CAM-911
Something new in front
A neighbourhood street at midday, seen from a camera on a lamppost. Further up, the greengrocer with its striped awning, the corner bar and two cars on the road. A man in a white shirt is walking along the right-hand pavement. And across the bottom left of the frame, where yesterday you could see the crossing and the shop doorways, there is now a site hoarding: scaffold tubes and green mesh, put up from one day to the next. The camera is still recording, and what it records is the mesh. IRIS sees that part of the frame it used to see is now covered, and since when. It does not know who put the hoarding there or why, and it does not assume.
Turn on IRIS Vision
AI-generated image
What IRIS understands
What it recognises in this scene
- new hoarding in front
The rule
You decide once. IRIS applies it always.
If
part of the frame that used to be visible has been covered by something that was not there for longer than the time set
Then
- alert maintenance with the camera, the time it appeared and the video from before and after
- keep the reference picture and the current one side by side, so you can see which piece has been lost
- flag that camera as partly covered while it stays that way, so nobody counts on that piece of the picture
The instruction that set it up«Tell me if something has appeared in front of a camera that was not there before and is still there the next day.»
What changes
What changes for whoever answers for the cameras working
There is almost never any bad intent. Someone puts up scaffolding to repair a facade, a shop wheels out a board, a lorry parks where it can. Nobody tells the control room, because it does not occur to anyone that this has anything to do with the cameras. On screen the camera stays green: in focus, streaming, recording. And three weeks go by. The day somebody needs the video of that pavement, what there is is green mesh. With IRIS the alert arrives on the day the hoarding goes up, with the earlier picture next to the current one. Then you decide: move the camera, change the field of view, or simply know that this stretch of street is not covered this month. What you cannot afford is finding out late.
What people usually ask
Will it alert me every time a lorry parks in front?
Only if you want it to. You write the rule, and the first thing you set is how long something has to sit in front of the lens before it is worth an alert. A delivery lorry for twenty minutes, usually not. A hoarding still there the next morning, yes. That line is not drawn by IRIS: it is drawn by whoever knows that street and knows what is normal on it. And it can be changed the day it stops being normal.
How does IRIS know that it was not there before?
Because it compares against what that same camera has been seeing. Every camera has its reference picture, taken on an ordinary day with nothing odd in it, and IRIS checks whether part of the frame has stopped matching it and for how long. You do not have to describe the street or draw zones by hand: you just ask it to warn you when something appears in front and does not go away. If the frame goes back to normal, the alert closes on its own.
Does IRIS say whether somebody put it there on purpose?
No, and it never will. IRIS states a fact: there is something in front of the lens that was not there before, on this camera, since this time. It may be authorised scaffolding, a bag that blew there or a board somebody hung up without thinking. Who put it there, and with what intention, is decided by a person looking at the video, not by the machine. That line is drawn on purpose, and crossing it would mean selling something we cannot demonstrate.
See it for yourself
A new case each time. Always the same screen.
It plays by itself and shows one case from start to finish. It is a summary: the real screen has far more functions than fit in this box.
- The hour, as a grid
- You look where it's dark
- You jump to that minute
Next step
Who is watching a whole quay at three in the morning?
14 cases: 13 raise an alert when something happens and one only measures. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
Who is watching the cameras of a whole branch network?
13 cases: 12 raise an alert when something happens and one only measures. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
And the best part
What happens in the small hoursdoes not have to wait for the morning report.
IRIS understands it there and then and tells whoever is on call, with the camera and the time. The next day there is nothing to reconstruct: it is already written down.
Tell us your problem and we will say whether IRIS understands it, or not yet.
We reply the same working day.