Motion detection or deepstack not seeing cat

[Corvus85]

Hey all,

Hope you're all well.

This is driving me nuts.

I've got a camera installed along the side of a house. It rarely receives any traffic, and I've configured Deepstack to recognize people and cats.

It picks up people just fine - however with cats, it just doesn't even want to acknowledge any motion! And I've got my motion detector size set to minimum (100), and min contrast set to 12. I've also got a make time of just 0.1 sec.


In this footage, the cat is walking from the bottom of the frame towards the gate at the top at a steady and smugly confident pace. However when I run the test footage and analyze it through the motion detector, it doesn't pick up the cat until it's almost squeezed back out of the gate! See below for first instance of motion detection.


Analyzing with Deepstack also picks absolutely nothing up - even when movement is detected at the last second. And even then, the object detection doesn't even recognize it as an object. I have it set to 'move 50 pixels', which I'm sure you can agree is more than enough.

I know that I could just add more snapshots to Deepstack, but without motion triggering Deepstack first, there's no point.
I just don't get it. it's such a high contrast image, and clearly visible. Is there anything I can check?

 

[wittaj]

That is a tough field of view - you have a lot of IR washout.

Increase contrast and turn off the "move 50 pixels" That is only used to knock out false triggers and you have the opposite going on.

None of my cameras use the "Move XX pixels". YMMV

 

[Corvus85]

Increase contrast and turn off the "move 50 pixels" That is only used to knock out false triggers and you have the opposite going on.

I just did this and re-ran the footage again through motion detector, and the same thing happened :-\

I realize the example I gave you had a lot of IR washout, but the same cat ran through another camera, going from left to right, and same thing - BI just refused to pick it up with that camera too. Same settings. Motion detection shows only the tiniest bit of blue until the cat is all the way on the right side and partially obscured so that by that time, Deepstack doesn't pick it up.

Any ideas?

 

[sebastiantombs]

Have you tried "simple" motion detection rather than "edge vector"?

 

[Corvus85]

Have you tried "simple" motion detection rather than "edge vector"?

Sadly, yes. All my cameras are set to 'simple'.

I just can't work it out. This SOB cat is driving me nuts. He's my white whale, and I must defeat him.

 

[MikeLud1]

Sadly, yes. All my cameras are set to 'simple'.

I just can't work it out. This SOB cat is driving me nuts. He's my white whale, and I must defeat him.

Also make sure you have DeepStack set to High

 

[wittaj]

It is time for you to post some screenshots of your motion settings and the DAT file analysis screenshot so we can see what is going on.

Other than the tough field of view, it could be something like using zones wrong or too long of a make time (although your 0.1 isn't long), etc.

And let's see the BI camera status page that shows things like FPS, KEY, and bitrates. If the KEY is less than 1.00 then that would explain why BI motion detection is missing it. A KEY of 0.5 means any object in and out of the view in less than 2 seconds will be missed. A KEY of 0.25 means anything in and out of the the view in less than 4 seconds will be missed, etc. That tight of a field of view and with a cat, that could easily be missed if your KEY is less than 1.00.

What camera are you using? If it is a reolink enough said LOL.

 

[Corvus85]

What camera are you using? If it is a reolink enough said LOL.

It's this one, as recommended by fellow posters on this forum.
Amazon.com

It is time for you to post some screenshots of your motion settings

DAT file analysis screenshot so we can see what is going on.

Is this when I CTRL+click on the event in BI? No alert was created so I'm not sure if there's a DAT file generated.

it could be something like using zones wrong

I only have one zone set up. Here's what it looks like.

And let's see the BI camera status page

Let me know if there's anything else you need to see.

 

[Corvus85]

Also make sure you have DeepStack set to High

I'll change this, although I'm not sure if it will make much difference, because the cat isn't even triggering motion - and to my knowledge, DS requires motion triggers before it begins analysis at all.

 

[wittaj]

Ok that looks good, except uncheck the High Definition in motion detection. None of mine use that. Then change the min duration back to 0.1

If that is Zone A, add a Zone B that is the whole image. For object detection just put in A.

 

[wittaj]

If that doesn't work, you could always use the hotspot zone that will trigger for any and all movement - but that may be overkill if it triggers too much.

 

[Corvus85]

uncheck the High Definition in motion detection

Ok. Wouldn't high definition give it more info to detect motion though? I've got more than enough CPU cycles to spare. Unless there is some other benefit to unchecking it.

