Vision Based Fire and Smoke Detector

User Manual

This is the user manual for the test application of our Vision Based Fire and Smoke Detection method. The test program, vPlayer, is an AVI player that can load, play and analyze video clips that are stored in AVI format.

This program is tested on Windows XP only; please perform the tests on a Windows XP system.

How to install?

After extracting the program files, run the batch file "install.bat" to register ActiveX components used by the player application. Two message boxes should appear to indicate that each component is installed*, click OK, and continue. This step is required to run the application. An example successful registration message box is shown below:

* You need to have the following system DLLs present on your system, otherwise installation would fail:

·         mfc70u.dll

·         msvcp70.dll

·         msvcr70.dll

Just copy the above files to WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder. These files are included in the Required System DLLs file.

vPlayer uses the video codecs present in the system to open the AVI files. Hence, it is necessary to have the appropriate codec installed for the sample video clips. You can install the video codec by downloading and running the XviD Video Codec executable.

How to test Fire or Smoke Detection?

You need to have AVI clips recorded from a stationary camera to test the Fire and Smoke Detection software. To make a test:

  1. Run the application "vPlayer.exe".
  2. When the application starts, it displays a dialog to select the video analyzer. Select "Fire Detector" from the combo box in this dialog. This will load the Fire Detection module to analyze the video clips. To test Smoke Detection, select the "Smoke Detector".


     
  3. Then the main window of vPlayer appears as shown below:

     
     
  4. Next, either select File->Open... or click the Open button on the multimedia controller to load an AVI clip.
  5. Analyzer Settings will be shown before loading the AVI clip. Click OK to accept the default settings.

  6. After opening the clip, click play to view the detection results. When fire or smoke is detected in the clip, a text will appear in the upper right corner and a wav file (siren.wav) will be played. A sample image is shown at an instance of fire detection:

     

    * If you encounter an error while opening the sample clips fireSample.avi and smokeSample.avi, you may need to install the appropriate codec to your system. You can install the video codec by downloading and running the XviD Video Codec     executable.
     
  7. To re-test an AVI clip either load it again as in step 4, or rewind the clip to its start and reset the analyzer by selecting Analyzer->Reset from the main menu.
  8. To make a test with a different analayzer e.g. Smoke detector, either restart the application and select the appropriate analyzer in step 2, or click Analyzer->Select Analayzer and continue with step 2.

How to uninstall?

Run the batch file "uninstall.bat" to unregister ActiveX components used by the player application. Then delete the program files.