[HN Gopher] Show HN: Security Camera Lens Calculator
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Show HN: Security Camera Lens Calculator
Author : maxshm
Score : 123 points
Date : 2021-11-29 15:40 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jvsg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jvsg.com)
| bmcahren wrote:
| Your color scheme is the opposite of what I would expect.
|
| Worst resolution = Red/Orange
|
| Acceptable resolution = Yellow
|
| Best resolution = Green/Blue
| jstanley wrote:
| Maybe it's intended for helping people _evade_ CCTV, rather
| than helping people spec CCTV installations.
| sirmoveon wrote:
| I tried to use it but it didn't seem as user friendly as the one
| @calculator.ipvm.com which I have used before. Maybe take some
| ideas from their interface.
| linux_is_nice wrote:
| Heh, setting "distance from camera" to zero causes it to error.
| maxshm wrote:
| Oops! Thank you!
| pseudosavant wrote:
| I don't currently have a use for this, but it is still very
| impressive. Incredible amount of complexity exposed with an easy
| to use UI. I especially liked the mug shot on the right
| illustrating the level of resolution you'll get. I will
| definitely use this the next time I'm shopping for a security
| camera.
| azalemeth wrote:
| Very shiny. I've never bought a CCTV camera in my life, but I
| understood everything intuitively. I didn't see how to change the
| scene beyond adding the woman / car, but it was enough to make
| things clear. The only minor comment I have is a cultural one - I
| got a pang of annoyance seeing the flag of the USA by "English"
| as a language!
| dylan604 wrote:
| >flag of the USA by "English" as a language!
|
| Does the flag properly denote spelling ontop of language?
| Gray/grey/ color/colour shop/shopppe?
| maxshm wrote:
| Thank you for your comment!
|
| As for English language icon, we must use British flag or maybe
| a combination of UK/US flags. It is so easy with Italian
| language! :)
| justincormack wrote:
| Its not easy to match flags and languages at all, lots of
| countries have multiple languages, and lots of languages have
| multiple countries.
| daenz wrote:
| Super cool! I've built something similar and adhoc for an art
| piece[0] that used cameras. It used a thermal camera which has
| fixed focal length (due to the optics of heat (technically not
| accurate, you can do variable focal length for thermal but it's
| way expensive)), and so knowing exactly what I was going to see
| was critical before dropping a few grand on the camera. A tool
| like this would have been super useful!
|
| One small bit of feedback, the installation height doesn't impact
| the rendered person. I was expecting the rendered person to be a
| 3D model that was rasterized into the target resolution, but when
| I put the camera nearly overhead, it doesn't show primarily the
| top of the model's head, it still shows a mostly frontal view.
|
| 0. https://www.arwmoffat.com/work/dawn-of-an-old-age
| [deleted]
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| If I try to use the mouse to scroll, it zooms out, which is 100%
| acceptable and fine, except if I zoom out too far I see the scene
| upside down, which is funny.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| The link https://www.jvsg.com/online/ redirect to
| https://www.jvsg.com/calculators/cctv-lens-calculator/ which
| doesn't have all the functionality of your whole software
| https://www.jvsg.com/
|
| The following is commentary for the web app cctv-lens-calculator
| (not the whole software).
|
| For face recognition applications, taking the picture from a
| camera too high make the face harder to recognize (even more so
| when people look down); (And the portrait of the person doesn't
| show the rotation).
|
| Some camera have both horizontal rotation and vertical rotation,
| and depending on whether you mount it on the wall or on the
| ceiling, and the camera model (and their axis-rotation order),
| the field of view and the up vector may not be up.
|
| Add affiliate links to buy the chosen camera model.
|
| Add multiple cameras and their respective field of view to check
| for blind spots.
|
| Allow loading sketch-up or 3d model of the building (I couldn't
| find how to "load a floor map to see camera coverage on your
| plan" )
|
| Bug : Clicking on the "Meter" button scale the person up
| indefinitely.
| maxshm wrote:
| Thank you for your feedback and advice!
