Intuitive surveillance interface: system flexibility and quick reaction times

Axxon Next features a flexible GUI that makes it easy and fast for operators to perform their jobs, solving a number of surveillance-related tasks.

Custom layouts

Monitors and video cameras may have different aspect ratios – 4:3, 5:4, 16:9, and others. As a result, the images from the cameras may be laid out on the screen unevenly, with large empty spaces. In order to optimize how camera windows fit on the screen, you can create custom layouts in the Axxon Next VMS.

Custom layouts allow placing cameras on the screen in any arrangement. Viewing tiles can have varying aspect ratios and are automatically configured. Make efficient use of screen space by mixing and matching cameras with diverse aspect ratios. Want to view dewarped video from a fisheye camera? Choose a full-screen panoramic view or two 180° views!

What if you know something is happening on a camera, but this camera view is not on-screen now? Simply type the camera name in the search bar and switch to the hotspot on-the-fly. The selected camera window comes on your screen in a layout with other viewing tiles. If the appropriate layout does not yet exist, the system creates a new layout with a single camera view.

If you want more information on your custom layout, add dashboards. Dashboards are information panes with system events, server health status, camera health status, webpages, etc.

Authorized users may open and use their custom layouts and those of other users on any client in the system.

Alarm management

All current alarms are neatly arranged as thumbnails on the Alarms panel. A thumbnail is a small image of an event video that serves as an icon. Click a thumbnail, and the viewing tile opens. That’s it – now you can watch the event video. If this event was triggered by a detection tool, the screen displays the detection tool settings (lines, zones, direction of movement, etc.) and the exact moment it was triggered. You can immediately see what caused the alarm. After viewing a replay, the operator must classify the event on a three-tier scale: false alarm (green), event that requires further review (yellow) and critical alarm (red). The system offers two options for classifying these events: real-time or delayed alarm handling (within a set time). If the operator fails to assess the event during this set time, it is marked as missed. You can use the resulting statistics for evaluating the operator’s performance.

Archive viewer in Axxon Next makes it easy to navigate through recorded video. The timeline uses color-coded flags to show the threat assessment assigned to each event by the operator: false alarm, event that requires further review, critical alarm and missed alarm.

The interactive Alarm Management mode:

  • Makes it easy to handle and classify alarm events.
  • Prevents the operator from missing an alarm.
  • Provides statistics for evaluating the operator’s performance.
  • Helps you analyze alarm events in the archive with a visual tool.

Zoom in, step-by-step

In most VMS systems, when you choose to view one camera from multiple camera views, this camera window simply blocks all the others. In Axxon Next, you use an incremental zoom. This feature ensures you have constant control over the entire scene.

Click on a camera window and it comes to the foreground. It shows additional controls. If you have a PTZ camera, the PTZ control panel opens up on the right. With each mouse click on a selected tile, it gradually increases in size while the remaining images are reduced and distributed along the edge of the screen. If you click on one of the small tiles, it expands and switches places with the featured tile. This gives you the advantage of keeping an eye on all cameras on-screen and choosing the zoom factor.

Tag&Track and Autozoom are the moving object specialists. Autozoom helps to monitor moving objects by automatically adjusting the digital zoom. With Autozoom, only the area of the frame that contains a moving object is shown in close-up. Tag&Track Pro lets you monitor a number of objects in the scene and zoom in on any of them. Tag&Track Lite follows a person or object of interest and directs you to the camera where they are most likely to appear, based on their current trajectory.

PTZ cameras control

Axxon Next makes it easy to control Pan-Tilt-Zoom cameras by simply moving the mouse in a viewing tile. Control your PTZ cameras on-screen with either the one-step button or the virtual joystick. Also on the PTZ control panel, you can work with the presets, zoom, focus and iris control, and patrols. Patrolling is an automatic camera tour along a route defined in the camera’s preset list.

User roles

Manage access to the Axxon Next VMS with flexible roles and group settings. Create roles and groups and grant permissions. For example, you can set multiple levels of access to the map, such as owner (any actions), editor (scale and move) or viewer (view only).

Access restrictions may be put on hardware, archives and such functions as: adding a camera to a layout in live video mode, editing layouts, searching the archive, accessing the web server, managing alarms, viewing the system log, exporting snapshots or videos, and much more.