Calibration is the process of configuring cameras (or other inputs) to measure crowd movement and distances. You will need to calibrate each camera separately, to map out the space under observation.
Calibration ensures that DCM can supply accurate information to you via the dashboard or any notification. Without detailed information on your cameras and their location, the results presented by DCM will not be accurate as DCM leverages the calibration information to understand the area, distances and positioning of people observed.
Before starting the calibration, the user should identify and consider what areas on the camera view will be measured. Please note that if your environment is complex, such as multi levelled, ramps, inclined planes or has a very large area under observation, you may need to only calibrate a part of it, and consider using extra cameras.
The camera calibration process gets the user to place 'pins' to identify landmarks both in an overhead map view (called the ‘device location view’) and an isometric view of the area as captured by the camera itself (called the ‘device view’). Our software then matches up this information to generate a three-dimensional representation of the area, to calculate crowd position and movement within the space.
Depending if the camera to be calibrated is indoor or outdoor, and what landmarks are visible in the view, the process can use either overhead satellite images, user supplied blueprints, objects placed in the camera view or a grid overlay to assist matching up the two views.
In most cases it is not necessary to have someone on site at the camera location, but it can be useful, if practical. This person could place temporary objects such as cones in the view to assist pin placement. DCM can also provide custom calibration sheets that look like a chess board, with one meter by one meter squares to use for calibrations where the site is accessible.