|
| Wow, it is great to meet a person here who knows about our main
| desktop software IP Video System Design Tool. To import a floor
| plan in the lens calculator the user can click on a small house
| button in the bottom of the screen. Yes the button is not in
| the toolbar.
|
| This video shows how to import a background image 1:40
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NE7eTx1aPpg
| dang wrote:
| Posts without URLs get penalized, so I've linked the
| submission to your URL (the one that gets redirected to) and
| converted your text to a top comment.
| jaclaz wrote:
| About the Italian version:
|
| >Calcolare la lunghezza focale dell obiettivo della fotocamera,
| la densita dei pixel e vedere le zone della fotocamera in 3D
|
| In actual Italian that would be:
|
| Calcolo della lunghezza focale dell'obiettivo della fotocamera,
| della densita dei pixel e visualizzazione 3d delle zone di
| copertura
|
| The current one is understandable, but sounds a bit like native
| americans talk in old westerns.
|
| And - if I may - you have colours "reversed", I would
| instinctively expect green to be "good, OK", red "No good",
| yellow something midway.
| tata71 wrote:
| Not my industry, but:
|
| Isn't the green for "not so serious" framing, and "not
| recording",
|
| with red being "recording"?
| jaclaz wrote:
| As said above, it depends, battery indicators (usually) are:
|
| green=OK
|
| red=no good
|
| yellow=so and so
| aastronaut wrote:
| you are referring to the "tally light", which uses a very
| limited range of values, usually 2 (off/red) or 3
| (off/red/green) in a studio setting. since this here is a
| continuous value (based on multiple parameters) i would also
| think in terms of green being desirable and red being non-
| desirable.
| maxshm wrote:
| Thank you jaclaz, for Italian translation correction! Idea with
| colors is that hotter color means higher number of pixels per
| meter or pixels per foot.
| jaclaz wrote:
| > Idea with colors is that hotter color means higher number
| of pixels per meter or pixels per foot.
|
| Yep, I can understand that, it is only (again IMHO) less
| intuitive at first sight.
|
| It is only about conventions, in thermal images, usually red
| is "hot" and green/blue is "cool", but then it depends on
| what you use it for, if you do house thermal imaging, to
| check if insulation is good, if you do it from the inside
| cool is "bad", but from the outside hot becomes bad (in most
| common cases when outside is colder, i.e. winter, but it
| reverses meaning if you are testing for an air conditioning
| system in summer).
| maxshm wrote:
| More screenshots on our ProductHunt page:
| https://www.producthunt.com/posts/security-camera-lens-calcu...
| Gys wrote:
| Interesting concept. A few days ago I bought an outside camera
| and seems I choose well for my use case.
|
| One thing: the left side menu is not scrollable but should be? On
| my MacBook Pro with Firefox 94.0.2 I see 'FOV Width' at the left
| bottom and I assume there is an input field below it, but I
| cannot see it.
| mtmail wrote:
| clickable link https://www.jvsg.com/online/
| diimdeep wrote:
| ERROR 403 - FORBIDDEN
| maxshm wrote:
| Strange. Could it be that a huge wave of visitors from
| HackerNews or ProductHunt overloaded the website?
| maxshm wrote:
| Thank you!
| maxshm wrote:
| We created Security Camera Lens Calculator with 3D
| graphics(WebGL) and a built-in camera database.
|
| https://www.jvsg.com/calculators/cctv-lens-calculator/
|
| It is a web app (Javascript+React) that runs in a browswer or on
| a tablet or a smartphone.
|
| It took our team more than 1 year to complete the calculator.
|
| Calculator functions:
|
| - calculate pixel density (PPM/PPF)
|
| - clearly see dead zones in 3D
|
| - check DORI zones (detection, observation, recognition,
| identification) based on pixel density calculations and IEC and
| EN 62676 standard.
|
| - calculate lens focal length
|
| - load a floor map to see camera coverage on your plan
|
| - over 9,000 video surveillance camera models embedded in the
| CCTV Lens Calculator.
|
| - 12 languages supported.
|
| Today we launched our Security Camera Lens Calculator also on
| ProductHunt.
|
| We would love to get some feedback. Particularly from people
| using it to solve real world problems.
