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Free Text Search With Threshold

Free Text Search With Threshold is a versatile tool that allows you to search for objects in videos based on text input (currently in English). The query uses a similarity threshold to filter results, ensuring that only the most relevant matches are returned. This is particularly useful for finding objects in multiple videos.

Free Text Search works on a single or multiple videos, including live cameras.

  • Do not use negation in the query text; i.e. "person not sitting" will not produce correct results.
  • Combine multiple attributes in a single query to get more accurate results.
  • Make sure to pick the object type corresponding to your query text to get the desired results - if your query is e.g. "stationary car next to a bicycle", use the Car and Bicycle object types.

Example free text queries

  • "Fire and smoke hazard" (use Background object type to search for elements in the background not covered by other object types)

Prerequisites

Setup

  1. Select one or more videos from your workspace Click +Set up New Query.

  2. Select Free Text Search from the list of query types.

Quick start

You can quickly set up a Free Text Search by typing a query text click Run Query to start the analysis immediately or Save & Exit to save the query for later.

The query will run with all parameters set to their default values:

  • Person object type
  • Output: top 40 results
  • Time frame: from Earliest to Latest.

1. Query Name

Give your query a name to better identify it. A description can also be added (optional).

2. Object Detection Filter

Videos

The thumbnail image(s) of the previously chosen videos is displayed here.

Time interval

Time interval

Set the time frame for the query.

  • Earliest: Run the query from the time shown here (set during video registration as the beginning timestamp of the video).
  • Latest: Run the query until the time shown here (set during video registration as the end timestamp of the video).
  • Set custom: You can select a custom start and end date and time to run the query on. Type the desired date and time or select them by clicking the calendar icon.

Object types

Object types

Select one or multiple object types you want to search for - Person is selected by default. Select a category, then click the dropdown menu to see the list of available object types for the selected object category.

Note that the object type selected here needs to match the object type in the query text.

3. Free Text Search

Free text search

Enter the text you want to search for in the videos. The search is case-insensitive.

4. Similarity Filter

  • Min confidence: Set the minimum similarity threshold for the search results. The default value is 0.5, meaning that only results with a similarity score of 50% or higher will be returned. Adjust this value to filter out less relevant results.

Note

Lowering the threshold will return more results, but they may be less relevant. Increasing the threshold will return fewer, but more relevant results. Keep adjusting the threshold until you find a balance that works for your query.

5. Alarm Integration (optional)

The query can optionally be integrated with third-party systems, such as Milestone XProtect or a webhook to trigger alarms.

Results

All done - Clicking Save & Run will immediately start the analysis and opens the Result screen of this query. Alternatively, clicking Save & Exit saves the query without running it.