How to manage security camera pictures

[SteveQ]

I use motion sensors to trigger my security cameras to take still photos. The photos are stored as jpg files in a folder for the day. I now have thousands of photos. I am looking for a way to search through the files and delete the ones that are "normal". For example, I will frequently get a spider on the motion sensor or camera lens. It will generate hundreds of photos. Or on windy days, tree branches moving also generate hundreds of pictures. Does anyone know of pattern recognition software that I could use to eliminate "normal" files? How do you manage these files?

Steve Q

 

[sic0048]

Is this a situation where everyday you are getting thousands of pictures and you are trying to find a way to reduce that number to a more manageable amount?

If it is simply that you have been keeping all the photos and have now realized that you have several thousand pictures saved, could you not simply keep the folders for a set period of time (like 7 days) and then delete the entire folder for that day? If there wasn't some "event" that you discovered within the first 7 days that required reviewing the pictures, then is there some other reason to keep them?

You could create a script that could do this pretty easily. Certainly much easier than trying to automatically delete certain pictures.

 

[SteveQ]

Is this a situation where everyday you are getting thousands of pictures and you are trying to find a way to reduce that number to a more manageable amount?

If it is simply that you have been keeping all the photos and have now realized that you have several thousand pictures saved, could you not simply keep the folders for a set period of time (like 7 days) and then delete the entire folder for that day? If there wasn't some "event" that you discovered within the first 7 days that required reviewing the pictures, then is there some other reason to keep them?

You could create a script that could do this pretty easily. Certainly much easier than trying to automatically delete certain pictures.

I do not look at the pictures every day. Mostly I don't really need to save them. But I sometimes I look back to see "when did Joe visit". So I would like to keep maybe 4 to 5 photos each day. Kind of a video diary. Trying to do this by hand is difficult. Also my computer chokes when I start going through thousands of thumbnails.

I was thinking about creating a script that somehow compared photo A to Photo B and then deleted Photo B if it was essentially the same. But I have no idea how to do this!

Steve Q

 

[electron]

I'm guessing you are looking for something like this:

http://www.bolidesoft.com/imagecomparer/commandline.html

Not cheap, but would do the job. If you are a scripter, you could also use ImageMagick's compare tool.

 

[dgetz]

I am not sure how you are currently recording or storing, but I would recommend better software. A program called Vitamin D has a highly intelligent people filter that only records relevant video or frames. It filters out any other motion and basically your camera becomes the motion detector. I have only tried the free edition, and it works REALLY well. All the clips are highly search able. It even does email notifications. Supposedly the basic paid edition supports triggering events for compatibility with home automation, but I have not tried that yet. Obviously this requires a running computer system on your network. Check it out: http://www.vitamindinc.com/index.php

 

[twilo123]

i agree with dgetz. look for some nvr software that supports analytics and use the function to weed out typical items in the scenes. this way you only view the frames that are important to you. I haven't tried vitamin D but have heard good things about it also.

 

[Vycor]

Yeah sorry to be one of "those people" who doesnt help... but your going about things the wrong way with your camera system.. You really need DVR software that records only during motion. We use GeoVision cards and build our own systems. It records many ways. Either 24/7, via motion or a combination of 24/7 at some times and motion at others.

It works well and records actual footage rather then photos. Photos arnt much help when your trying to see something, you really need video.

It'll be easier and worth it to just put in a real DVR system then doing the single photos. Although i understand your concept, its just going about it the wrong way unfortunatly.

Sorry im not much help, i hate people who reply to my threads and offer no help, but i see you going in the wrong direction here.

 

[drozwood90]

I use a motion sensor and http://www.supervisioncam.com/

The motion will alert the system to start looking for stuff, and then the motion sense algorithms do the rest.

I only use this method, as I'm trying to keep the draw on the processor at a minimal (power and I want to keep the overhead in case I start streaming a movie or something that requires a bit more from the server's processor). I know, I know, it should be a separate machine...but not all of us have that luxury and need to do with what we have.

What I like about the supervisioncam, you can enable and disable the processing on any specific camera input through calls to the program's built in webpage. Makes it nice and easy for Homeseer to turn a channel on or off. It really has a TON of features for how much it costs. I'd list it's features, but you can see them on the webpage link.

--Dan

 

[electron]

I have had Vitamin D running for a bit now, using a Panasonic IP cam. It's a pretty cool application, allowing you to configure some interesting motion detection configurations. I would recommend going the DVR route as well (I did for the same reasons). I just wish there was a DVR out there which supports advanced motion tracking/analytics, but is still affordable.

 

[SteveQ]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have downloaded VitaminD and I will give it a try. I will also try Supervisioncam.com. These look very interesting.

Vycor, thanks for the suggestion to go to a DVR system; I appreciate your suggestion but I think you assumed (because I referred to my cameras as "security cameras") that I am using the cameras for security purposes. This is not the case, I use the cameras as part of my homeautomation system. They provide feedback regarding lights left ON, Garage door open, Sprinklers ON, is it raining, did the UPS delivery arrive, etc. I have the ability to record video, but I do not want to look at hundreds of video clips. Still photos are adequate for my needs.

Steve Q

 

[damage]

i've got an avermedia nv3000 with 4 cameras running with its software motion detection for particular regions. it also has a web server where you can bring up still images of each camera. i have motion sensors in those coverage areas & when a sensor triggers, a script is kicked off that grabs frames from all the cameras for a minute or so, glues them together to make a quadview, emails a subset of them to me if i'm out of the house and makes a thumbnail to put on my HA floorplan (with time, date & the triggered sensor's id). so i can at a glance see what happened for the last several events and can click on it & get a javascript flipbook animation of those frames to review. and if necessary, i can export the video from avermedia. oh and it's cohabitating with sagetv on the same machine.

pic attached w/ thumbnails from my HA floorplan