Vitamin D video surveillance

[Moskus]

Thanks for the replies, I agree in part, but VDV does have some advantages over "dumb" motion detectors. Those are the ability to differentiate between human and non-human motion, and the ability to graphically define hot zones.

How does the VDV manage to differentiate between human and non-human motion? That's what motion detectors do, they react only to human motion...

Defining zones is good and all, but is it really that necessary if the room is smaller conference hall...? You could always shield the sensor somehow to get the same result.

[Uncle Michael]

How does the VDV manage to differentiate between human and non-human motion?

In my limited experience VDV seems almost magical in its ability to differentiate humans from other objects. As with other video systems, though, it can be fooled by rapid changes in lighting, especially in outdoor scenes. I have not tried it with pets, but it would not surprise me at all if it was nearly 100%. I have no idea how it does it, but I imagine the algorithm is fairly sophisticated, which is probably why it takes a few seconds for it to make the categorization.

[Moskus]

In my limited experience VDV seems almost magical in its ability to differentiate humans from other objects. As with other video systems, though, it can be fooled by rapid changes in lighting, especially in outdoor scenes. I have not tried it with pets, but it would not surprise me at all if it was nearly 100%. I have no idea how it does it, but I imagine the algorithm is fairly sophisticated, which is probably why it takes a few seconds for it to make the categorization.

Ah, so it does have a special algorithm for that? Well, that will could make the trigger even slower, but indeed cooler.

But still, a regular motion detector, even the simple MS13, only triggers on human motion. My Neato XV-11 can of course clean the living room without the sensors going off.

[Uncle Michael]

But still, a regular motion detector, even the simple MS13, only triggers on human motion. My Neato XV-11 can of course clean the living room without the sensors going off.

I have to go to some lengths to minimize the triggers from my cats. How do your motion sensors differentiate humans from dogs and cats? As far as I can tell, mine detect any movement in the IR above a (very low) threshold.

[wodin]

In my limited experience VDV seems almost magical in its ability to differentiate humans from other objects. As with other video systems, though, it can be fooled by rapid changes in lighting, especially in outdoor scenes. I have not tried it with pets, but it would not surprise me at all if it was nearly 100%. I have no idea how it does it, but I imagine the algorithm is fairly sophisticated, which is probably why it takes a few seconds for it to make the categorization.

Yes, after trying the free version (only one camera and no ability to trigger scripts) I was amazed at its ability to differentiate humans from other objects, and also people (or other objects) entering the scene from one side or the other, or coming through a door. From reading the forums and blogs, everyone I read says that no other video surveillance system, either professional or amateur can match it for this ability. My own, albeit limited experience with it is that it provides a level of control for occupancy detection that is unmatched by any other system.

I bought the intermediate license for $50, so now I can monitor two cameras, and fire scripts, but if I want to add any more cameras I’ll have to upgrade to the “pro” version for another $150.

Once again, the tradeoffs are speed of operation, and the fact that it takes a very beefy computer to run. As stated above, the netbook that I run my HomeSeer system on is entirely inadequate, so I have to run it on my i5 quad core PC, and use the script connector plugin to fire events in HS. And even then there is an upper limit to how many cameras I can monitor without bogging it down.

There are a few features I like to see implemented, like a web interface, and in video time stamping, but the author(s) has decided to not quit his day job; so unless sales picks up dramatically I don’t hold much hope for that. But even as it is, it works.

Oh yeah, and probably the most important feature; my somewhat paranoid wife LOVES having a video record of anyone coming and going in our carport, and wants to monitor both sides of the house too (the back yard is inaccessible except from the front of the house).

[gatornuke]

how do i make this work?

After trying webcam XP for some time and determining tha tit is insufficient for my needs (toom many false alarms from shadows and bugs), i decided to try webcam XP for its supposedly good people recognition.

I can't figure out for the life of me how to get it to trigger events in HS, though. I created the following text file "Door.vb" in the HSPRO/Scripts folder:

Public Sub Main(ByVal Parms As String)
hs.writelog("VitaminD","Human Movement in Porch")
hs.TriggerEvent("There is Someone at the Door") 'Name of HomeSeer Event 
End Sub

I then added the following path to the "Path" variable in the system environment variables: "C:\Program Files (x86)\HomeSeer HSPRO"

This should allow me to call "HSSCRIPT.exe Door.vb" from VDV. But of course, it doesn't work. VDV says that "The command was not found". Probably because there is no hsscript.exe file in the hspro folder. this is all running on the same computer, so from what i understand i do not need the script connector. Can anyone tell me what i'm doing wrong? how do it get hsscript.exe? what can i use instead of it?

[wodin]

Don't you need the scripts folder in the path statement?

[Uncle Michael]

I have no experience with the Script Connector plug-in, but my guess is that the hsscript.exe file is provided with that plug-in. If you are looking to trigger an event from another application you may find the article "Controlling HomeSeer remotely from external applications" in the HS Help file useful. It's in the 'Tips and Tricks' section.

