Advanced Object Tracking Installation and Configuration Guide

Owned by Anand Rajaraman
Last updated: Jan 29, 2020
6 min read

About 3VR’s Advanced Object Tracking Plug-in

3VR’s Advanced Object Tracking plug-in adds unique object identification and tracking capabilities to any VIP appliance. With Advanced Object Tracking installed and enabled on your system you will be able to:

  • Track the direction, color, speed, shape, and size of objects (people, cars, packages, etc.) moving through the camera’s field of view

  • Search through stored video based on object attributes

  • Configure the system to automatically alert you when an item of interest is captured by an object tracking camera

Environmental Specifications

Prior to installing and configuring the Advanced Object Tracking plug-in you should ensure that the location where you plan to track objects meets the following specifications:

Cameras

Advanced Object Tracking is possible with both analog and IP cameras at any resolution. Dynamic gain compensation should be set to the lowest level. Cameras must be able to record color video in order to implement color recognition. Use wide dynamic range cameras for outdoor lighting situations.

Advanced Object Tracking cannot be performed with PTZ cameras.

Environment

Cameras should be positioned in areas with little background motion. Congested scenes with constant motion in the camera’s field of view will degrade the performance of the plug-in.

Lighting

Uniform lighting is ideal. Back-lighting (bright conditions) will negatively affect performance. Changes in lighting conditions throughout the day should be considered. Severe lighting (too bright or too dark) will impair color recognition.

Field of View

The camera’s field of view (FOV) should be as wide as possible, at least twice as wide as the objects being observed.

Mounting

Cameras can be mounted above or to the side of the objects being tracked. Cameras should be rigidly mounted to minimize shaking or swaying.

Installing Motion Direction Analysis Plug-In

  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 (Plugins.AdvancedObjectTracking-Release-7.0.xxxxx.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-In

  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 Advanced Object Tracking.

  4. Click OK to return to the Configure panel.

A pop-up will be displayed notifying you that the 3VR system software must be restarted after making changes. Click OK to close the pop-up message and acknowledge the warning. You will restart software as the last configuration step.

Configure Per-Camera Plug-In Settings

After binding the plug-in to cameras, links will appear under Bound Cameras for each camera.

Click a link (for example Edit “9. Street View”) to edit the settings for that camera.
The following settings must be configured for each camera bound to the Advanced Object Tracking plug-in:

Drawing Tracking Inclusion Zone

For each camera that is bound to the Advanced Object Tracking plug-in, you may define one or more zones that will be analyzed for Advanced Object events.

If no tracking inclusion zones are specified, the plug-in will default to analyzing the full frame.

Zones are specified in the Zones tab of the Edit Settings window. To create a new 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.

  3. Edit the polygon by clicking and dragging its end points. Sections of the polygon may not overlap. In this example, we have drawn the tracking zone over the sidewalk area in the video feed.

  4. When the zone has been created, edit the Name of the zone and make sure that [√]Enabled is checked.

5. Repeat for any remaining zones you wish to draw in the field of view. The area outside of an inclusion zone will not be analyzed for objects.

Setting Maximum and Minimum Object Size

A minimum and maximum object size should be established for each camera bound to the plug-in. Once set, the plug-in will only analyze the video feed for objects falling within the specified size range. Objects larger and smaller will not be tracked.

The minimum and maximum object size should be configured with the size range of targeted objects in mind. For example, the Sidewalk zone established in Drawing Tracking Inclusion Zone will capture both cars and pedestrians. You can restrict the tracking analysis to either cars or pedestrians by carefully configuring the minimum and maximum object size.

To set the minimum object size:

  1. In the Edit Settings window, click the Min Size tab.

  2. Click and drag the Orange box until it is the desired minimum size. The positioning of the box in the video player is irrelevant.

     

To set the maximum object size:

  1. In the Edit Settings window, click the Max Size tab.

  2. Click and drag the Orange box until it is the desired maximum size. The positioning of the box in the video player is irrelevant.

Saving Settings

When you are finished editing the Advanced Object Tracking settings for the current camera, click the OK button at the bottom of the Edit Settings dialog. Repeat the steps in this section for any remaining cameras bound to the Advanced Object Tracking plug-in.

Configuring Global Plug-In Settings

The next step in plug-in configuration is to edit the global settings. To access this dialog:

  1. In the Configure panel, select the plug-in name to view its settings.

  2. Click Edit Settings.

Selecting Drawing Model

The Drawing Model setting controls the appearance of Advanced Object event cards in 3VR OpCenter.

Select one of the following options from the drop-down list to customize how the tracked object is identified in the event card thumbnail image:

 

 

 

 

Circle

Cross-hairs

Fade to Black

Nothing

Finalize 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 Advanced Object Tracking plug-in has been correctly configured, check for recent Advanced Object 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 Advanced Object Tracking plug-in.

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

  4. Select [√] Advanced Object and click OK.

  5. If the plug-in has been correctly configured, Advanced Object events will appear in the Monitor panel as they occur in real-time.

Verify that Advanced Object events are being generated correctly on all cameras bound to the plug-in during configuration.