Introduction

The Camera Device Manager is a stand alone camera testing tool which allows you to connect, view and control a PTZ camera. It also has the ability to perform a zoom calibration for any given camera that Witness can control.

Typically it is used by a field engineer to test a camera that Navtech do not currently support. They can take the calibration settings and apply them to a generic camera model to get the new camera working in Witness.

The tool is available to download here: https://navtechradar.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TUN/pages/794787865.

Contents

Navigating the Camera Device Manager UI

Open

Accessing the Camera Device Manager

1. You can download a copy of the Camera Device Manager from here: https://navtechradar.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TUN/pages/794787865.

2. Once you have downloaded the application, extract the files.

3. To open the Camera Device Manager, click on the CameraDeviceManager.exe file.

4. The Camera Device Manager will open:
   
   

   Open

   

    

5. Here you can enter your camera make, model and video viewer format:
   
   

    

6. Click the icon to open the Standard, Advanced and Engineering camera details section:
   
   

    

7. Enter the Address, User Name and Password fields and then click the Connect icon:
   
   

    

8. The connection icon will turn from green to red and the system should then display the camera view as in the example below:
   
   

    

Camera Details

Video Viewer:

FFmpeg

VCA

Manufacturer: Select the camera manufacturer from the dropdown list.

Camera: Select the camera model from the dropdown list.

Standard

Connection Details

Address: The IP address of the camera.

User Name: Your user name.

Password: Your password.

Security Mode: The security protocols available for the camera connection. 

None

Username Token: An authentication technique that lets users enter their username and password once and receive a uniquely-generated encrypted token in exchange, which in turn identifies the user to the camera.

Digest: Confirms the identity of a user before sending sensitive information. It applies a hash function to the username and password as a form of encryption before sending them over the network. 

Auto: Uses both digest and username token authentication.

Advanced

Connection Details

Port: The port number.

Use TLS: Transport Layer Security is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network.

Connection Limit: The maximum number of connections possible to this camera.

Media Profile Token: A unique token identifier which applies a media profile. A media profile consists of a set of media configurations. Media profiles are used to configure properties of a media stream from a device.

Available Tokens: The dropdown will display the available tokens.

Driver Details 

Show Range: This shows the camera range on the Witness PPI.

External ID: External ID of the driver.

Small Move Delta (m): The minimum amount of movement of a target before tasking the camera. The distance is calculated from its last position to its current position, and only if this threshold is breached will the camera be moved.

Zoom Coefficient A, B, C: These three values define the manner in which the zoom reacts to changing distance.

Max. Zoom Range (m): The maximum distance to which the camera will zoom to (if technically capable). 

Engineering

Tilt Offsets

Min / Max Tilt: These settings are the minimum and maximum tilts that the camera can mechanically support. Typically these are the angle below and and above the horizon.

Tilt Offset: This is a fixed offset for the camera. For example, some cameras may treat a tilt of zero degrees as pointing at the ground, however, the normal convention is for zero degrees to point horizontally.

Mechanical Details

Tilt Speed: The speed at which the camera moves up and down in degrees per second.

Pan Speed: The speed at which the camera moves left and right in degrees per second.

Mechanical Delay (s): This is the length of time that the camera hardware takes to respond to commands.

Minimum Delay (s): This is a throttling mechanism to prevent us sending out messages faster than a camera can process them. The value represents the time that must elapse before we send another command to the camera.

Viewer

Once you have connected to the camera, the viewer will display what the camera is seeing. The viewer works in a similar way to cameras in Witness .

You can use your mouse to move the camera within the Viewer.

Absolute Zoom

Moving the mouse wheel when hovering over a viewer will change the magnification. Moving it upwards will increase magnification.

Conversely, moving the wheel downwards will decrease the magnification.

Point to Move

You can also utilize the mouse to move to an area, by Left Click+Hold the mouse curser in the spot you wish to move the camera to.

Drag to Move

You can use the mouse to Left Click+Drag which displays a white pointer, moving the camera in the direction of the arrow. It can be moved in any direction away from the centre of the viewer. This allows you to move the camera in a diagonal direction, which the Direction & Magnification Controller can’t perform in one operation. The movement is proportional; manoeuvring it a little will move the camera a short distance, the further out you drag the arrow, will make the camera travel much further.

You can also use the Absolute Position feature to move the camera, which is described below.

Viewer Settings

Stream URL: The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the video feed from the camera.

Connection Protocol: The protocol used to connect to the camera stream.

User Name: The user’s name.

Password: The user’s password.

Network Caching (ms): This shows the access time of the cache in milliseconds.

Absolute Position

The Absolute Position is where you want your camera view to be set.

You can use the Direction & Magnification Controller to move the camera view:

The arrow direction controls allow you to move the camera view when you hover and click your mouse over them.

The and controls the zoom.

The following settings determine how much movement each mouse click has:

Delta: The amount of movement per click on the buttons in degrees for panning.

Tilt Delta: The amount of movement per click on the buttons for tilting.

Zoom Delta: The amount of movement per click on the buttons for zooming.

Pan: The degree value the camera needs to move left or right.

Tilt: The degree value the camera needs to move up or down.

Zoom: The degree value from 0-1 that the camera needs to zoom.

The play button can be clicked once the pan, tilt and zoom settings have been configured:

This will then move the camera view to its absolute position. You can adjust the settings as required; clicking the play button again will move the camera to it’s revised absolute position.

Zoom Calibration

This feature allows you to calibrate the camera zoom. You will need to enter the correct zoom value for each measured distance.

Show Calibration: Select the checkbox to show the zoom calibration options.

Distance (m): The distance in meters that you wish to calibrate the camera to.

Add: Click the Add button to add a new Zoom Calibration.

Zoom Value: The amount the camera will zoom in for the specified distance.

Coefficient A, B, C: These three values define the manner in which the zoom reacts to changing distance, and are calculated by the Camera Device Manager tool.

Calc: Once there are five Distance and Zoom Values entered, the Calc button will be enabled. Clicking this will calculate the Coefficient A, B and C values.

In the example below five distance and zoom values have been added:

This enables the Calc button. Clicking the Calc button will then display the calculated coefficients used for zoom calibration:

Logs

The Log dialog will show all available logs for the Camera Device Manager, and can be a useful tool for diagnosing problems.

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