Al fresco Surveillance – Know Outdoor Dangers

For perimeter monitoring, outdoor video surveillance provides information not available with other technologies.

But there is a basic challenge -- cameras that make outdoor surveillance possible are primarily designed for indoor use. The typical solution for outdoor use is to put the camera in a weatherproof enclosure; but this does not begin to solve all the problems, contends a White Paper written by Warren Simonsen of Sandra Jones and Company.

Bad illumination, shadows, rain and snow, temperature extremes, strong winds, large areas to cover, limited network connectivity and potential network vulnerability all can beat down effectiveness outside.

The White Paper lists problems and holes that need solving and filling. Understanding outdoor video challenges will make chief security officers and security directors more eager for cameras built for the great outdoors.
 

Bright sunny days and cloudy moonless nights are extremes typical for outdoor surveillance. The sun moves from east to west all day, creating changing shadows and potential glare problems; lighting is always dynamic. Software that would attempt to detect moving objects or people needs to ignore shadows while still detecting movement in those shadows. Light reflections are common near large bodies of water or even the simple fountain or retention pond found in many industrial parks. These moving reflections often can generate false motion alarms in many systems. Simple systems attempt to eliminate this problem by masking the frame portion where this “motion” occurs. But the result is a hole in the system where motion is no longer detected at all.