PointGrab installation location
- Julie Isebaert
Difficulty: expert
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you’ll be able to:
Define PointGrab installation location, taking into account the detection area compared to ceiling height and the area you want to cover
Create sensor layout
As described in Prepare your sensor plan, you’ll need following elements in order to define where to place each sensor:
information on ceiling heights
latest floor plan with latest furniture drawings
superposition Reflected Ceiling Plan (RCP) file
Best practices recap
Detection area is measured on floor level: any person standing on the edge of the detection area might not get picked up.
Avoid setting up count area at the edge of the detection area.
It's a best practice to include 1.5.m coverage on all sides
For meeting rooms: Because of the above mentioned edge of the detection area & because you never know how a room might be used in future, it's best practice that the detection area should cover the whole room, even if that means adding an additional sensor to the room
Specific for Pointgrab headcount sensors:
If more than 1 sensor is used to cover an area, these will need to be "stitched" together in the software. Allow an overlap of 0.5m in the detection area of 2 sensors that lie side-by-side and need to be stitched.
Traffic line: 1 single sensor for 1 traffic line (this takes into account for CPU and calculations, otherwise accuracy will drop)
1 single sensor can take up to 10 count areas (remember this when you set up headcount sensors to track workplaces)
Define the Count Areas on your floor
Define the areas you want to monitor. We call these areas “Count Areas”. Do you want to know how many people are using a (closed) room at any given time? Or are you using PointGrab devices to track the occupancy of multiple desks?
A PointGrab Count Area is rectangular in shape and needs to be covered entirely by Sensor Detection Areas (Count Area smaller than sum of Detection Areas).
1 PointGrab device can only cover a maximum of 10 desks/workplace areas
(Configure more than 10 count areas in the PointGrab™ Platform, and the device will appear offline.)
Define the Detection Area of each sensor
A PointGrab device is always placed in the middle of its Detection Area*, which is a rectangle of which the dimensions (length-width) on the ground are dependent on the installation height/ceiling height.
For an installation height of 3.65 meters or higher, the Detection Area is fixed (see table below depending on sensor type).
Occlusion avoidance calculation
In case there is an obstruction on the ceiling, we need to make sure that the sensor’s detection area is not hindered by this.
Use the Occlusion Avoidance Calculation Excel to define how far away from the obstruction you have to install the sensor, based on the length (measured from the ceiling):
Traffic line
Tracking people flow through a door-in-a-closed-wall
sensor to be installed 1m away from the wall/door
in the corridor (so that a door opening does not hinder the detection)
Sensor should be oriented to allow enough coverage from both in and out sides. Usually (when detecting people flow through a door when people , short side of the detection area will be parallel to the door opening
Tracking people flow in open spaces at badge readers
sensor to be installed above the location that needs to be tracked
short side of the detection area to be parallel to the “door” opening
Combine Count Areas and Detection Areas on your Sensor Plan
Now that you have defined which areas you want to track occupancy on (count areas), and know the detection areas of the sensors, you can define how many PointGrab CogniPoint™ sensor devices are needed.
Make sure you visit Prepare your sensor plan for more information and examples.
Define sensor installation location
The installation location of the CogniPoint™ sensor devices is linked to the height of the ceiling and dependent of any obstructions of large items (e.g. a projector hanging from the ceiling).
Determine the sensor's precise location according to the layout defined in the sensor layout process and the resulting floor plan (Sensor Plan). Sensors are displayed as circular icons on the floor plan, with an arrow pointing in their view direction.
For workplaces headcount monitoring, viewing direction is important in order to get the correct data on which individual workplace/area is occupied or not. Remember: 1 PointGrab device can only cover a maximum of 10 workplace areas.
In meeting rooms, viewing direction is important to make sure to cover the whole room
Next steps
Make sure to check PointGrab hardware and network requirements prior to PointGrab installation.
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