Camera Preferences

ONVIF Cameras
Camera Preferences
Additional Options
See Also

The Camera Preferences tab allows you to add, remove, or configure cameras connected to this Desktop Client. Cameras that have already been automatically discovered are displayed here.

SAFR normally auto-detects all integrated (built-in) cameras, USB-connected cameras, and IP (internet protocol) cameras that support the ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum) protocol as long as they are present on the same network to which the Desktop Client is connected. For more about ONVIF and the ONVIF specification, see the ONVIF home page.

ONVIF Cameras

Each camera discovered via ONVIF must have a username and password.
Be sure that the camera has at least one ONVIF user with administrative privileges, or ONVIF authentication will not work.
ONVIF video profiles configured on the camera will be available to select in the live video recognition view.
The date and time configured on the camera must be within five seconds of the system time SAFR is running on.

Camera Preferences

To configure a camera, select any of the connected cameras in the left panel. If you need to add a camera, see Connect Cameras to SAFR. When a camera is selected, a set of preferences will appear on the right of the window. Which preferences are exposed depends on what kind of camera is selected.

USB Camera Preferences

USB cameras have the following preference settings.

Source: Use this field to override the default source label for the camera. For example, you might want to change a default source label to West Hall or a more meaningful label for your specific environment.
Address: Address of the camera.
User: User name used to log into the camera.
Password: Password used to log into the camera.
Frame rate reduction: The number of frames per input by which the frame rate will be reduced. Higher frame rates can consume considerable resources, so it can be useful to manually reduce the frame rate when the camera is providing more than the 12-15 FPS that SAFR requires. Note: This setting should only be used when it isn't possible to adjust the frame rate via the camera's native settings.
Contrast Enhancement: When selected, enhances low-light images and videos by enhancing the contrast.
- Low Light Threshold: Determines the level of light when the exposure boost will be applied. If an image or video has more light than the threshold allows for, then the exposure boost will not be applied.
- Exposure Boost: Determines how much to boost the contrast.
Front facing: Indicates if the camera is front-facing.
Rotate Image: Use the dropdown menu to set a value that rotates to correct for camera orientation. Typically, this correction can be done directly by the camera, but if not, you can adjust it here. Recognition does not work properly unless the camera's image is properly oriented.
Enforce Low Latency: This option is only available for integrated and USB cameras. Enforce Low Latency optimizes display and processing by allowing the video frame rate to drop if CPU resources are low.
This may be needed for some 4K webcam models or any cameras that support particularly high frame rates.
Direction of Travel Recognition: When any of the 4 travel distance settings below are enabled, the Desktop Client will generate a direction of travel event when a person's face travels further than the specified percentage within the camera view field. For example, if Left travel distance were set to 50, then a direction of travel event would be generated if somebody's face entered the camera view field from the right edge of the frame, and then moved to the left more than 50% of the camera field view. Note that you can configure multiple travel distance settings at the same time, and a direction of travel event will be triggered if the condition specified by any of the configured travel distance settings were met.
The 4 boundary settings allow you to shrink the size of the camera view for the purpose of generating direction of travel events. If you set one or more of the boundary settings, SAFR will not begin reporting or calculating direction of travel events until the object is within the specified boundaries. The boundary settings can be useful when people are hovering right at the edge of the camera's field of view (e.g. a doorman at the entrance to a hotel).
- Left travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the right edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the left edge.
- Right travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the left edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the right edge.
- Up/Away travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the bottom edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the top edge.
- Down/Towards travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the top edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the bottom edge.
- Left boundary: Specifies the percentage of the left side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Right boundary: Specifies the percentage of the right side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Top boundary: Specifies the percentage of the top side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Bottom boundary: Specifies the percentage of the bottom side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.

Ximea Camera Preferences

Only available in Windows.

Note: Ximea cameras can connect to SAFR only if you selected the Ximea camera extension when you installed SAFR.

Ximea cameras have the following preference settings.

Source: Use this field to override the default source label for the camera. For example, you might want to change a default source label to West Hall or a more meaningful label for your specific environment.
Address: Address of the camera.
User: User name used to log into the camera.
Password: Password used to log into the camera.
Front facing: Indicates if the camera is front-facing.
Rotate image: Use the dropdown menu to set a value that rotates to correct for camera orientation. Typically, this correction can be done directly by the camera, but if not, you can adjust it here. Recognition does not work properly unless the camera's image is properly oriented.
Max frame rate: Select a value from the dropdown menu to set the max frame rate for the Ximea camera.
Frame rate reduction: The number of frames per input by which the frame rate will be reduced. Higher frame rates can consume considerable resources, so it can be useful to manually reduce the frame rate when the camera is providing more than the 12-15 FPS that SAFR requires. Note: This setting should only be used when it isn't possible to adjust the frame rate via the camera's native settings.
Contrast Enhancement: When selected, enhances low-light images and videos by enhancing the contrast.
- Low Light Threshold: Determines the level of light when the exposure boost will be applied. If an image or video has more light than the threshold allows for, then the exposure boost will not be applied.
- Exposure Boost: Determines how much to boost the contrast.
Direction of Travel Recognition: When any of the 4 travel distance settings below are enabled, the Desktop Client will generate a direction of travel event when a person's face travels further than the specified percentage within the camera view field. For example, if Left travel distance were set to 50, then a direction of travel event would be generated if somebody's face entered the camera view field from the right edge of the frame, and then moved to the left more than 50% of the camera field view. Note that you can configure multiple travel distance settings at the same time, and a direction of travel event will be triggered if the condition specified by any of the configured travel distance settings were met.
The 4 boundary settings allow you to shrink the size of the camera view for the purpose of generating direction of travel events. If you set one or more of the boundary settings, SAFR will not begin reporting or calculating direction of travel events until the object is within the specified boundaries. The boundary settings can be useful when people are hovering right at the edge of the camera's field of view (e.g. a doorman at the entrance to a hotel).
- Left travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the right edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the left edge.
- Right travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the left edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the right edge.
- Up/Away travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the bottom edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the top edge.
- Down/Towards travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the top edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the bottom edge.
- Left boundary: Specifies the percentage of the left side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Right boundary: Specifies the percentage of the right side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Top boundary: Specifies the percentage of the top side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Bottom boundary: Specifies the percentage of the bottom side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.

