Using the BVMS Plugin

The BVMS (Bosch Video Management System) plugin for Canary is deigned to allow Witness to send camera movement updates to a BVMS server. This implementation will close a BVMS Virtual Input when a camera move operation is started by Witness and will open the Virtual Input again after a configurable period of camera inactivity. If the camera is moving in response to an alarm then data about the camera, track and alarm will be sent to BVMS each time the camera moves to look at a new Alarm.

The BVMS Plugin

Witness Canary supports integration with many different types of external systems through the use of plugins. These are stand-alone software libraries which are dynamically loaded by Canary and contain code which knows how to convert the Witness data into the required format for the external system.

The BVMS plugin file is entitled Witness.Plugin.Bvms.dll and must be present in the Witness Plugin folder which is inside the main application folder. The plugin depends on two third party files, Bosch.Vms.SDK.dll and GenuineChannels.dll, which must be placed in the main application folder.

The plugin can be selected during setup and will automatically install the files in the correct locations.

Configuring the BVMS Plugin

When the plugin is installed and Canary starts, the plugin configuration settings are saved to the PluginConfiguration.xml file. This file is located in the Witness main application folder. To change the settings this file should be opened in a text editor, such as Notepad, however we would recommend an editor which is XML aware, such as Notepad++.

Once the file is open, locate the BVMS section, as illustrated below:

Example BVMS Plugin Configuration

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Config>
  <Plugins>
    <Bvms>
      <PluginConfig>
        <BvmsServerAddress>10.0.6.11</BvmsServerAddress>
        <BvmsServerPort>5390</BvmsServerPort>
        <User>Admin</User>
        <Password></Password>
        <InputResetPeriod>60</InputResetPeriod>
        <HeartbeatInterval>0</HeartbeatInterval>
      </PluginConfig>
    </Bvms>
  </Plugins>
</Config>

The setting options are as follows:

BvmsServerAddress

This is the address of the BVMS server

BvmsServerPort

This the port used by BVMS (5390 is the default value and is unlikely to need changing)

User

The username used to logon to the BVMS system

Password

The password associated with the above User value

InputResetPeriod

The period (in seconds) after no new alarm updates have been received that will cause the virtual input open command to be sent to BVMS.