If that is Zone A, add a Zone B that is the whole image.

Interesting. What is the reasoning behind this?

you could always use the hotspot zone that will trigger for any and all movement

Hmm I'm not sure that'd be helpful in this instance because the camera is located in an open area, and when it rains, it'll just trigger constantly.

 

[wittaj]

The High definition option increases the number of motion detection blocks that are used by typically 4x. While it can help in some field of views, it can actually be problematic in some. I think this is one such case.

For my LPR (license plate camera), I would miss vehicles based on the FPS. If I went to a higher FPS, it seemed to struggle with detecting motion. So by going to fewer FPS, it made a much clearer change in pixel from frame to frame. Given your tight field of view, try a FPS and iframe of 10 and see if that causes it to start triggering.

From the help file:

Of important note, a motion detection object as used by object detection and tracking must
always exist in one or more zones. This means there must be continuous zone coverage through
areas where an object is being tracked. Instead of worrying about zones overlapping or
abutting, it is much easier to just setup one zone to be used as an overall “mask” and then
draw additional zones to be used with object detection and tracking.

Many of us have found that it works better to have one zone as the entire image. YMMV. For a few of my problematic cameras, that fixed the motion problems. Plus, when troubleshooting deepstack issues, BI will tell folks to create a Zone for the whole image.

 

[Corvus85]

Of important note, a motion detection object as used by object detection and tracking must
always exist in one or more zones. This means there must be continuous zone coverage through
areas where an object is being tracked.

Considering that I've got one big zone covering the entire walkway, plus the gate and the walls, isn't that what I've essentially done?

The High definition option increases the number of motion detection blocks that are used by typically 4x. While it can help in some field of views, it can actually be problematic in some. I think this is one such case.

I see what you mean about increasing the number of motion detection blocks. Would this be a case of the algorithm looking too 'closely' at the image, whereas a 'larger' view (ie. larger blocks), might lead to easier recognition of movement?

 

[wittaj]

Oh I know, based on your field of view and what you have for a zone, it shouldn't be an issue, but it is simple to go in and make Zone B all yellow. It certainly won't hurt anything.

Yes - this exactly regarding the smaller blocks - I was shocked when I upped the FPS of my plate camera and BI motion started missing. It was then watching the playbacks and see that it was happening so fast that it was looking too closely as you say and would miss it. Given it a slower FPS meant motion jumped more blocks.

I think that is the same with yours - at some point the cat is moving directly away or towards the camera, so it is staying in blocks longer because of that movement style.

 

[Corvus85]

Yes - this exactly regarding the smaller blocks - I was shocked when I upped the FPS of my plate camera and BI motion started missing. It was then watching the playbacks and see that it was happening so fast that it was looking too closely as you say and would miss it. Given it a slower FPS meant motion jumped more blocks.

That makes a lot of sense.

I've just tried turning high definition off, and re-ran the footage. Unfortunately, even though the small blocks have now been replaced with larger blue blocks, the damn cat still doesn't register as as object and doesn't trigger

I'm yet to try decreasing the fps, although I'm really not a fan of this idea because I hate footage that looks like a slideshow.

 

[wittaj]

Dang.

Take a look at several of these comparison videos. For most people it isn't until 7FPS that you really start to see a difference. Given your field of view and most movement is going to be straight towards or away from the camera, I think you can get by with a slower FPS. It is only the left/right movement that might suffer a little.

 

[sebastiantombs]

In terms of DS and resolution, BI sends a snapshot to DS which is promptly down sized with reduced resolution to be used in detection in DS. Sending a high res image doesn't really help much at all.

 

[Cooltiger]

It's this one, as recommended by fellow posters on this forum.
Amazon.com




View attachment 116179



Is this when I CTRL+click on the event in BI? No alert was created so I'm not sure if there's a DAT file generated.




I only have one zone set up. Here's what it looks like.

View attachment 116182



View attachment 116184

Let me know if there's anything else you need to see.

My sensitivy is different to yours . Not my cat. I hate cats.

 

[Corvus85]

My sensitivy is different to yours

I don't understand! So you've got the same model and you're getting accurate triggers on way higher min sizes and contrasts?

Is it my cameras? Do they need a firmware upgrade or something? Surely it can't be. It has to be BI's interpretation of what it's seeing.

Not my cat. I hate cats.

Me too. Which is why I need to keep track of the little bastards.