds later spotter 2 triggers then it will cancel spotter 1 and move to spotter 2 preset.
 
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When I initially posted this issue, all presets for "cancel alerts" were unchecked as I did not realize this was the recommended solution for this issue. Now all of them are checked and the issue still exists. I understand what you are saying but my issue still exists either way whether they are checked or unchecked.
 
In that case I would send an email to BI support - maybe something broke in recent updates.

I am sure not many use this feature so it may have broke and not enough people using it to know. I am on an older version and mine works as intended.
 
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