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| Webcam Preferences |
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Cerberus has two preference windows. The first one contains application settings. This is the second one which contains detailed information for each Webcam attached to the system. You can customise the workings of the application for each individual webcam on the PC.
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| Cerberus currently supports uploading images to any FTP server, either internet or intranet. |
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| All images are saved in JPEG format only. |
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| The top drop down list lets you choose which cameras settings to edit. |
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Copy the settings from the webcam that is selected in the drop down box next to this button to the webcam that is currently selected. Saves time duplicating settings if you have many webcams all uploading to one site, or the webcams will share some / all of the same settings. |
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| The last entry in the Copy From drop down box is 'Default', if you choose this then all settings (except FTP) for this webcam will be set to their factory defaults. |
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| Settings marked with a * are mandatory fields and must be set in order to use certain functions. |
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 Upload Section |
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| Image Size |
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This setting allows you to decide how large the image will be when displayed within a Webcam Monitor Control. These values will be applied whenever this webcam is opened. The value has no bearing on the size of the final output image. |
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| Default Webcam |
| Use this to make Cerberus automatically load and initialise this webcam every time the application starts up. You can set more than one webcam to be default. The webcam will appear within Cerberus at the position it was when it was last closed. |
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| Activate Web Upload for this camera |
| Set whether you want this camera to upload or not. Cerberus will not let you set a camera to upload until you have set the relevant FTP details. Default is OFF. |
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| FTP Host * |
| Host address of the FTP server. ie. www.yourwebsite.com |
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| Remote Directory |
| Image directory for uploads. ie. public_html/webcam . This directory MUST exist. Cerberus will not create it. |
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| Remote Filename * |
| Filename to use for upload. ie. webcam.jpg |
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| Local Temp Filename |
| Temporary filename to use. ie. c:\temp\temp.jpg |
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| Username * |
| FTP server username. (case sensitive) |
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| Password * |
| FTP server password. (case sensitive) |
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| Update Speed |
| How frequently each new image is uploaded. When choosing the update speed please bare in mind the number of cameras updating and the upload medium and available bandwidth. Trying to upload 10 cameras to a website every 30 seconds via a 56k modem connection is probably going to cause some strange things to happen! But you could easily update 3 cameras to a website every 30 seconds over ADSL. Be sensible. |
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| If you set the update speed to 'Custom' (the far right setting) then two extra controls are activated. These let you pick a customised update speed. Set a value then pick the unit: (h)ours, (m)inutes and (s)econds. |
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| Archive Images |
| If this is set then a copy of all uploaded images will be saved in the ..\captures\ directory. |
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| Filename |
| Choose the format the saved files will take. Use the current date and time as part of the filename, or an incremental value. You can also add a suffix and prefix to each image. |
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| Offline Mode Local Directory |
| Local directory to use for time lapse images. This directory must exist as Cerberus will not create it. |
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| Filename: Date and Time / Incremental |
| The format to use when saving time lapse images. |
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| Activate remote (FTP) time lapse capture |
| Save time lapse images to remote location. |
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| Use seperate output settings |
| Set whether or not to use a seperate set of settings when in Offline mode. If this checkbox is unticked then access to the settings panel for Offline mode will not be available. |
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| Activate local time lapse capture |
| Save time lapse images to local location. |
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| Capture Speed |
| How frequently each new image is captured. |
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| If you set the update speed to 'Custom' (the far right setting) then two extra controls are activated. These let you pick a customised update speed. Set a value then pick the unit: (h)ours, (m)inutes and (s)econds. |
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NB: The motion detection system operates on the native resolution of the camera regardless of any Cerberus settings! |
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| Cerberus has the ability to detect motion coming from a webcam feed. The settings within this section allow you to optimise this functionality for your individual needs. |
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| In order to increase performance, the Cerberus Motion Detection engine only checks for motion within a specified area (frame) of the webcam view. For most applications this is most likely to be the centre of the image (which is the default). |
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| X |
| X position of the frame, relative to the top left corner (0). |
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| Y |
| Y position of the frame, relative to the top left corner (0). |
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| Width |
| The width of the frame. (maximum width is 352). |
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| Height |
| The height of the frame. (maxumum height is 288). |
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| SA (sensitivity setting A) (default is 120) |
| This alters the sensitivity of the motion detection routines ability to differentiate movement. A high figure will require a more obvious(!) amount of motion, a small figure will allow tiny changes in the picture to be flagged as movement. |
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| SB (sensitivity setting B) (default is 5) |
| This figure represents the amount of image (the framed area) that must change before motion can be considered to have occured. A high figure will require more movement (i.e. larger objects), a lower figure will cause motion to be detected for smaller and smaller objects. |
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 /  Output contol panels are the same for both |
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| The output pane of the webcam preferences window lets you preview the image output. There are various options that can be configured to customise the output for your needs. |
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[a] |
Description for this webcam. |
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[b] |
Show the description. Style of the description text. Choose foreground and background colours [b1]. Use the background colour or show the text transparent to the background [b2]. The horizontal position is chosen with [b3] (left, centre and right justification. |
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[c] |
Display the date / time on the output image. Style of the time / date text. Choose foreground and background colours [c1]. Use the background colour or show the text transparent to the background [c2]. The horizontal position is chosen with [c3] (left, centre and right justification. |
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| The title is always at the top of the image, time and / or date is always at the bottom. |
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| Use these settings to alter the look of the final output simage to more suit your website / intranet design. You could for instance use the Overlay Image settings to add your logo to every saved image. The overlay image is NOT stretched to fit, so please ensure that it is the same size as the final output image size. There are some example overlay images an overlay directory within the Cerberus install directory. See the How To for more information on using Overlay Images. |
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[a] |
Toggle border around captured image. |
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[b] |
Border colour. |
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[c] |
Display overlay image. |
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[d] |
Type in or choose an image to display as an overlay image. |
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[e] |
Chose a colour as transparent, any part of the image in this colour will be ignored and will let the captured image below show through. |
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[f] |
Remove this image as an overlay. |
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[g] |
Overlay image preview. |
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[h] |
Toggle alpha blending on your overlay images. This blends in the overlay image onto the captured image. For alpha-blending the overlay image must have the same dimensions as the final output image. |
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[i] |
Set alpha blending amoung 1-100% |
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[a] |
Chose the output quality of the image. A higher number gives a better quality image, but with a larger file size. (an appoximation of the file size is given). |
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[b] |
Choose the output image size. The size of the output image has no effect on the size of the WebCam Monitoring Control image. |
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