IndigoVision Plugin

Owned by Charlotte Dakin-Norris
Last updated: May 29, 2024
6 min read

Introduction

This page covers the installation and configuration of the IndigoVision plugin for Witnessâ„¢.

For customers and integrators intending to use the IndigoVision plugin, the documents assume a reasonable working knowledge of network communication. They are targeted at technical teams, typically with software development skills, who are integrating the output from Witnessâ„¢ into external systems.

Contents

Overview

Witnessâ„¢ supports integration with many different types of external systems through the use of plugins.

The IndigoVision plugin is designed to allow Witnessâ„¢ to send camera movement updates to an IndigoVision Control Center server.

The plugin sends two kinds of data to the IndigoVision Control Center; Event data and Bookmark data.

Event data is sent whilst the camera is being moved either by Witnessâ„¢ in response to a rule or manually by the operator within Witnessâ„¢. Events are sent and can be used within the IndigoVision Control Center to create alarms, trigger recording, relay and other actions.

Bookmark data is sent when a camera controlled by Witnessâ„¢ is being moved in response to a new alarm. If the camera is time sharing between multiple alarms then a new bookmark will be sent each time the camera switches between alarms. Bookmarks can be used to analyse when and why Witnessâ„¢ has taken control of the cameras.

This implementation sends an external system event to the IndigoVision Control Center when a camera is moved by Witnessâ„¢. If the camera is moving in response to an alarm then additional data about the alarm will be sent to the IndigoVision Control Center as a bookmark each time the camera moves to look at a new alarm.

Prerequisites

The IndigoVision plugin depends on one third party file, ivbind2.dll which is placed in the main application folder here: %ProgramFiles%\Navtech Radar\Witness.

Registering the COM Component

Ivbind2.dll is a 32bit COM component and requires some care to setup on a 64bit operating system.

  1. Open a Command Prompt as Administrator and navigate to: %ProgramFiles%\Navtech Radar\Witness.

  2. Type C:\Windows\SysWOW64\regsvr32.exe ivbind2.dll then click Enter.

  3. To unregister the component: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\regsvr32.exe -u ivbind2.dll

Configuring a Surrogate DLL Server

To allow Witnessâ„¢ to utilise the COM component from a 64-bit process a DLL surrogate process is used. The built-in Windows DllHost.exe can be used as a surrogate process by modifying the registry settings on the PC.

Open the registry editor and make the following changes or save the text to to a file with a .reg extension, run the file and accept the warning.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Update the Binding Kit registry keys with empty DllSurrogate data items. This ; makes the Binding Kit 32-bit COM type library available through a Dllhost process. ; https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms691260(v=vs.85).aspx ; [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\AppID\{94A7D612-163C-4e80-8816-6129FD076C0C}] @="sik2" "DllSurrogate"="" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\AppID\{94A7D612-163C-4e80-8816-6129FD076C0C}] @="sik2" "DllSurrogate"=""

To undo the DllSurrogate keys use the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; ; Remove existing keys to delete the empty DllSurrogate data items ; [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\AppID\{94A7D612-163C-4e80-8816-6129FD076C0C}] [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\AppID\{94A7D612-163C-4e80-8816-6129FD076C0C}] ; ; Re-add the keys without the DllSurrogate data items ; [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\AppID\{94A7D612-163C-4e80-8816-6129FD076C0C}] @="sik2" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\AppID\{94A7D612-163C-4e80-8816-6129FD076C0C}] @="sik2"

 

Please refer to this MSDN documentation: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms691260(v=vs.85).aspx for details of changes being made to the registry.

Configuring the IndigoVision Plugin

The IndigoVision Plugin will appear as a node under the Integration Configurations folder within the Configuration Tree:

Selecting the IndigoVision Plugin will display the following screen in the Configuration Control:

Plugin Fields

After a camera has been configured in Witnessâ„¢ the following fields need to be edited to align the configuration with the IndigoVision Control Center.

Plugin Enabled: Select to enable the IndigoVision Plugin.

Name: Name of the plugin within the Witness™ UI.

Local IP Address: The address that Witnessâ„¢ will be sending the messages from.

Alarm Server IP Address: The IP address of the system sending the alarm and health data messages.

Server Mapping: A list of IndigoVision NVRs. Multiple NVR elements can be mapped if Witness needs to communicate with more than one IndigoVision Control Center. Click the or buttons to add or remove NVR’s.

NVR IP Address: The IP address of the NVR.

NVR IP Address: The IP address of the NVR (Network Video Recorder).

Camera Mapping: The list of cameras that we wish to link to the IndigoVision NVR. Click the or buttons to add or remove cameras.

Camera: The name of the camera.

IndigoVision Camera: The IP address or UUID of the camera.

Event ID: The Event ID number.

 

Certain camera names will take the form of a UUID (e.g. c9790c3a-701b-464d-a189-0060351de567) others will take the form based on their IP address (e.g. 192.168.0.10).

Plugin Configuration

  1. To configure the plugin select the Edit Button:

     

  2. Click the Plugin Enabled tick box:

     

  3. Configure the Local and Alarm Server IP Addresses:

     

  4. To add the server mapping click the button on the right-hand-side of the NVR IP Address:

     

  5. Enter the NVR IP Address for the NVR:

     

  6. To map the cameras to the NVR click the button on the right-hand-side of the Camera Mapping list and then the Camera drop-down to show your list of cameras:

     

  7. Select the required camera and enter the camera’s IP Address or UUID, and Event ID:

     

  8. You can then repeat the process to add other cameras as desired:

     

  9. Click the Save button to save the configuration:

     

  10. The configured server and camera mappings will be saved:

Configuring the IndigoVision Control Center

  1. Open the IndigoVision Control Center.

  2. On the Alarms Explorer panel click on the Top Site item and go to the External Systems tab:

     

  3. Right-click on the External System panel and select New External System:

     

  4. Enter the details for the Witnessâ„¢ system and press OK:

     

  5. If no Alarm Servers have been configured add one by right-clicking on the Top Site and selecting Add Devices:

     

  6. If the Alarm Server is not discovered add the details:

     

  7. Add New Zones to the alarm server if none are configured. You will require a zone and a detector for each mapped camera:

     

  8. Right-click on the zone you wish to be triggered by a camera movement and select New Detector and ensure that the selected Activation Event Type is set to External:

     

  9. Select the External System that was configured earlier and select the appropriate Input Number which corresponds to the Event Id you configured in the Camera Mapping.

     

  10. Set the Dwell Time and click Next to review and Save the Detector:

     

     

  11. Add an NVR to IndigoVision Control Center if one has not already been added. Right-click on the Top Site and select Add Devices:

     

     

  12. There will be a slight delay of around 10 seconds after adding the NVR until it becomes available to use. Click on the Bookmarks tag of the NVR and the bookmarks sent from Witnessâ„¢ should be visible:

     

We recommend you restart the IndigoVision Control Center services having added the new zones to ensure the configuration is applied correctly.

Safety is everything.