Create rules for line-crossing

Last modified: Tuesday May 02, 2023.

Create rules to alert your Avigilon Alta operators when an object (person or vehicle) crosses a defined line in the field of view of a camera.

Setting line-crossing configurations on Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras can produce unexpected results if the view is moved, as the position of the line remains static as the camera view changes.

See How Alta Video detects line-crossing events for information on the requirements for Alta Video to be able to detect a line-crossing event.

Prerequisites

To use Preset Camera or Date & Time settings, make sure you have configured them before creating the rule.

Task — Create the line-crossing rule

  1. Choose Tools New tool > Rules Rules.
  2. Click AddAdd rule.
  3. Type a name for the rule.
  4. Click Line-crossingLine crossing.
  5. Set the Level of importance.
    High importance rules prioritize the cameras displayed in the Video view when a rule is triggered.
  6. Click Next.
  7. Select the type of object you want to find.
    You can select Any object, Person, Vehicle, or Face.
  8. Depending on your chosen object selection, select further characteristics for your rule.
    For Person rules, you can select Only this color, or you can Ignore this color for upper and lower body clothing.
    For Vehicle rules, you can choose All types or Only this type. For Only this type you can choose one or more from 2 wheeled, Small/Medium vehicle, Large vehicle, or Unknown type. In addition, you can select Only this color, or you can Ignore this color for the vehicle.

    For deployments that have LPR configured, optionally enable license plate matching in the rule.

    For license plate matching, select Any plate, Exact match, Matches groups, Starts with, Ends with, or Includes characters from the license plate.

    You can also choose to exclude all license plates in a chosen License plate group from triggering the rule.

  9. When you have defined what you are looking for, click Next.
  10. Select the camera to be analyzed.
      1. Use Search to help find the required cameras in the list.
      2. Click Site and device groups icon to filter cameras by site name, device group name, and device name, or click Labels icon to filter by label.
      3. If you have predefined them, use Camera presets to simplify adding the same groups of cameras to multiple rules.
  11. Draw a line across the part of the camera view that you want to use as the line crossing. See How Alta Video detects line-crossing events.
  12. By default, this line is a 2-way crossing; the system will detect traffic crossing in either direction. To only search for objects crossing the line on one direction, click the direction to disable (the circle arrow turns white when disabled).

    Line crossing direction enabled icon — Line crossing direction enabled.

    Line crossing direction disabled icon — Line crossing direction disabled.

  13. Click Next.
  14. Specify your required Date & Time and RULE ACTIVATION settings.
    If you have predefined them, use Templates to simplify adding the same date and time parameters to multiple rules.
  15. Click Next.
  16. Select your required actions. Select from:
    • Pop-up — when triggered, pops up a notification in Alta Video that includes a thumbnail view of the camera view that triggered the rule.
      To receive notifications on the Alta Video mobile app, check Also send a push notification on the mobile app.
    • Email — when triggered, an email message is sent to the defined user or group of users.
    • External link— when triggered, Alta Video automatically creates a shared external link that can be embedded in an Email or Webhook notification.
    • Webhook — when triggered, enables notification via a webhook to your preferred communication system.

    Alarms are only shown to operators that have access to the cameras that trigger the rule.

  17. To configure Advanced settings:
    1. Click Advanced settings Advanced settings.
    2. Check Trigger alarm per object to have each detected object as a separate alarm.
    3. To record more video at the end of the alarm, specify the Additional recording time.
    4. To merge similar alarms, specify the Merge similar alarms within time.
    5. Select how the triggered rule should behave. To trigger an alarm that shows in the Alarms tool, select Security Alarm (default). To trigger as an event that shows in the Events tool, select Security Event.
    6. Click Done.
  18. Choose to require your operators to acknowledge the triggered rule.
  19. Click Done.