User Interface guide

The user interface consists of
1. Top menu bar

2. Camera controls

3. Bottom toolbar

4. Thumbnails

5. Timeline

The numbers in the screenshot below correspond to the location of above 

1. Top menu bar

The top menu bar opens access to the main features of the video portal and allows you to configure the screen layout according to your needs. The Help menu and Profile can be opened from here as well.

Top Menu bar icons and their functions are explained below:

• • Camera Menu: The camera list shows all connected cameras. Start typing the camera name to search for it. At the bottom of the list, you can filter cameras by:

1. Active - shows cameras that are currently online - this tab is opened by default the first time the video portal is accessed in the current browser session 
2. PTZ - shows PTZ-enabled cameras
3. Offline - shows cameras that are currently offline

• • Navigation Menu: The navigation menu allows users to categorize camera groups. Start typing the camera group name or category to search for it.
  • Groups Menu: The group menu shows the user all the camera layouts that have been previously saved and allow a user to designate a default layout into which the user will be logged in every time. Users can switch between different camera groups simply by clicking on the group name.

• • Events Menu: Menu events show all events that were detected by the camera. You can search for events using available filters. If Face Recognition is enabled for any of the cameras match results will be shown on the Faces tab.

• • Library Menu: The menu library holds all clips and time-lapses. You can search, download, rename, and delete clips from here.

• • Map Menu: The menu map shows the camera's location on the map. You can preview the camera, open the camera full screen, or drag and drop the camera into any layout cell to add it to the current layout.

• • AutoScan Menu: Menu auto scan allows you to configure an automatic layout change sequence. You can add both layouts and cameras using the drag-and-drop method from either cameras or layout menus. Drag items in the list to change the order in which they will be shown.

• • Thumbnail Grid: The Thumbnail grid shows snapshots from archived footage allowing you to quickly search for a specific event.

• • Heatmap Menu: Heatmaps menu allows you to visually estimate areas of high traffic. This menu is shown only for accounts that have Object detection enabled for at least one camera.
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  • Layout Menu: The layout menu allows you to change layouts and save them for future use.
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  • Help Menu: The Help menu shows video tutorials and allows you to download a pdf version of the Vidoe portal guide.
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  • Profile Menu: The account menu allows you to change your password, access the admin portal, and safely end the session.

Note: To search for a camera or a layout group you can use the 'Ctrl + P' keyboard shortcut from any menu screen.

2. Camera Controls

To reveal the camera toolbar simply hover the mouse pointer over the camera image. Depending on the camera feature different buttons will be available.

• • Pause playback: If the camera was on pause already this button is replaced with the Play button and pressing it will resume playback.
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  • Volume control: If the camera is equipped with a microphone and the microphone is enabled in the admin portal the volume control slider will appear when this button is pressed.
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  • Playback speed control: This button will be shown only during archive playback. It allows you to change playback speed from 1/2 of normal speed to 16 times faster.
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  • Aspect ratio toggle: It allows you to either fill in the available screen area with the camera image stretching it or to view the stream in the camera's native aspect ratio.
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  • Camera synchronization: It will be shown only when a multi-camera layout is opened and the mouse hovers over the dependent camera. When pressed playback for the selected camera will be synchronized with the main camera.
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  • Map: The map button shows the camera location on the world map.
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  • Snapshot: Save a snapshot to your hard drive.
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  • Thumbnail: This button will open the Thumbnail grid allowing you to visually search for an event.
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  • Area Search: The area search tool allows you to select an area on the image to search for all recognized objects according to the parameters set on the Analytics tab of the camera in the Admin portal. This button is shown only for the cameras that have object detection enabled.
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  • Fullscreen: Expand the selected camera to full screen, menus will still be visible.
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  • PTZ controls: This button is shown only for PTZ cameras and allows you to control the viewing angle of the camera.
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  • Mic: Speak through the dual audio-enabled camera. It allows you to talk through the camera speaker, the microphone has to be enabled on the General tab of the camera properties window in the Admin portal.
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  • Close: Close the camera from the layout cell. This will stop streaming for the selected camera and will allow you to add a new camera in the selected layout cell.

• PTZ movement speed depends on the camera's capabilities and settings. To adjust the speed and movement of the camera there are two interfaces:

1. Relative: For a step-by-step increment in the camera movement use a relative interface. This allows users to have more control over the camera movement in terms of the rate at which the angle of the camera should be rotated. 

2. Continuous: This is a robust mode which is allowing users to pan and tilt the camera continuously. The camera can be quickly returned to the home position with the hut icon.

