Tags and Subjects
Macula offers a possibility to create tags and subjects for LPR and FR black/white lists, respectively. You can use these in combination with the Event&Action rules to roll our desired automated scenarios. Tags and subjects in Macula Console are not exported or imported to/from tags and subjects in LPR/FR services; they can act as a supplement or a replacement of these.
The recognition itself may run on an edge device (e.g., ANPR camera) or be provided by an external service. The idea is that the recognition results are received by Macula and then matched with the local tag/subject database.
Subjects are expected license plate or facial recognition results. For ANPR, a subject is a car number plate, and for FR each subject is a person.
Tags are used as marks for the LPR/FR subjects. One or more subjects with the same tag form a list, and you can use tags to trigger events and event chains. Each tag can be used for all types of services, which is convenient, for example, to handle access for a group of people and their cars.
Create Tags
To create tags in Macula Console, switch to the Events&Actions section. Choose Tags on the left, then click the +New tag button on the upper panel.
For each tag, you can choose:
Title: user-defined tag name that will appear in rules and in Macula Monitor
Color: will also appear in Macula Monitor to mark entries with this tag
Flags: choose if you want to use this tag for FR lists, LPR lists, or both
When finished, click OK to save and close the dialog box. The newly created tag will appear in the item list; you can edit any tag by double-clicking it in the list, or by selecting a tag and clicking the Edit button on the upper panel. Remove tags by selecting one or more items and then clicking the Recycle bin icon on the upper panel.
Create Subjects
Creating subjects is similar. To create subjects in Macula Console, switch to the Events&Actions section. Choose Subjects on the left, then click the +New LPR subject or +New FR subject button on the upper panel.
For each subject, the following settings are available:
Title: user-defined tag name that will appear in rules and in Macula Monitor
Color: will also appear in Macula Monitor to mark this subject's recognitions (if the subject is tagged, the subject color will be replaced by tag color)
Pattern: exact plate number or a mask (e.g., D* to match all plates starting with D and having any length)
Mask: enable this to enter a mask instead of the exact match in the pattern field above
Patterns for masks: use * for any number of unknown characters, and ? for exactly one unknown character. For example:
F* will match all license plates of any length starting with F
F????? will match all license plates starting with F with a total length of 6 characters
F?* means there's F and then one or more unknown characters
Use query testing (see below) to check if an expected recognition value is "caught" by the mask.
When finished, click OK to save and close the dialog box. The newly created subject will appear in the item list; you can edit any subject by double-clicking it in the list, or by selecting a subject and clicking the Edit button on the upper panel. Remove subjects by selecting one or more items and then clicking the Recycle bin button on the upper panel.
Add Tag Matching Events
A special event type is available for the built-in tags. This event is triggered when a recognition result has a matching tag profile: this may mean one of the required tags is present or absent, and other scenarios.
To add the tag matching event, switch to the Events subsection and click + New event button on the upper panel. Set the event type to Tag match. The following settings are available:
Title: user-defined event title that will appear in the E&A Configurator
Source: a channel that will serve as a recognition source
Tag match mode: choose what kind of match you want (see more detailed explanation below)
Flags: choose one or more if you want this tag event to be triggered for specific recognition type
Tags: choose a set of tags that will be used for comparison
Recognition may be LPR or FR and it may run on the camera side or as an external service.
Possible tag match modes: event will be triggered if..
NoTags: recognition result does not have any tags (the license plate/subject is not present in the database)
Any: recognition result tag matches one or more tags in the list (at least one)
All: recognition result matches all defined tags (possibly more, but at least those listed)
NotAny: doesn't match any of the specified tags
For example: in the snapshot above, the event is triggered when recognition result matches Staff, VIP, Visitors, or Guards tag.
Create Rules
As soon as you have created tag-based events, you can match them with any actions to create automated scenarios in the Event & Action Configurator.
Rule examples:
open a gate based on staff car entering (action: change DO state, prerequisite: DO wired to the gate)
notify operators with a sound (action: send event to client, option: play audio notification, prerequisite: audio notifications enabled on the client side)
Test Tags and Subjects
From the Subjects section, you can check if the whole scenario works for a specific recognition result. Simply click the Test button on the upper panel, enter the desired parameters, and click Run. The test query is not bound to any specific subject entry so it does not matter which item is selected in the item list.
The test validates if the entered recognition value has any matching subjects and, therefore, tags, and also checks if it triggers any events. Events are only checked if there are active rules using these events!
As an example, let's see the test results for the test above. The dialog box with the results will have several tabs.
In the Subjects tab, all matching subjects will be listed. In the example here, E-plate matches the recognition result because this subject is defined as a mask WUL*, matching any license plate starting with WUL.
In the Tags tab, all matching tags will be listed with their corresponding colors.
Finally, in the Events tab, you will see, which events would be triggered by the test pattern.
Note that the event list will be empty if there exist some relevant events but there are no rules using them!
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