Event Handling and Triggered Capture of Videos and Photos

raspiCamSrv can capture events from camera and GPIO input devices and let these process actions by the camera and GPIO output devices.

Supported Triggers

• Triggers from GPIO-connected sensors

Additional Triggers when a Camera is available

• Triggers from camera events such as start and stop of video recording or streaming or detection of motion.
• Motion Capturing through image analysis
• Active Motion Capture

Supported Actions

• Actions with GPIO-connected devices, such as LEDs, motors, servos or sound devices.
• SMTP actions for sending an eMail to the configured recipient.
• Trigger-Actions define which trigger will execute which action(s).
• Under Notification, you configure the general mail recipient as well as specifics for notification on motion detection through the camera.

Additional Actions when a Camera is available

• Camera actions, such as taking photos, starting or stopping video recording or recording a video with a given length.
• Camera Actions specify the camera actions in case of motion detection through the camera.
• Under Notification, you configure whether mail notification shall include photos or videos from motion detection through the camera.

Event Dashboard

• Event Viewer
• Calendar

Event Handling Infrastructure

raspiCamSrv comes with two different types of event handling:

1. Motion Capturing

Originally supported was Motion Capturing with photo-taking and video recording actions as well as notification by mail.
The relevant dialogs for configuration are Motion, Camera and Notification.

2. General Event Handling

Since version V3.3.0, raspiCamSrv supports a more general approach to event handling which includes not only the camera but also various kinds of input and output devices which can be connected to the Raspberry Pi's GPIO pins.

If you have no devices connected to your Raspberry Pi, you just stay with Motion Capturing.

If you have input devices, such as sensors or buttons and/or output devices, such as LEDs, buzzers, relais or motors connected to your Pi, in addition to a camera, you can benefit from the fully integrated powerful event handling of raspiCamSrv.

• You start with configuring the connected devices in the Settings/Devices screen.
• Then, for the configured input devices, you configure Triggers which can also be based on camera events, such as start or stop of video recording, streaming or motion capturing.
• As next, you configure any type of actions which you want to see, such as LEDs being switched on, a stepper motor executing a certain number of steps or photos and/or videos being taken with the camera.
  In addition, you can also configure an SMTP action for being informed about an event by mail.
• Once this is done, you need to specify for each of the triggers, which actions shall be processed once an event has been triggered. This is done in dialog Trigger Actions.
• In the Triggers and Actions dialogs, you also have the possibility to deactivate or activate triggers and actions, respectively.

Integration

The two types of event handling exist independently from each other and can be used separately or simultaneously.
Events from Triggers defined as part of the General Event Handling can also be logged and visualized in the Event Viewer if their event_log control parameter is set to "True".

SMTP actions for mailing use the Notification settings. Whether photos and/or videos, created during action processing, shall be included in a mail, can be configured independently for each SMTP action.

In order to receive a mail on an event, you just activate one of your configured SMTP actions for the intended trigger.
While all actions are started simultanously in individual threads, the thread for the SMTP action will wait for completion of all other actions of the same trigger and include any information and rosources from the other action threads.

Where do Photos and Videos go?

Photos and videos taken in case of motion detection will always be stored in the event folder while events are logged in the log file and the database.
Old data can be removed with the Cleanup function.

The same applies to triggers and actions of General Event Handling if the control parameter event_log for the trigger is set to "True*.

If this parameter is "False", photos and videos will be stored at the same location as if they were taken on the Live screen and they can be inspected in the Photo Viewer.

Restrictions

You can use motion capturing through the camera as trigger.
Whereas you can associate any kind of GPIO actions with such a trigger, you can not associate any camera or SMTP action.
This is because camrea- and SMTP actions are handled already in the Motion Capturing infrastructure, which must be activated in order to capture motion detection events.

Control

In the Control section, you may specify basic aspects of triggered actions:

Where not otherwise stated, this applies to 'legacy' motion capturing as well as to General Event Handling.

• Under Triggers, you select the triggers to be used.
  You can activate Motion detection and/or the other Configured Triggers
• Under Actions you specify the actions to be taken in case of motion detection through the camera.
  You may select among video recording and photo taking.
  In case Record Video is selected, also at least one photo must be taken. This photo will serve as placeholder for the video in the Event Viewer.
  With Notification you specify whether or not you want to be informed by e-Mail about an event. The details need to be specified on the Notification tab.
  ATTENTION: If you have chosen to only activate Configured Triggers without Motion Detection, the listed Actions will be deactivated because they are only supported with Motion Detection.
  From the Configured Triggers, the configured Trigger-Actions will be executed, which may also include camera actions.
• With Operation Weekdays, you specify the weekdays when triggering shall be active.
• Operation Start specifies the daytime when triggering is activated on each active weekday.
• Operation End specifies the daytime when triggering is paused.
• Automatic Start with Server
  When activated, the trigger capturing process can be automatically started with the server.
  When you change this parameter, you need to go to Settings and store the current Server Configuration
  If you want automatic start, you also need to select Start Server with stored Configuration.
  Note In case you start the Flask server manually, do not use the --debug option. This will cause an exception (see Flask Issue #5437).
• Detection Delay allows specifying a delay in seconds. When an event is triggered, the configured action (video and/or photo, Notification) will be delayed by the specified number of seconds. Normally, this will be 0.
  This applies to motion-captured events only.
• Detection Pause specifies a 'dead time' after an event has been registerd. Within this time no new event will be registered although the system will not stop detecting motion.
  This setting prevents from being flooded with registered events, for example if motion persists for a longer time.
  Detection pause (and alse Detection Delay), configured here, does not apply to the configured Triggers. For these, it is possible to specify bouncing-time individually for every trigger.
• Retention Period specifies the number of days for which event data will be retained when a cleanup is done.
  This does not apply for photos or videos which have been taken on triggers for which event_log was set to "False"

Data changes will not be persisted unless the Submit button has been pressed.

Starting Trigger capturing

Trigger- and event handling is activated using the Start button.

Depending on the selected Triggers, Motion Detection and/or Configured Triggers are started.

Which process is currently active is indicated by the status indicators:

• Motion detection only:
  
• Configured Triggers only:
  
• Both
  

Note that, whenever Motion Detection is active, also the live stream will be kept active because this is used to detect motion.

For active of motion capturing, see Active Motion Capturing