Integrating IP cameras
There are various IP cameras from many different manufactures on the market. Since there is no common standard to integration IP cameras into third-party user interfaces, some considerations and requirements must be taken into account.
Web interface
In our visualization you can integrate web content use the Internet / Multi-Internet control or you can show web content in a separate web view. This means that you must specify the URL of the web content that shall be integrate.
For IP cameras this means that the camera must provide a web interface which can be shown. Most of the cameras are providing such a web interface. Here is an example of the web interface of an Axis camera.
This web interface can be used in our visualization.
As you can see, the full web interface is shown – including a menu bar and several control elements. If you would like to see only the image stream without extra elements, you have to use a different URL.
Some IP cameras are provided dedicated URLs that provide such streams. Important to note is that these streams can be shown in a normal web browser (e.g. Google Chrome) – without any additional software or plugins. E.g. rstp:// URLs will not work.
Even if no dedicated URLs are supported, most cameras provide at least a snapshot image that can be shown. To show a continuous image stream that refreshes the snapshot image in a specific interval, a user-specific HTML page including JavaScript can be added to our web visualization. More information about this way of integration can be found in our knowledge base: Tutorial: Integrate a webcam view in a visualization project .
Testing the IP camera
The best way to ensure whether a smooth integration in our visualization is to make a real test. First, it has to be decided whether the IP camera shall be embedded as Internet / Multi-Internet control or it shall be shown in a separate web view. Integrating it in a separate web view is in general much easier since some restriction exists for embedded it an existing page.
Restrictions for embedding IP cameras as Internet / Multi-Internet control
Recently, web browsers like Google Chrome do not allow to embedded URLs in iframes that contain username / password for basic HTTP authentication. This is mainly due to security reasons. Thus such IP cameras that have password protected web interfaces cannot be integrated anymore in Internet / Multi-Internet controls. Please keep in mind that this is not a limit in our software - the limitation comes from the web browsers.
HTTP basic authentication URL with "@" in password
To allow the integration of such IP cameras, the password protection must be disabled to show them in Internet / Multi-Internet controls – or even better, define an additional user with no password with limited access rights (e.g. user without configuration permissions).
As an alternative, you can open the camera web interface in a separate windows using a button with “Show URL Window” function. Here, the username and password can be specified in the URL.