[wodin]

Coolgas reported above:

"2nd EDIT : Ahhh, I found the path error... I have to write C:\Progra~1\HomeSe~1\OpenUrl.exe to work!!!!!!
So, there is the DOS behind ehhh?... "

Also be aware that VDV is VERY processor intensive, and requires a beefy computer to run, and a VERY beefy one if you have more than one or two cameras. It's probably not a good idea to try running it on your HS machine unless you have a fast quad core in there.

Also, hsscript.exe is part of the script connector, it's ment to run on a remote PC, and call HS across your LAN.

[gatornuke]

Don't you need the scripts folder in the path statement?

Did that too, still no dice. Then i read someone else's post to make this:

Set hs = createobject("HomeSeer.application") 
hs.writelog "VitaminD","Human Movement at front door"  
hs.TriggerEvent "There is Someone at the Door"   'Name of HomeSeer Event

and give it a .vbs extension and call it directly (no hsscript.exe). Again this is all running in the same machine.

I even put the vbs script in c:\scripts to keep spaces in the path from being the culprit.

When i have parenthesis after hs.whatever i get an error saying that i can't have parenthesis, but then when i remove the parenthesis i get "Object variable or With block variable not set"

At this point i'm just trying to get the scripts to work by themselves by executing them directly. I haven't even started to try to tackle making them fire off from VCV

This is getting very frustrating. I might just have to go back to webcam xp with all its flaws, at least it worked with HS.

[gatornuke]

I have no experience with the Script Connector plug-in, but my guess is that the hsscript.exe file is provided with that plug-in. If you are looking to trigger an event from another application you may find the article "Controlling HomeSeer remotely from external applications" in the HS Help file useful. It's in the 'Tips and Tricks' section.

I read that, and then the earlier post of calling the vbs script directly started to make sense, but for some reason i just can't get it to work.

By the way, the windows scripting host example on the HS help file does not work. I tried to run the following (almost verbatum from HS except the last two lines):

Dim hs
Set hsi = createobject("HomeSeer2.application")
hsi.SetHost "localhost"
rval = hsi.Connect("default","default")
if rval <> "" then
msgbox rval
end if
Set hs = hsi.GetHSRef
hs.writelog "VitaminD","Human Movement at front door"  
hs.TriggerEvent "There is Someone at the Door"   'Name of HomeSeer Event

This results in "ActiveX component can't create object: 'HomeSeer2.Application'

[gatornuke]

Solved!!

It looks like the culprit was windows!

I have HS running on a windows 7 x64 box (quad core phenom -- this is also my WMC server box). Apparently, when csript is being called, the system calls windows\system32\cscript.exe, which is the 64 bit version, and apparently does not work. Instead you want to call C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cscript.exe (the 32bit version).

Once i figured this out (see this link), i was able to run this script and have it do what i wanted it to:

Dim hs
Set hsi = createobject("HomeSeer2.application")
hsi.SetHost "localhost"
rval = hsi.Connect("default","default")
if rval <> "" then
msgbox rval
end if
Set hs = hsi.GetHSRef
hs.writelog "VitaminD","Human Movement at front door"  
hs.TriggerEvent "There is Someone at the Door"   'Name of HomeSeer Event

I saved the script in c:\scripts\door.vbs

And this is what i wrote in the "run the command" box in VDV
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cscript.exe //nologo c:\scripts\door.vbs

Works perfect now

[wodin]

Good to hear, also good for me, I learned a little more about scripting!

[tonlof]

Another way to trigger HomeSeer from VitaminD

Install wget Direct url:http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gnu....4-1-setup.exe
Locate the bin folder for wget (C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin), if you want you can copy all files in bin folder to your own directory without spaces.

Under "Run the command" in VitaminD add this line and change to your ip of HomeSeer server.
c:\wget\wget.exe -q --no-cache http://192.168.2.15:82/movement.aspx -O nul

If you need to send logininfo to Homeseer just use:
c:\wget\wget.exe -q --no-cache http://default:default@192.168.2.15:82/movement.aspx -O nul

Save this in html folder under homeseer as movement.aspx

<%@ Page Language="VB" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<%
Dim hs As Scheduler.hsapplication
Try
    hs = Context.Items("Content")
    hs.writelog ("VitaminD","Frontdoor Movement" )
        'hs.Plugin( "SMS Connector" ).SendSms("0xxxxxxxxxx",frontdoor_trigger.wav")
        hs.TriggerEvent ("Human Movement")
Catch ex As Exception
    hs.writelog("Error:",ex.Message)
End Try
%> 

In my setup I use Stipus sms connector to send sms to my android phone with Tasker app running to speak the wav-file, flash the led light, and it also start the "IP cam viewer" on the phone with livestreaming.

From the sms is sent it's takes under 1 second to start speak "frontdoor movement" and directly after is open the sceen with livestreaming from the camera on my phone. Working perfect over 3G.

[stboch]

not sure if anyone suggested http://www.ispyconnect.com/ So i figure I will through that one in the ring too.