Nubie: Questions on Settings

Forum for questions and support relating to the 1.30.x releases only.
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OangeLoon
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:18 pm

Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by OangeLoon »

Hi - I have an outside camera that has 3 zones. Near dusk and after one (or more) of the zones produces an alarm that will record for hours. Thus, I need a bit of enlightenment as to which settings to adjust and why. I have gone through the wiki.zoneminder.com entry of Understanding_ZoneMinder's_Zoning_system_for_Dummies but still need a bit more information.

The stats associated with the alarm are:
Pixel Diff: 32
Alarm PX: 11560 (19%)
Filter PX: 9796 (16%)
Blob PX: 7781 (12%)
Blobs: 1
Blob sizes: 7781 (12%)
Alarm Limits: 1341,336-1624,421
Score: 12

I have included 3 images: The zone, the alarm, and the settings.

I am trying to make sure I can capture vehicles as well as pedestrian traffic - I just need a bit more insight to decrease the false alarms.

Thanks in advance.
OrangeLoon
Attachments
Alarm20180101-Zone.png
Alarm20180101-Zone.png (456.38 KiB) Viewed 6434 times
Alarm20180101-Settings.png
Alarm20180101-Settings.png (16.65 KiB) Viewed 6434 times
Alarm20180101-Alarm.png
Alarm20180101-Alarm.png (499.76 KiB) Viewed 6434 times
SkippyDo
Posts: 219
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:49 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by SkippyDo »

I wonder whether you're getting some spurious light activity. I'm a complete novice who is also trying to work through reducing alarms. I just instituted Preclusive zones to help with it; time will tell how well this works. I have cameras on areas that tend to pick up rain, smoke (wood stove) and sunlight activity (I further have areas that I need to exclude due to animal activity): if someone has a more difficult set of factors to deal with I'd like to know - LOL!
OangeLoon
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:18 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by OangeLoon »

thanks for the reply. This has occurred in multiple places and always after dark. Once it occurs it retains the alarm status for hours - I stopped one at 15 hours of alarms on a hedge. No idea why this happens.
SkippyDo
Posts: 219
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:49 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by SkippyDo »

Couple of suggestions that might help:

1) Increase the number of alarm pixels - each zone you set up should show the total number of pixels (just figure a percentage of this- suspect that you're currently extremely low, like 1% or so);

2) Set OVERLOAD FRAME IGNORE COUNT, set it to something non-zero (at least a couple of frames).

What you need to do is check each event and look at the frames that trigger the alarm. I'm still working on my settings, trying to deal with rain falling: I'm adjusting it per #2; not sure if this is the right approach, but having it set to non-zero is, I'm sure, the right direction.
OangeLoon
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:18 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by OangeLoon »

Thanks for the reply and the help. Forgive my 'nubieness' but when you say 'Increase the number of alarm pixels' are you referring to the setting: "MIN/MAX PIXEL THRESHOLD (0-255"? I have mine set to 40%.
Currently trying to tweak the overload frame setting.
SkippyDo
Posts: 219
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:49 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by SkippyDo »

I'm still trying to decipher what these settings are, but I "think" that that one has to do with, for a lack of a better word, "intensity" of change of/for the changed pixels.

If you review the alarms and bring up the alarmed frames you should see what is causing the alarms.
OangeLoon
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:18 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by OangeLoon »

Here is a quick summary of the issue I am trying to address. During the day the detection and alarms are working great. However, when 'we' shift to night, the system/settings start to fail. One observance is during the day the alarm is created by an object moving into a zone. At night, it is triggered by the light and absence of light. So at night the light from a car highlights an object such as a bush and that sets off the alarm. Unfortunately, once the bush is no longer highlighted, a section of grass, another bush, the road, the mailbox (pick one) has now changed from being lite to now dark (and thus a pixel change) and that generates an alarm and (near as I can figure out) since that now darken shape does not change, the alarm never stops - it goes on for hours or until daybreak.

So it appears that once an alarm is triggered by light, the alarm continues long after that trigger.
No idea how to address this.
Jamo
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Aug 13, 2013 6:25 am

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by Jamo »

OangeLoon wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:38 pm ...
So it appears that once an alarm is triggered by light, the alarm continues long after that trigger.
No idea how to address this.
If I'm not mistaken, this may be related to your Reference Image Blend %ge or Alarm Reference Image Blend %ge settings on the monitor (not the zone). Can you post these settings?

As I understand it, these settings affect the reference image - the image that zoneminder is constantly comparing against to see if anything has changed. This reference image is the "normal" for the monitor and is constantly adjusted based on past conditions. It sounds as if your "normal" image is getting set to the abnormal event image (light) and then this never gets reset.
OangeLoon
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:18 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by OangeLoon »

Ah! those are set at:

Reference Image Blend %ge 1.5625%
Alarm Reference Image Blend %ge 1.5625%
Avro125
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2016 12:39 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by Avro125 »

OangeLoon wrote: Sat Jan 20, 2018 8:48 pm Ah! those are set at:

Reference Image Blend %ge 1.5625%
Alarm Reference Image Blend %ge 1.5625%
That might be the issue then. Mine are all outside cameras, and are:
Reference Image Blend: 12.5%
Alarm Reference Image Blend: 6.25%

...I believe these are the default settings.

Most cameras that I've worked with have a much noisier night image. Perhaps not apparent to the human viewer, but ZM might see a lot of subtle pixel changes frame by frame. Since your alarm reference setting is one away from 'alarm lasts forever', and that's somewhat the situation you're describing (lasting hours), I'd move that setting to 6.25% and try it for a few nights.
OangeLoon
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:18 pm

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by OangeLoon »

I shifted both to 12.5% (Outside) and that seems to have solved the problem.
rockedge
Posts: 1173
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 1:46 pm
Location: Connecticut,USA

Re: Nubie: Questions on Settings

Post by rockedge »

good work :)
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