ONVIF, the US-based standards initiative for IP-based physical security products, has released Profile M. This latest Profile standardises metadata and events for analytics applications. This addresses the video analytics market and expands ways for the use of metadata and event handling into other systems such as access control, cloud services and IoT platforms, ONVIF says.
Profile M provides a standard way of communicating metadata and events between analytics-capable services and devices such as IP cameras, and clients like video management software or server- or cloud-based services. It allows installers and end users to combine products from manufacturers of edge devices or services that produce metadata and events, with video management software or cloud services and IoT applications, into one system.
Sriram Bhetanabottla, Chair of the Profile M Working Group, said: “ONVIF recognises that the need for interoperability has evolved beyond the traditional relationship between a hardware device and software client from different vendors. The flexibility to include cloud- and server-based services as ‘conformant devices’ makes Profile M interesting also for independent developers of software-based analytics solutions. It will help drive the growth in the number and types of security, safety and operational efficiency applications available to end users.”
In the context of video, analytics metadata – which can be a variety of object classifications – has a number of uses. They can be used to highlight certain objects in a video stream, trigger automatic responses, and store and search for video content of interest. Other uses include heat mapping in a retail store using human and geo-location metadata, and vehicle mapping in car park, using vehicle and geo-location metadata.
Profile M also supports event handling interfaces for object counting, and face and license plate recognition analytics, as well as JSON-formatted events over MQTT, a protocol for IoT applications. An example of an IoT use case can be for room temperature control, where a Profile M camera (with MQTT support) detects humans in a room and sends an ONVIF event over MQTT to an IoT platform or application that, in turn, triggers a smart thermostat to adjust the room temperature.
Profile M can be combined with other ONVIF video and access control profiles for an integrated system based on ONVIF interfaces.
About ONVIF
Founded in 2008, it’s a forum for inter-operability for IP-based physical security products. Members are camera, video management system and access control companies; there are more than 20,000 profile conformant products. ONVIF offers Profile S for streaming video; Profile G for video recording and storage; Profile C for physical access control; Profile Q for improved out-of-the-box functionality; Profile A for broader access control configuration; Profile T for advanced video streaming and the release candidate for Profile D for access control peripherals. Visit www.onvif.org.