IP Camera Preferences

IP cameras have the following preference settings.

Source: Use this field to override the default source label for the camera. For example, you might want to change a default source label to West Hall or a more meaningful label for your specific environment.
Address: Address of the camera.
User: User name used to log into the camera.
Password: Password used to log into the camera.
RTSP Transport Protocol: For the lowest latency, select UDP (User Datagram Protocol). If network packet loss is an issue, select TCP (Transmission Control Protocol).
Generally, UDP is a faster best effort communication system, whereas TCP is more reliable but slower. For example, if network connectivity is a concern for a particular camera, you might want to change this to TCP. Otherwise, UDP should be adequate in most situations.
Frame rate reduction: The number of frames per input by which the frame rate will be reduced. Higher frame rates can consume considerable resources, so it can be useful to manually reduce the frame rate when the camera is providing more than the 12-15 FPS that SAFR requires. Note: This setting should only be used when it isn't possible to adjust the frame rate via the camera's native settings.
Contrast Enhancement: When selected, enhances low-light images and videos by enhancing the contrast.
- Low Light Threshold: Determines the level of light when the exposure boost will be applied. If an image or video has more light than the threshold allows for, then the exposure boost will not be applied.
- Exposure Boost: Determines how much to boost the contrast.
Lens Correction: Enable lens correction to help correct the fisheye effect for very wide-angle lenses. This also improves recognition accuracy although is not needed in most cases.
- Coefficient K1: The "K1" lens correction factor.
- Coefficient K2: The "K2" lens correction factor.
Enable mirroring: macOS only. When enabled, the camera's video feed is mirrored.
Front facing: Indicates if the camera is front-facing.
Rotate Image: Use the dropdown menu to set a value that rotates to correct for camera orientation. Typically, this correction can be done directly by the camera, but if not, you can adjust it here. Recognition does not work properly unless the camera's image is properly oriented.
Back Channel: When the connected camera is a Mobotix camera, you can set this field to Mobotix MX in order to have SAFR report STRANGER and RECOGNIZED event types to the camera. This feature is necessary if you want to make use of the Mobotix app.
When the connected camera isn't a Mobotix camera, this setting doesn't have any effect.
- Cash Point: This value must match the configured cash point within the Mobotix app. If this Cash Point setting doesn't match the cash point within the Mobotix app, the back channel won't work.
Frame buffer size: Sets the size of the camera's frame buffer for buffering network streams.
Direction of Travel Recognition: When any of the 4 travel distance settings below are enabled, the Desktop Client will generate a direction of travel event when a person's face travels further than the specified percentage within the camera view field. For example, if Left travel distance were set to 50, then a direction of travel event would be generated if somebody's face entered the camera view field from the right edge of the frame, and then moved to the left more than 50% of the camera field view. Note that you can configure multiple travel distance settings at the same time, and a direction of travel event will be triggered if the condition specified by any of the configured travel distance settings were met.
The 4 boundary settings allow you to shrink the size of the camera view for the purpose of generating direction of travel events. If you set one or more of the boundary settings, SAFR will not begin reporting or calculating direction of travel events until the object is within the specified boundaries. The boundary settings can be useful when people are hovering right at the edge of the camera's field of view (e.g. a doorman at the entrance to a hotel).
- Left travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the right edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the left edge.
- Right travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the left edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the right edge.
- Up/Away travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the bottom edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the top edge.
- Down/Towards travel distance: Generates a direction of travel event when a face enters from the top edge of the camera view field and travels more than the specified percentage across the field towards the bottom edge.
- Left boundary: Specifies the percentage of the left side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Right boundary: Specifies the percentage of the right side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Top boundary: Specifies the percentage of the top side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.
- Bottom boundary: Specifies the percentage of the bottom side of the camera view field to exclude from direction of travel event reporting.

Additional Options

Click + to manually add an IP camera.

Click - to delete the configuration for manually added cameras. This option is not available for auto-discovered cameras.

Exporting enables you to create a copy of a camera configuration. Exporting saves a camera configuration to an .acc file in JSON format.

Importing enables you to import a copy of a camera configuration. Use this feature to copy a camera configuration from one SAFR system to another.

Camera Preferences

ONVIF Cameras

Camera Preferences

USB Camera Preferences

Ximea Camera Preferences

IP Camera Preferences

Additional Options

See Also