Testing out Zones for motion alerts and it's not working

[105437]

I have a two zone setup and they slightly overlap. When I walk through the zones I don't get an alert. Zones are new to me so are there some tips I need to know about in order to get it working? Thanks

 

[MikeyOnline]

May need some more info to help. Can you post a screen shot of the zones and the motion detection settings?

Mike

 

[105437]

May need some more info to help. Can you post a screen shot of the zones and the motion detection settings?

Mike

Mike... thanks for the reply. Here's some further info that shows what I'm trying to do. Basically I want to capture and alert on any motion going from Zone B to Zone A. Thanks again.

 

[MikeyOnline]

I see a couple things that I wonder about. First, the majority of the larger area of zone B is partially blocked by tree limbs. You may need to reduce your object size (maybe try something like 300) to detect something behind those limbs. Also keep in mind that in the warm season, leaves on that tree are going to block most of detection zone B. I also don't see any need for the small slivers of zone B on the left and right edges. They are not wide enough for an object to meet your size and object travel distance requirements so I doubt anything would be triggered there. My first suggestion would be to widen the top left of Zone B so that it extends about twice as far to the right. That will give the detector more time to meet the motion requirements of size, 100 pixels of movement (which I think I would reduce to 50 in a zone crossing environment too), and your make time of .7 seconds. Start with more "lax" requirements maybe, and then fine tune them as needed:

- Increase the size of the upper left corner of zone B, extending it farther to the right
- Remove the slivers of zone B on the left and right as I don't think they'll do anything: not wide enough to trigger motion in zone B
- Reduce the travel distance to 50 pixels
- Reduce your object size to 300
- Reduce the make time to .5 seconds: an object moving quickly through zone B won't have much time until it gets to zone A

Keep in mind that as written (B>A) you will not get objects moving from right to left. Don't know if that's important. Another thing to remember is that once that tree gets leaves on it, you may end up with false triggers because BI doesn't really keep track of single objects. The way it works (B>A) is that it will trigger an alert when something happens in zone B, followed by something happening in zone A. So it could pick up the tree in zone B moving due to wind, followed by a cat walking in zone A. And that will trigger it.

Mike

 

[105437]

I see a couple things that I wonder about. First, the majority of the larger area of zone B is partially blocked by tree limbs. You may need to reduce your object size (maybe try something like 300) to detect something behind those limbs. Also keep in mind that in the warm season, leaves on that tree are going to block most of detection zone B. I also don't see any need for the small slivers of zone B on the left and right edges. They are not wide enough for an object to meet your size and object travel distance requirements so I doubt anything would be triggered there. My first suggestion would be to widen the top left of Zone B so that it extends about twice as far to the right. That will give the detector more time to meet the motion requirements of size, 100 pixels of movement (which I think I would reduce to 50 in a zone crossing environment too), and your make time of .7 seconds. Start with more "lax" requirements maybe, and then fine tune them as needed:

- Increase the size of the upper left corner of zone B, extending it farther to the right
- Remove the slivers of zone B on the left and right as I don't think they'll do anything: not wide enough to trigger motion in zone B
- Reduce the travel distance to 50 pixels
- Reduce your object size to 300
- Reduce the make time to .5 seconds: an object moving quickly through zone B won't have much time until it gets to zone A

Keep in mind that as written (B>A) you will not get objects moving from right to left. Don't know if that's important. Another thing to remember is that once that tree gets leaves on it, you may end up with false triggers because BI doesn't really keep track of single objects. The way it works (B>A) is that it will trigger an alert when something happens in zone B, followed by something happening in zone A. So it could pick up the tree in zone B moving due to wind, followed by a cat walking in zone A. And that will trigger it.

Mike

Thanks Mike! I'll start tinkering with the suggestions you made and see how it goes. Basically the POV of the camera is right above the door. To the right is a 2 car carport that is out of frame. It would be possible for someone to walk from the backyard and through the carport to the driveway area which is why I had the small vertical sliver on the right side of Zone B. I'm also looking to capture someone who could walk to the right of that tree with no leaves which is why I put the small sliver on the left. How may pixels is each grid square? You mentioned it was too small so I'm curious. My goal is to capture any movement in the driveway and door area that comes from any direction from the POV of the camera. Appreciate it.

 

[MikeyOnline]

Thanks Mike! I'll start tinkering with the suggestions you made and see how it goes. Basically the POV of the camera is right above the door. To the right is a 2 car carport that is out of frame. It would be possible for someone to walk from the backyard and through the carport to the driveway area which is why I had the small vertical sliver on the right side of Zone B. I'm also looking to capture someone who could walk to the right of that tree with no leaves which is why I put the small sliver on the left. How may pixels is each grid square? You mentioned it was too small so I'm curious. My goal is to capture any movement in the driveway and door area that comes from any direction from the POV of the camera. Appreciate it.

I think it's evenly divided. I've never gone to the trouble of counting the grid squares but you'd have to take your camera resolution and divide by the number of grid squares to figure out how many pixels each one is. Just by looking at it, I think you'd have to at least triple the width of those slivers on the left and right for them to be useful. That is, unless you want to release the pixel travel limitations and/or use a hot zone there.

Mike

 

[MikeyOnline]

This is something that just occurred to me. If you have your make time set to something like 0.7 seconds and you have a thin/sliver zone at the edge of the frame, when something enters the frame, it's possible that it could pass through zone B in less than the make time and be in zone A within 0.7 seconds. In that case, I think it might only see the motion in zone A. I think it'd "skip" zone B at the edge because I don't believe it "backtracks" to the beginning of the make time to consider motion that occurred before the make time expires. But that I'm not sure about. Another reason you might want to try a shorter make time.

Mike

 

[105437]

Thanks again Mike, I'm planning on trying some new things tomorrow after work. Appreciate it!

 

[luder888]

Does that number next to the Min Object Size slider mean anything? Seems too big to be pixels.