How elements interact with maps
You can use map elements to interact with the actual devices in the following ways:
Place your mouse cursor over a camera on a map to see a live preview from the camera. Select the title bar of the preview to display it as a separate floating window. You can resize the floating window by pulling its corners. To start recording, right-click the required camera and select Start recording for # minutes. Particular user permissions may be required to use this feature.
A fixed camera is displayed on the map with an associated view zone that shows the camera’s angle of view. Note that the angle on the map is very likely to need adjustment to match the camera’s angle of view. To adjust the angle, simply drag it to a suitable size and position.
A PTZ camera is displayed on the map with any PTZ preset positions defined for the camera on the XProtect VMS system. The presets are illustrated as colored angles that radiate from the PTZ camera icon. Each angle represents a particular preset. Note that the angles are very likely to need adjustment to match the camera’s preset angles. To adjust an angle, simply drag it to a suitable size and position. If a camera has more than 25 presets, no angles are initially displayed since the angles would be too small to be useful. In such cases, you can add required angles individually by dragging the presets from the required camera from the Element selector window onto the map. To go to one of a PTZ camera’s presets, simply select the preset on the map. This works in the floating preview window, on the map itself, as well as in hotspot view items. See Add a hotspot to a view. Alternatively, right-click the camera, select PTZ presets, then select the required preset.
Place your mouse over a microphone; press and hold the left mouse button to listen to incoming audio from a microphone, or right-click the microphone and select Listen to microphone. You can’t use microphones in map views in playback mode.
Place your mouse over a speaker; press and hold the left mouse button to talk through the speaker. You can’t use speakers in map views in playback mode.
Select an event on the map (see Alarms ) to activate it, or right-click the event and select Activate event. When left-clicking an event, the mouse cursor briefly changes to a lightning symbol to indicate that the event is being activated.
Select an alarm on the map (see Alarms ) to view it, or right-click the alarm and select Activate Alarm. Right-click to acknowledge the alarm.
Select an output on the map to activate it, or right-click the output and select Activate output. When you select an output, the mouse cursor briefly changes to a lightning symbol to indicate that the output is being activated.
A hot zone is usually colored, so it is easy to recognize. Select a hot zone to go to the sub-map associated with the hot zone, or right-click the required hot zone and select Go to sub-map.
If the hot zone appears with a dotted outline, no map is associated with the hot zone.
On some XProtect VMS systems, maps from several different servers may be in a map hierarchy. This can mean that when you select a hot zone, the sub-map is unavailable because its server is unavailable. Servers can become unavailable because of scheduled maintenance or network problems. Contact your system administrator if the problem persists.
A hot zone can point to a map that you don’t have access permissions to and the XProtect Smart Client will inform you about this. Because user permissions can be time-based, you might not be able to access a map that you could previously. This can be because you don’t have access during certain hours of the day or certain days of the week. Contact your system administrator if in doubt about your user permissions.
Plug-in elements are available only if used on XProtect VMS system. Examples of plug-in elements: access control systems, fire detection systems, etc.
Because interconnected hardware that is part of a Milestone Interconnect system is offline at times, you can often see error statuses on the interconnected hardware element on a map.