Knowledge base

Camera and monitor directions

When registering cameras and creating monitors, you’re required to name and label several things. You might be confused why you have to set up multiple sets of directions, or what the difference is between a camera direction and a monitor direction, or why you have to set them up at all!

This article will explain how camera directions and monitor directions are used and how they work together.

For full details about setting up your HoxtonAi cameras, occupancy and people count monitors, please see the Control Room user guide.

Register your camera

1. Name the camera

It’s important to name your cameras something descriptive and understandable by anyone.

If you have lots of cameras with names like ‘Camera 1’, ‘Floor 2 A’ or ‘Window’ - it can be hard to know which camera is which and make management of your camera inventory more difficult later on.

2. Label the camera directions

Like the camera name, camera directions make it easier for people to understand the context of the camera and how it is orientated. Descriptive camera names will make further management and configuration of your camera inventory much easier.

If the camera being registered is going to be used in a single-camera people count monitor, the monitor will be created automatically. The monitor name and directions will be taken from the camera.

Create a monitor.

Find out more about what a monitor is.

The following is not applicable if you selected the single-camera people count option during camera registration.

1. Name the monitor

It’s important to name your monitor something descriptive and understandable by anyone.

If you have lots of monitors with names like ‘Space occupancy’, ‘Entrance’ or ‘Gallery’ - it can be hard to know which monitor is which when looking at your reporting later on.

2. Name the monitor directions

For occupancy monitors the directions will always be ‘in’ and ‘out’ and will be added automatically.

If you’re setting up a people count monitor, with multiple cameras, ‘in and out’ won’t’ always make sense.

Depending on your setup, your directions might need to be ‘left and right’, ‘north and south’ or ‘ towards restaurant and towards gift shop’. It’s entirely up to you, but it’s important you select direction names that will be clearly understood by anybody, as they will be used in the reporting for your monitor.

3. Match camera directions with the monitor directions

A camera can be used in more than one monitor, which allows you great flexibility in how your camera networks can be used. To take advantage of this flexibility, we need you to tell us how your cameras are orientated in relation to each monitor they’re being used in.

Match camera directions with monitor directions.

We now know how all your cameras are orientated within the monitor. This means we can combine the data from all cameras into a single report.

For instance you might want to set up an alert for every 500 people who go towards the gift shop.

Or you might want to report on how many people have passed by in either direction each day.

Full instructions for creating a monitor are available in the control room user guide.