Motion Detection Logging and Delta images

[kyferez]

Since I am having such difficulty getting the motion detection I need, I am trying to use the motion debug options described here under the heading RECORD_DIAG_IMAGES_FIFO: https://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/la ... gging.html

I have both RECORD_DIAG_IMAGES_FIFO Checked AND RECORD_DIAG_IMAGES Checked.

However the 3 links provided in those instructions, set with the proper "portal" and "monitor" show nothing but blank pages even when actively viewing a monitor.

Anyone have any ideas? Really getting frustrated with ZM motion detection I have read ALL the docs on this topic both including the zoning for dummies wiki article. They aren't very helpful IMO because there is no discussion of active troubleshooting or debugging the detection and alarms; no discussion of how to get feedback from ZM to help you understand WHY it's alarming, on which Zone it alarmed on, and what area of the image it alarmed on. Without that data I can't possibly get this sorted in a reasonable way. I was hoping the above would help, if I could get it working!

[Andyrh]

It is frustrating at first.

The alarmed zone should be listed by the event when you view the list of events.

Step 1. turn on save jpegs and analysis frames. These can be viewed with the Frames button. The alarm frames will show where the alarm occurred. Make sure this is working and see if you can make progress.

[kyferez]

Ah I hadn't ever realized those were links!

The JPEG recording was already on including analysis images, and I do see the frame images, though I don't know where to access those analysis images... Humm just read they zone has to use BLOB method for those to be generated.

There needs to be a MUCH more thorough writeup on setting up zones and motion detection, how to troubleshoot, what the stats mean, how to adjust for them, etc, all in one article. If I figure this all out I'll make one!

What I really want is the negative images with the trigger pixels shown like demonstrated at the bottom of the page here: https://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/la ... gging.html

What do I do with this info: Don't really know what it means and don't see anything on the image that should have caused trigger, how do I know what caused the trigger?:

Zone Pixel Diff Alarm Px Filter Px Blob Px Blobs Blob Sizes Alarm Limits Score
Street 32 183277 (36%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 0 (0%) 0,0-0,0 36
Driveway 31 8105 (1%) 1494 (0%) 1494 (0%) 50 9-333 (0%-0%) 1361,541-1912,724 1

[Andyrh]

The alarm frame should show an outline of the area that had the motion.
Because I like hi-res cameras and don't like to link them (others just made a gasp) I use pixels, not percent for my settings. I made a kid stand in frame and drew a zone around him. This gave me the pixels needed to detect a person at that range. From there tweaking the size made it reliable.

For now start with min/max alarmed area. Once it is triggering, move on the the next piece.

[kyferez]

Unfortunately the alarmed frames do Not have any indication of what triggered the alarm, at least not on the list showing all frames. And, unfortunately, when I click on an alarmed frame to make it bigger, I get a window with menu but no images ever.

ZM is very buggy, many docs are either wrong or out of date or there are more bugs... IDK. I'm pretty turned off with ZM at this point, but if anyone at all can help actually answer any of the following I'm game to try. Any ZM admins frequent these forums? I'd even pay for support at this point if they will address all my issues.

1. Why do the docs at https://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/la ... gging.html for the section RECORD_DIAG_IMAGES_FIFO not work?

2. Why do I never get any image shown when I click the alarmed frame image to make it show bigger? Seems like a bug because the smaller image URL is https://portal/zm/index.php?view=image& ... 9547_1.jpg but the link you click takes you to this URL https://192.168.7.2/zm/index.php?view=f ... =1&popup=1 however if you edit the smaller link to this it works with fullsize image: https://portal/zm/index.php?view=image& ... 9547_1.jpg

3. What do the statistics on an alarmed frame mean? How do you use them to help you setup zones? Haven't found that info anywhere.

4. Why am I not getting any indication of the pixels which triggered an alarm in my alarm frames?

5. How can we feed a video into ZM and steam it looped so we can more easily test alarms?

6. There needs to be full examples of how to capture motion, especially examples both of difficult to capture items and dealing with various types of false alerts.

7. Zoneminder needs to provide more feedback on alarm frames, and documentation on that feedback so we know what to do with the info, so we can be able to tweak settings better.

Thanks

[Andyrh]

Play with the camera settings to get the analysis frames working. You may have to change the the video writer to disabled if I remember correctly. Without those frames you will not be able to see what is happening and adjusting is much harder.