*Layout Panel Types
- Tom Polman
Configuration Article | CA-20201130-TP-11 VDG Sense | Setup | Layouts  |  |
Assigning panel types
The ’Panels’ section of the ’Layout Manager’ can be used to assign a type to a selected panel. Panels can be selected by clicking on them. Use the ’Type’ list to select a type for the panel. The ’Left’, ’Top’, ’Width’ and ’Height’ settings will be adjusted automatically when the panels are moved or resized, but they can also be changed manually. For ’Live’ and ’Playback’ panel types, a camera must be selected.
Panel names
Each panel has a name field. This name is used in the ’select panel’ macro-rules. Each created panel is assigned a unique name but can be changed to give it more understandable name.
The following option is available for panels with video images:
Fit Video to Panel
The video images will be zoomed in to fill the entire panel. This is useful for panels that have a different aspect ratio than the video images that are displayed in them.
Video & Playback panels
Video and Playback panels are the main panels used to show live and recorded video. By placing a device on a video or playback panel, the selected device will be displayed. When double-clicking a video panel, the panel will be visible in fullscreen. Depending if the current device is a PTZ-enabled device, the fullscreen will have a Live control panel visible. Similarly, a playback panel in fullscreen will always be accompanied by a playback control panel.
Events
The event panel will display all incoming events in a table. The table can be filtered using the input fields above each column. Click ‘Auto Select incoming events’ to automatically select (and display if available) the newest event. Manually selecting any event in the Event panel will disable the auto select setting. Click ‘Turn on auto select after X seconds’ to re-enable auto-selecting after a given timeframe.
Target
This panel will display video from any video-panel that is double-clicked on, a Target-action. One target panel per layout is allowed. It is possible to set from which monitor the target panel listens for Target-actions. This gives the possibility to directly show video full screen on one monitor and on another monitor show video on the target panel. This is done on the panel itself, the panel listens to Target-actions from the ’orange’ monitors.
EventLive & EventPlayback
When an event is selected in the event list, an event live or playback panel will display the live video of the selected camera. The panel further functions as a regular video or playback panel, including fullscreen and PTZ capabilities.
Event History
This panel will display the former event image. It is possible to have more than one panel in the layout which can be connected like a chain. Multiple chains can also exist in the same layout. However, it is not possible to branch existing chains as the first panel in the chain should always be linked to the ’EventPlayback’-panel.
To set up event history panels add one ’EventHistory’-panel and click on the ’Extra’ button in the ’Layout Manager’ to open the ’EventHistory’ panel dialog. Give the first panel an ID of ’1’ and in the ’Link to’ field use ’0’ to connect it to the ’EventPlayback’-panel. Select the devices that should display event images. Next select the events that may appear on the panel.
Every time a new ’EventHistory’-panel is created the settings of the last ’EventHistory’-panel are used to automatically create a chain of panels. It is also possible to create multiple chains. For example for a different event type a separate chain of ’EventHistory’-panels can be configured.
The option ’FaceR capture’ only works when the one of the FaceR events is activated. This option crops the image around the face to show the face enlarged on the panel.
Controls Live
This panel adds the ability to control PTZ capable devices. The panel contains several dome functions like Iris and Focus control, or the ability to enable/disable wipers or infrared. The control lives can also be used to activate dome presets and start a tour or trace.
Note: Only a single live control panel can be placed on a layout.
Controls Playback
The playback control panel is used to browse through recorded data as well as exporting video data or a single image in PDF format.
Note: Only a single playback control panel can be placed on a layout.
Controls Live/Playback
This panel is a combined control window that contains both controls Live and Playback on separate tabs.
Note: Only a single live or playback control panel can be placed on a layout.
HTML Panel
This panel will display a webpage. Which can be stored locally on disk or fetched from the world wide web with an URL. For example you can use this panel to display a page from Google maps with some assigned ’pins’ to display the camera positions in the area.
Map panel
With the map panel, you can get an overview of your surveillance system by uploading a floor plan or map image and using camera icons to indicate camera position and direction. For more information about the map panel, go to the Map panel article.
Clock
This panel shows a large clock. This is useful on videowalls where the distance between operator and the screen can be rather large, with this panel the clock is still very readable.
Button
With this panel you can create a label or a button to execute a macro. In setup mode click on the button to setup the macro, which works exactly the same as the other macros: first select the conditions and then select the actions to be performed. In this case the condition is a signal ’UserButtonClick’ or ’UserButtonDblClick’ with a parameter the layout name and panel name separated by a dot. When the operator clicks on the button in live mode the signal with the same value will be triggered and the macro is then executed. This gives the designer of the layout the possibility to create more user friendly layouts, e.g. with buttons which show video from a camera on the selected video panel, and the camera name as the caption on the button. Which is probably easier to understand for some people then the more complicated treeview menu.
The following properties can be adjusted in the layout manager:
Button type : two types are available ’Label’ and ’Button’. This only changes the appearance of the button.
Button caption : this changes the text on the button.
Button font : the ’…’-button opens the font dialog where the font, font attributes and font color can be changed.
Button alignment : to align the text on the button you have three options ’Left, ’Center’ and ’Right’.
DeviceList
This panel shows a list of all devices that are added to VDG Sense. This panel can be used as an alternative of the treeview menu. The DevicePanel has a search field to easily find a device. The DeviceList can be filtered on camera name, IP or location.
Dewarping
The dewarping panel can be used to display the original image of a dewarped device or a panoramic view. For more information about using the dewarp panel, go to the Dewarping article.
Timeline
The timeline is an alternative Playback control panel. The timeline can display metadata like motion, events and audio recording. For more information about using the timeline panel, go to the Timeline panel article.
Counter Panel
The counter panel is a panel that shows a number. The number can be linked to specific events to increase or decrease the number when the event occurs. For more information how to configure the counter panel, go to the counter panel article.