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Time in area

Time in area is a Use Case that alerts you if a person stays in a given area for a configurable amount of time. Useful for detecting suspicious behavior, such as someone lingering in or near a restricted area.

  • Go to Video Search Advanced Search to set up a Search for time in area events.

  • Go to Live Rules New Rule to set up a real-time detection of time in area events with alarm integration.

Select Source

Select the video you want to run the Search on from the left sidebar. The thumbnail image of the chosen video is displayed here.

Time interval Advanced Search only

Time interval

Select a time frame for the analytics to run.

  • Entire video: Run the Search on the entire video duration, from the start timestamp to the end timestamp (set during video registration).
  • Custom range: You can select a custom start and end date and time to run the Search on. Type the desired date and time or select them by clicking the calendar icon.

Time in area filter

Object filter

Select one or multiple object types you want to search for.

  • Sensitivity (Medium by default): The sensitivity level of the Search. The higher the sensitivity, the more likely it is to detect a person lingering in an area, but it may also result in more false positives.

  • Detection zone (optional): Draw a polygon on the video frame to define the area where the objects will be detected. Left-click on the video frame to draw a polygon. Left-click again on the video frame to keep adding points to the polygon; double-click to finish drawing.

    Drawing ROI is only supported on videos with a fixed camera angle (i.e. not on moving cameras). PTZ cameras are supported only in fixed position.

    Note that currently only one ROI can be drawn.

  • Minimum presence duration (in seconds, 10 by default): The minimum duration for a person to be considered as lingering in the area. The higher the presence duration, the more time the person must remain in the area before triggering a detection.

  • Use bottom reference point (on by default): By default, the Search uses the bottom center of the detected bounding box as a reference point to determine whether an object is within the defined area. Toggling this option will use the middle center of the bounding box instead.

Expert Settings

Ticking the Expert Settings box will open additional configuration options for the Search, such as more object types to choose from. Additional parameters:

  • Alow repeated alerts after re-entering the area: If enabled, the Search will allow triggering multiple detections for the same object if it leaves and re-enters the area. If disabled, only one detection will be triggered for each object, even if it leaves and re-enters the area multiple times.

Alarm integration Live Rules only

You can choose to integrate the Search with an alarm system.; whenever a stopped object is detected, an alarm will be triggered in the integrated system.

Results

All done - Clicking Search will immediately start the analysis and opens the Search Results screen.

Live Rules will produce real-time detections , and the results will be displayed in the Alarms screen. If an alarm integration is set up, an alarm will also be triggered in the integrated system.