SAFR Genetec Operation Guide

Integrated SAFR Genetec is only available on Windows.

Integrating SAFR's facial recognition and analysis capabilities into Genetec enables you to use SAFR's video feed information overlays within Genetec camera video feeds, thus making it much easier to quickly and accurately separate unknown people from authorized people from known threats. You'll also have immediate access to additional infomation such as age, gender, sentiment, name, company, known associates, or any other configurable information you want to create. Below is an example of what you might see when you integrate SAFR with Genetec's video feeds:

The person in the top left is a stranger, the person in the top right has been flagged as a person of concern, while the person in the bottom left has been flagged as a known threat. The information is conveyed by the color of their overlays. For more information on what the overlay colors mean, see Interpret Video Feed Overlays.

Integrating the two systems also allows SAFR's information about individuals to trigger Genetec alerts and other actions within the Genetec system. Genetec's metadata within bookmarks are enriched with SAFR's additional information, allowing you to more easily find relevant bookmarks.

The SAFR Genetec Integration Guide discusses how to install and configure SAFR and Genetec so that the two systems are properly integrated. This page discusses how to operate the integrated systems.

SAFR Genetec Preferences

You can set several Genetec-specific preferences by opening the SAFR Desktop Client and clicking on Tools -> Preferences -> Genetec.

Connect and Use Cameras and Video Feeds

  1. To connect cameras to Genetec, you need to add the cameras to the Genetec Video Archiver using the Genetec Config Tool. For details, please see the Genetec Security Center Administrator Guide.
  2. After a camera has been added to the Video Archiver, it should be displayed as a Genetec camera in SAFR. If it's not, try closing and re-opening the SAFR Desktop Client.
    To get SAFR video feed overlays to be displayed on Genetec camera feeds, do the following:
    1. Open the SAFR Desktop Client.
    2. Select the Genetec version of the camera from the menu in the main windows (upper left). The word "Genetec" will be the first part of the camera name.
    3. After the client has successfully connected to the Genetec camera, video from the Genetec camera is displayed in the SAFR Desktop Client video feed window.
    4. Open the Genetec Security Desk.
    5. Go to the Monitoring Task.
    6. Drag and drop a camera from the left side into one of the tiles in the middle.
    7. The camera feed should appear and show the same video feed overlays that are in SAFR.

To connect additional cameras:

  1. Open another instance of the Desktop Client by selecting File > New on the client.
  2. Repeat steps 2-6 above.
  3. You can keep repeat this procedure to add overlays to as many video feeds as desired.
    Note: Most machines can only support up to 16 video feeds. If you want to connect more feeds than that, you'll need to install the SAFR Desktop Client on additional machines.

By default, the SAFR Desktop Client operates in the Enrolled Monitoring video processing mode and generates events and bookmarks into the Genetec system for every registered person. If you want a different mode for a given camera, choose a different mode from that camera's Camera window Mode Selector menu.

Bookmarks

SAFR enhances Genetec's bookmarks so that they provide readily accessible additional information, making the bookmarks much more useful. Bookmarked video contains the video feed overlays and enhanced people-related data described above. In addition, the bookmarks themselves are populated with the attributes for each person in the camera view so that searching bookmarks is more fruitful. All bookmarks automatically contain the Person Type, ID Class, and Name of each recognized person, and additional attributes such as Age and Gender will be included within the bookmarks, if such additional attributes are known. The image below shows how bookmarks can be used to review important events. The yellow overlay indicates that the person is a concern.

Genetec Cardholders and SAFR Identities

Genetec cardholders can be registered to SAFR by doing the following:

  1. Increase the Genetec Security Center setting for thumbnail size to make sure SAFR has access to high quality images to use for face recognition.
  2. On the SAFR Desktop Client, click Tools > Preferences > Genetec.
  3. In the Cardholders section click Import Now…. Pressing this button causes the following to occur:
    • Each imported cardholder is given a Person Type based on their assigned group.
    • If a cardholder has multiple group memberships, the cardholder group with the highest access privilege is used to define the group.
    • After import, SAFR updates the events in Genetec to make sure Genetec has one event for each Person Type.
  4. You can configure SAFR to import new cardholders every 24 hours by selecting the Import Every 24 Hours check box.

You can also register people to SAFR by using SAFR's native functionality. For more information, see Importing and Registering People. Although people registered with SAFR are never synchronized to Genetec, you may want to register people to SAFR anyways when you want to add threats, concerns, or other registered people who may not be suitable as Genetec cardholders.

Edit Cardholder Data

You may want to edit people's properties to better manage which events get triggered when that person is recognized, For example, setting a person's ID Class to Concern or Threat triggers the corresponding alarms, while changing a cardholder group can allow you to trigger a VIP alert for specific cardholder groups. The most important people attributes are the Name, Image, Person Type, and ID Class.

Attributes should be edited through Genetec Security Center whenever possible. Person Type defines a person's role (for example, staff or visitor) while the ID Class defines the risk level (No-Concern, Stranger, Concern, or Threat). Person Type and Image can be edited in Security Center by changing the cardholder group a person belongs to.

To edit these attributes, open Cardholder Management in Genetec Config Tool and update the desired users. After making changes, make sure to either manually synchronize users or set automatic synchronization as described previously in the "Register Cardholders".

