Integrating with BlueIris

BlueIris security camera software and this project are an ideal match. Instead of cameras triggering alerts because spider webs floated in front of your cameras you can integrate BlueIris with this project and get local, reliable, AI motion detection for your security system.

To get a video overview of the general approach watch Build The BEST Security Camera NVR: Free Locally Processed AI Computer Vision with Blue Iris by The Hook Up. It inspired this project and these instructions borrow heavily from the configuration options shown in the video. Timestamped links to the relevant portion of the video are included at each applicable step in this guide.

Yes, this document looks long and intimidating. Don't worry! These instructions are will walk you through the process step by step, detailing exactly what settings you need to change with screenshots highlighting the specific options that need configuration.

Once you've set it up once you'll be happy you did it!

Overview

To set this up we will:

1. Create a folder to store recorded footage from the security cameras
2. Create a folder to store low-resolution (SD) snapshots from the security cameras for AI analysis
3. Configure the BlueIris webserver to accept local incoming requests from the AI system to trigger HD camera recording
4. Configure SD cameras in BlueIris to record 24x7 and output probable motion snapshots when basic motion is detected
5. Configure HD cameras in BlueIris to record when motion is detected by the AI system
6. Configure this app to read those snapshots, analyze them, and then call the BlueIris cameras set up in step 3 when actual motion is detected

The guide walks through these steps for configuring a single camera. Once you have a single camera working you'll repeat [step 4](#Configure-SD-cameras-to-record-24x7-and-produce-probable-motion snapshots), step 5, and step 6 6 for each additional camera you have in your system.

Creating a footage folder in BlueIris

These steps come directly from The Hook Up's video.

1. Open the BlueIris General Settings > Clips and archiving tab.
2. Create a new folder called surveillance. Limit the size to an amount and clip age that works for your hard drive setup and decide whether you want to delete or archive clips

Sample configuration that allocates 3000GB for storage, retains videos for up to one week, and deletes videos when required:

Create a folder to store low-resolution (SD) snapshots

These steps come directly from The Hook Up's video. The low-resolution snapshots are used by the AI vision system to detect objects.

1. Open the BlueIris General Settings > Clips and archiving tab.
2. Click on the Aux 7 folder.
3. Change the Folder to aiinput on one of your computer's drives.
4. Limit the size to 1 GB and the retention time to 1 hour.
5. Tap and hold on the Aux 7 name in the folder list and rename it to AiInput.

Configure the BlueIris web server

These steps are based on The Hook Up's video with minor modifications.

1. Open the BlueIris General Settings > Web server tab.
2. Configure the port as you prefer. This guide assumes BlueIris is running on port 81.
3. Check the Use UI3 for non-IE browsers. Don't worry, it works fine with Microsoft Edge :)
4. Confirm the correct local IP address is shown in the Local, internal (LAN) access setting.
5. Optionally configure external access (outside the scope of this guide).
6. Click the Advanced... button
7. Change the Require from: dropdown to Non-LAN only.
8. Uncheck Use secure session keys and login page.
9. Add your local IP address range to the Limit IP addresses: field, for example ^192.168.1.*. Note the caret at the front of the IP address, which is required.

The above configuration will allow the AI trigger system to call BlueIris to initiate recording without requiring a username or password. Since the password-free access is limited to only internal IP addresses it is reasonable to leave it in this configuration long-term.

If you prefer it is possible to require a username and password via the URL used to trigger recording, however it is more complicated to configure and hard to troubleshoot. Get the system working with the above setup first to ensure everything works end-to-end then decide if it's worth adjusting the configuration to require a plain-text username and password in the URL.

Configure SD cameras to record 24x7 and produce probable motion snapshots

These steps assume you are using a network IP camera such as those from Hikvision, although they will work with any camera that's capable of integrating with BlueIris.

Part 1: Create the camera with initial settings

These steps are based on The Hook Up's video

1. Go to Add new camera.
2. Provide a descriptive name, e.g. Front Door SD.
3. Provide a short name, e.g. FrontDoorSD. The short name will be used to identify the camera's snapshot images in the AI system configuration so make it identifiable and easy to remember for use later.
4. Select Network IP as the type.
5. Check Enable motion detector. This motion detection is used to create snapshot images of suspected motion. The AI system will analyze images captured by this to determine if meaningful objects actually caused the motion detection.
6. Check Direct to disk recording (no re-encoding).

Part 2: Set the network IP camera configuration options

These steps are based on The Hook Up's video.

1. Enter the IP address for the RTSP substream of your camera in the Address box.
2. Enter the User and Password for the camera if required.
3. Enter the path to the substream for the camera into Main stream field. It may seem backwards but this must be the low resolution substream for the camera and it must go into the Main stream field. The intention is to configure a permanent low-resolution stream that can record 24x7 and produce candidate images for the AI system.

The Find/inspect... button is useful during this part of the setup to test connectivity to the camera. If you paste the entire URL to the camera feed into the box in step 1 and then click Find/inspect... after step 2 BlueIris will attempt to connect to the camera and will auto-populate the Make, Model, and Main stream fields for you.

Part 3: Configure basic motion detection to generate candidate images

These steps are based on The Hook Up's video. The motion detected by these settings will not directly trigger HD stream recording: it only provides the candidate image for the AI system to detect objects that should actually trigger HD recording.

1. Open the Trigger tab for the camera.
2. Click the Configure... button for Motion sensor.
3. Set Min. duration to 0.5.
4. Optionally adjust the Min. object size and Min. contrast sliders to be more sensitive.
5. Disable Advanced object detection. This will get done in the AI system instead.
6. Click Ok to return to the Trigger tab.
7. Uncheck Capture an alert list image.
8. Set the Break time to 4 seconds.