Using SmartSentry

This readme.txt file is in essence identical to SmartSentryHelp.html

1. The purpose of the program.

SmartSentry is an intelligent time-lapse capture utility. It is designed to 
monitor a scene in unattended mode for extended periods of time and capture any 
movement or activity.  This technique can result in very high effective 
compression rates, for example: a relatively static scene can be monitored at 4 
frames per second for well over 10-hours to produce an output AVI smaller than 
20 Megabytes.

Output can be viewed using the standard Windows Media Player or Active Movie 
Player. Each recorded frame has a corresponding time-stamped entry in the log 
file to assist when reviewing the AVI  produced.

Typical uses include: intruder-detection; bird-watching and door-sentry 
applications. Due to the additional frame processing overhead, it is currently 
not best suited to high speed movie capture.

2.  Installing and Uninstalling

There are no special requirements for installing or uninstalling this software

3. The status of the program (Public Domain, Freeware, or Shareware).

This is shareware software. It's a spin-off from a related project, please feel 
free to distribute it as you see fit (please include this help file). There is 
no charge for this version, and no time limit.

If you don't find it useful simply delete it.  If you do find it useful and 
would like to pay us a small token of thanks,  pledge our rally team 
a couple of dollars mailto:rs2000@rapidautomation.co.uk  (we need all the 
support and sponsorship we can get) and we'll keep you posted as the new 
features are developed.

Legal notice:  There are no claims or guarantees of any kind whatsoever made or 
implied by Rapid Automation relating to the use of this shareware  product.

Rapid Automation are a small Design and Consultancy company based in the 
Midlands UK, specialists in C++, Windows, and PC Hardware development projects. 

5. How to contact the author in the event of questions or problems.

Please send your comments or suggestions -  
mailto:comments@rapidautomation.co.uk

Please direct any technical questions to -
mailto:comments@rapidautomation.co.uk

Menu Settings:

    File . Target folder:
    Selecting the target folder determines where the image and log file is 
    stored

    File . Allocate File space
    Allows pre-allocation of the AVI file to help improve performance. Important 
    only if capturing is expected to be continuous and relatively high volume, 
    not so much of an issue for capturing changes in relatively static scenes 
    for example intruder detection.

    File . Exit 
    Closes the application immediately.

    Action . Start / Stop (Ctrl + T)
    Starts or ends triggering and capturing.

    Action . Image Profile
    (Undergoing final tests - 0.20) Produces a histogram representing the colour 
    or intensity profile of the image.

    View . Status Bar
    Displays the status bar within the frame window,

    View . Preview Movement
    Highlights movement when not capturing

    View . Overlay Mode
    Forces overlay (if your hardware supports it) - disabled while capturing.

    Configuration . Compression 
    Used to select the most suitable Video CODEC on your system 

    Configuration . Video Format 
    Used to select the required video mode and colour depth for your capture 
    operation 

    Configuration . Video Source 
    Used to select the required video source, video mode, brightness, contrast, 
    and colour levels supported by your hardware 

    Configuration . Mail Settings 
    (Under Development 0.30) Used to select the required email settings 

    Configuration . Zone 
    (Undergoing final tests - 0.20) Used to setup a trigger zone with the scene 

Form Settings:

    Start (Ctrl +T) 
    Starts Capturing. 

    End (Ctrl +T) 
    Ends Capturing. 

    Beep on hit 
    While Capturing - Beeps if three consecutive frames are captured. 

    # Sampled 
    Displays the number of frames sampled since the start. 

    # Captured 
    Displays the number of frames captured since the start. 

    Pixel Trigger 
    Sets the delta level between the same pixel on successive frames. 

    # Pixels Hit 
    Indicates the number of pixels that matched the trigger condition. Note: The 
    level indicator is scaled to the same ratio as the slider bar below. 

    Capture On 
    When this threshold (set by the Slider) matches the number of pixels hit, a 
    single frame is captured and appended to the AVI file. 

    Interval (ms) 
    Sets the sample interval in milliseconds. 

    Frame Limit 
    Sets the limit to the number of frames to be captured, once this value is 
    reached capturing automatically ends. 

    8 x Playback rate 
    Allows the playback to be viewed at 8 x the sample rate, enabling fast 
    preview of long monitoring periods. 

    Apply Settings 
    Applies the settings enclosed within the group box. 

    Auto Restart and Auto Mail Out 
    (Under Development 0.30) Used to mail details to monitoring centre 

Capture Operation:

    While Previewing 
    Movement activity matching the pixel trigger setting is highlighted. 

    While Capturing 
    Movement activity matching the pixel trigger setting and the #Pixels Hit 
    condition results in a frame being captured and appended to the AVI file. 

    Output Files 
    Two separate files are produced: SCVyymmddhhmm.avi and SCVyymmddhhmm.log 
    where yy represents the year, mm represents the month, dd represents the day 
    of the month, hh is the hour of day in 24-hr format, an mm is the minute 
    that the capturing was initiated. 

    By default, SmartSentry will attempt to store these files in the folder 
    selected by the file.target folder. If this has not been set, it will 
    attempt to store to folder C:\Avi - if this does not exist it will store to 
    the current directory.
