Installing Heat Map Plug-In

Owned by Anand Rajaraman
Last updated: Jan 08, 2020
4 min read

 

Installing Heat Map Plug-In

To install the Heat Map plug-in package:

  1. Launch 3VR System Manager.

  2. In the Configure panel, click the plus sign beside the appliance name.

  3. Right-click the Plug-ins folder and select Add Plug-in.

  4. In the resulting Confirm dialog box, click Install to proceed.

  5. Navigate to the folder containing the plug-in file (Plugin- HeatMap-3.0.0.xxxxx-en-us.3pg) and click to highlight the file.

  6. Click OK. The plug-in will now begin installing.

  7. When the plug-in is installed, it will appear below Plug-ins in System Manager.

Binding Cameras to Plug-Ins

  1. Click the plug-in name to view its settings.

  2. On the right side of System Manager, select the Bound Cameras field and click the ... button.

  3. In the Bind Plug-in to Cameras dialog box, click the check box [√] beside each camera that should have Heat Map.

  4. Click OK to return to the Configure panel.

Additional Parameters

On high load systems, you may need to adjust the following settings to reduce the Heat Map plug-in’s resource usage:

  1. If advanced heat map data is not required for a channel, you can conserve system resources by disabling advanced heat maps by not selecting the [√]Enable Advanced Heat Map box.
    Disabling Advanced Heat Map will make the Direction and Flow visualizations unavailable for the channel in the Customer Insights Dashboard

  2. The Advanced Heat Map Downscale Factor setting allows you to balance heat map resolution against resource usage. For finer resolution heat maps, use smaller values, down to a minimum of 4. To reduce resource usage, use greater values, up to a maximum of 64.

Reducing the downscale factor may not necessarily improve the Direction and Flow visualizations in the Customer Insights Dashboard. We do not recommend adjusting this setting unless instructed to do so by 3VR.

Configuring Per Camera Plug-In Settings

Defining Exclusion Zones

If excessive background activity in the camera view affects the heat map, you may define one or more exclusion zones. Motion that occurs in the exclusion zones will be ignored by the Heat Map plug-in and will not show up in the heat map displayed on the Dashboard.

To create a new exclusion zone:

  1. Click the polygon icon.

  2. Click the video player to begin drawing a zone. Each click of the mouse will create a new line segment. To complete the polygon, click the mouse over your start position.
    Edit the polygon by clicking and dragging its end points. Sections of the polygon may not overlap.

  3. Repeat for any remaining zones you wish to draw in the field of view.

  4. Additionally, or alternatively, if you have already defined motion exclusion zones for the channel, you may also apply those zones to the Heat Map plug-in by enabling the [√] Use Motion Exclusion Zone from Channel setting.

Final Configuration

Restarting System Software

  1. In the Configure panel, right-click the appliance name and select Restart 3VR Software.

  2. In the pop-up box that appears, click Restart to proceed. Wait 1-2 minutes for the software to restart.

Verifying Successful Configuration

To verify that the Heat Map plug-in has been correctly configured, check for recent Heat Map events in 3VR OpCenter:

  1. In 3VR OpCenter, click the Monitor tab to go to the Monitor panel.

  2. Click camera numbers to select the cameras bound to the Heat Map plug-in.

  3. Click the arrow below the camera selector to open the event type drop-down menu.

  4. Select [√]Heat Map.

  5. Click OK.

  6. If the plug-in has been correctly configured, Heat Map events will appear in the Monitor panel as they occur in real-time. Verify that Heat Map events are being generated correctly on all cameras bound to the plug-in during configuration.