ID Class and any other attributes of a person must be edited in SAFR's People dialog accessed through the Desktop Client > Tools menu. All cardholders imported from Genetec Security Center are assigned an ID Class of Normal. To edit the ID Class of a person, click Tools > People in the Desktop Client. The following window is displayed:

The Person Type and Name attributes can be edited by clicking their respective fields in the People window. To edit ID Class, in the People Edit dialog, double-click the user and choose the desired value from the ID Class menu as shown in the following image:

SAFR Events

You can use SAFR to generate events. When enabled on the Events Preferences page, events occur when a person appears in the view of a connected camera. When a person appears in the camera's view, they're immediately assigned an ID Class attribute, although that ID Class may change if the system successfully recognizes them and assigns them a more appropriate ID Class. The types of ID Classes are listed below.

There are several different combinations of the conditions that are triggered. The following image shows multiple events populated in the Genetec alerts panel. Clicking any of the events allows the video from that event to be replayed:

The following table lists the available events that SAFR makes available to Genetec.

Event Message Id Class Named Person Type Condition People Attributes
Unrecognizable face detected N/A N/A N/A Face detected but insufficient information for recognition idClass="unidentified"
Stranger detected Stranger N/A N/A Face detected but not found in registered people idClass="stranger"
Registered person detected without name Normal No None Registered person without name or person type assigned idClass="noconcern" && personType="" && name=""
Registered person detected with name <name> Normal Yes None Registered person with name but no person type idClass="noconcern" && personType="" && name=<name>
Registered person detected of type <personType> Normal No Defined Registered person with person type but no name idClass="noconcern" && personType=<personType> && name=""
Registered person detected of type <personType> with name <name> Normal Yes Defined Registered person with person type and name idClass="noconcern" && personType=<personType> && name=<name>
Concern person detected without a name Concern No None Same as above for Concern idClass="concern" && personType="" && name=""
Concern person detected with name <name> Concern Yes None Same as above for Concern idClass="concern" && personType="" && name=<name>
Concern person detected of type <personType> Concern No Defined Same as above for Concern idClass="concern" && personType=<personType> && name=""
Concern person detected of type <personType> with name <name> Concern Yes Defined Same as above for Concern idClass="concern" && personType=<personType> && name=<name>
Threat person detected without a name Threat No None Same as above for Threat idClass="threat" && personType="" && name=""
Threat person detected with name <name> Threat Yes None Same as above for Threat idClass="threat" && personType="" && name=<name>
Threat person detected of type <personType> Threat No Defined Same as above for Threat idClass="threat" && personType=<personType> && name=""
Threat person detected of type <personType> with name <name> Threat Yes Defined Same as above for Threat idClass="threat" && personType=<personType> && name=<name>

SAFR Operator Modes

SAFR has different operator modes that control what events are generated. Below is a short summary of the modes most relevant to Genetec Security Center integration. For a complete description, see the Operator Modes documentation.

Add and Configure Alerts

To trigger the alert as a result of a SAFR-generated event, do the following:

  1. Open the Genetec Config Tool, and go to the System Panel.

  2. Click the + icon to add a new alarm, and click the When menu. Type SAFR and press Enter to see the list of SAFR-enabled alarms.

  3. Choose the desired entry from the list.

  4. Under From, choose the camera you want to use to trigger the event. Under Action, choose a desired action. (e.g. Trigger Alarm)

  5. Click Save when done.

SAFR Events can be tied to Actions which can then trigger an Alarm. Initially create an alarm you want to trigger, and then use Genetec Event-to-Action dialog to tie SAFR Events to any action that can be defined in the Genetec system (for example, Trigger Alarm).

Add an Alarm

An alarm can be used to make sure an important event is noticed. In this example, we show how to create an alarm that is triggered when someone who has been marked as a threat is recognized on one of the cameras. For more information on triggering events, refer to Genetec support documentation.

To create an alarm, do the following:

  1. Open the Genetec Config Tool, and open the Alarms screen.
  2. Click Add Alarm, and type a Name as shown in the following image:
  3. Click Save to save the alarm.
Properties task
  • Choose priorities based on circumstances and your organization guidelines (1=high, 255=low)
    • Stranger: 100 (If infrequent, set high)
    • Concern: 50
    • Threat: 10
  • Video display option
    • Set to Live to see the live view when alarm loads video
    • Playback may be useful for short events where the subject may have walked off the screen by the time the video loads
      • If playback mode, set to at least 4 seconds to avoid buffering
Advanced task
  • Auto-Acknowledge: Good for stranger events; enter the number of seconds to stay in the view before returning to the view you were on prior to the event
  • Choose color to match the SAFR colors (add ref to section in manual that describes colors)
  • Reactivate threshold: Suppresses additional alarm if another similar alarm triggered within this time
    • Adjust as needed for use case.

Trigger Macros

When SAFR is configured to Include Event Details in reported events, highly customized actions can be programmed using macros in the Genetec system. Event details include all information associated with the detected face (e.g. Name, Person Type, Age, Gender, Sentiment, etc.). For more information on macros, refer to the Genetec support documentation.

Troubleshooting Tips

Note: When closing SAFR, use the Quit SAFR option on the File menu. Closing SAFR using the Window Close button will cause you to lose the SAFR state settings and connected cameras for that window.

See Also