Note: Caution should be taken while clicking the hut icon and not be confused with the hut icon with a down arrow as it will overwrite the default position of the camera and will save the new position as default.

3. Bottom toolbar

The bottom toolbar holds two sets of tools.

The first set controls the selected camera timeline, the second set controls all cameras on the screen.

 Tools that influence the selected camera

• • Pictograms: Pictograms are a tool to hide or show a selected type of object, which can aid in object search by type. Requires Object detection to show these events above the timeline.
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  • Jump back to the last object detected.
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  • Jump back to the last camera event, this includes events like motion detection, line crossing, intrusion, etc.
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  • Jump back in the archive by the selected time interval on the selected camera.
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  •   Press on the time to open the popup menu to select the time interval. This will also change how much of the timeline is visible.
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  • Jump forward in the archive by the selected time interval for the selected camera.
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  • Jump forward to the next camera event.
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  • Jump to the next detected object in the timeline.
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  • Press this button to center the timeline on the scrubber (current playback position of the selected camera).
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  • Start creating a clip for the selected camera. Once the clip is created it can be either downloaded or shared from the library
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  • Press on the date or time to open the calendar. From it, you can select the date and/or time. You can switch between date and time tabs to select the desired moment then click on OK to start playback from the selected moment.

Tools that control all cameras on-screen

• •   Show or hide thumbnails above the timeline for the selected camera to visually search for an event.
  •   Open the video portal full screen. This will hide all of the browser toolbars maximizing the viewing area.
  • Change the aspect ratio for all cameras. Will either stretch the image to fill the screen or show it in the native aspect ratio of the cameras.
  • Synchronize the playback position of all cameras that are currently on the screen to the main camera (camera with the green border around it).
  •  Pauses all cameras on screen, if all cameras are on pause then this button will resume playback for all cameras.
  •   Set all cameras to show a live stream.

4. Thumbnails

Thumbnails are still images from the camera footage for a specified moment in time. To reveal thumbnails press the Thumbnails button from the bottom toolbar. The time interval between thumbnails depends on the scale of the timeline. 

Hover the mouse pointer over the timeline (blue line at the bottom of the screen) to change the time range for which thumbnails are shown.

The timestamp at the bottom of each thumbnail shows the exact time when this still image was captured and represents the actual snapshot from the camera.

Click on any image from the thumbnail line to start playback from the specified moment in time.

The time interval between thumbnails depends on the scale of the timeline, you can use your mouse wheel while pointing at the timeline to change the scale factor of the timeline or use a popup menu from the bottom toolbar.

5. Timeline

The timeline is a blue line at the bottom of the interface. It shows available archives for the selected camera. If you have more than one camera on the screen the timeline will be shown only for the selected camera (one with a colored border).

Darker blue areas indicate events reported by the camera, these include events like motion, line-crossing, intrusion, etc, in other words, all events that are generated by the camera.

Black "gaps" in the timeline indicate periods of time when the camera was not working or did not have an internet connection.

A timeline is an interactive tool that allows you to quickly navigate through available archives. Clicking anywhere on the timeline will start playback from the selected time period.

The scrubber shows the current playback position. Press the "Center on the scrubber" button to quickly locate the scrubber on the timeline and center the timeline on the screen.

Additionally, you can interact with the timeline using shortcut keys. To open the shortcut help use the "Shift" and "/" buttons combination.

Viewing other time ranges

Use the mouse wheel to change the time range of the timeline, make sure that your mouse pointer is located over the timeline when doing this. Click, hold and drag anywhere on the timeline to move to a different time range:

Also, you can use the popup menu to change the scale of the timeline:

Or use the calendar to jump to a desired date and time:

Reviewing events

To start playback from the beginning of the event which was created by the camera (ONVIF events) click anywhere on the darker blue section of the timeline.

Colored dots above the timeline indicate detected objects. Click on any of the dots to start playback from the moment when this object was detected by the server.

Pink dots indicate moments when a person was detected.

Green dots indicate when a vehicle was detected.

Blue dots indicate all other objects, including animals, boats, luggage, hard hats, etc.

You can hide or show again selected types of objects. Just click on the pictogram of the object and the selected object type will be hidden, the pictogram will turn grey, or visible, and the pictogram will be colored. This can aid in an object-by-object search when using previous or next object arrows, the scrubber will jump to the previous/next visible object ignoring all hidden objects. 

For more information please visit the pages below:

1. Top menu bar, to learn about its features please visit this page

2. Camera controls, to learn about its features please visit this page

3. Bottom toolbar, to learn about its features please visit this page

4. Thumbnails, to learn about its features please visit this page

5. Timeline, to learn about its features please visit this page