| buro9 wrote:
| I like it and immediately see a secondary use-case... the
| purchase of cameras and lenses for home broadcast studios and the
| upper end of vloggers and video conferencing.
|
| Meaning... OK, so you're going with a Sony and you want a prime
| lens and you'll be x distance from the camera and want to be
| frame with head and shoulders... which prime lens is the one you
| should choose?
|
| For a single camera + lens you'd probably experiment and a shop
| can rent you variations. But as soon as you're into the "I'm
| setting up a home studio and need several cameras" then you'd
| want to spend less time experimenting and get closer to the final
| configuration on the first pass, i.e. to use a tool to help get
| it right first time.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Aside from this being a really simple calculation for which
| there are lots of online calculators and articles...there is no
| reason to buy a prime lens for streaming.
|
| Modern kit zoom lenses are more than sufficient for even raw
| 1080p...and by the time your stream has been compressed twice
| (the first time likely by a hardware encoder on your video
| card, which is not exactly stellar encoding quality in the
| first place), there is exactly zero point to the very minute
| difference in quality, particularly since in a studio you can
| provide enough light that the lens can be stopped down to its
| ideal aperture.
|
| If the goal is "head and shoulders shot", you probably want an
| 85mm (35-mm-equivalent) focal length, or thereabouts. 85mm is
| the classic portraiture focal length for 35mm format, because
| it yields a very natural look. 50mm might be more conducive to
| smaller spaces, however.
|
| If by "Sony" you mean one of the a7 series mirrorless
| cameras...unless you're planning on streaming in candle-light
| conditions, that's _also_ a massive waste of money. Any micro
| four thirds camera made in the last ten years will output
| gorgeous video quality for streaming even if you don 't go to
| great lengths lighting-wise.
| atoav wrote:
| Solution: start Blender, model the space with rough blocks,
| place the camera set up sensor size and focal length and go.
| slimsag wrote:
| I was so happy when Blender added real-world camera matching,
| such a nice feature. You can control:
|
| * Focal length / FOV in terms of e.g. 35mm lens focal lengths
|
| * Focal distance
|
| * F-stop (amount of blurring, matching real cameras)
|
| * Number of actual shutter blades, rotation of them, etc. for
| matching bokeh effects of real cameras
|
| https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cameras.htm.
| ..
| scottlamb wrote:
| Neat tool!
|
| Since this discussion is attracting IP camera-savvy folks...I'm
| struggling to find cameras to buy/recommend. In particular, ones
| that:
|
| * Aren't made by the big Chinese companies (Dahua, Hikvision,
| Uniview, Huawei) that are actively participating in the Uyghur
| genocide [1] and/or are considered a security threat by the US.
| (Most of those are banned for US government installations by the
| National Defense Authorization Act [2]; future models won't get
| FCC approval for private use either, according to the Secure
| Equipment Act of 2021 [3].)
|
| * Support direct RTSP use rather than require a fast/reliable
| Internet connection and/or proprietary cloud service
| subscription. (This excludes eg the Nest and Ring stuff, as far
| as I can tell.)
|
| * Are reasonably priced, although not necessarily as cheap as the
| Chinese vendors.
|
| * Have decent night image quality. I'd be thrilled to find a
| model with the larger 1/1.8" sensors.
|
| I know I should renew my IPVM subscription and see what they say.
| I'd love to find (other) quality review sites or forums that
| aren't super invested in Dahua/Hikvision (like ipcamtalk seems to
| be).
|
| [1] eg https://ipvm.com/reports/dahua-uyghur-warning
|
| [2] https://ipvm.com/reports/ndaa-guide
|
| [3] https://www.cepro.com/security/senate-passes-secure-
| equipmen...
| pnw wrote:
| I've always liked https://www.axis.com - they are Swedish and
| one of the IP cam pioneers. You are going to pay a premium
| though. B&H Photo sells them.
| rileyphone wrote:
| You could try Illustra, though they might be a little pricey.
| Full disclosure I work for JCI but I think they meet your
| criteria for the most part. Axis cameras seem very popular too.
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