- Client
- Colfax Storage
- Location
- Colfax Ave, Denver, CO
- Scope
- Commercial security camera systems · Commercial security · Self-storage security
A wide entrance is a coverage problem before it is a camera problem. When a facility has one busy access point, everything passes through the same frame, and the detail that matters later, a plate or a face, is exactly what a wide shot does not hold.
Colfax Storage asked for a view that could do both: hold the whole entrance, then zoom into one part of it without adding a mast or a second camera. The facility also wanted the operator to be able to drive the camera, not just watch it.
The installation
The photographs below are from the completed job. They show the camera positions and how each housing sits against the surface it was mounted to.
The installation The PTZ dome at the highest central point of the storage entrance, where it can turn through the full width of the opening.
1 of 1
Why a fixed camera was not enough
The facility on Colfax Avenue has a high-traffic garage entrance that is also its main exposure. Vehicles come and go, pedestrians use the same opening, and goods are staged in the middle of it.
A fixed camera at that entrance sees the whole width or it sees detail, not both. The operator wanted to hold the overview and still be able to read a plate or a face when something looked wrong.
A PTZ dome in the central position
The answer was a single Hikvision PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) dome camera, mounted as high and as central as the structure allowed. From there it rotates through the full entrance and uses optical zoom to reach detail at a distance.
One camera replaced the row of fixed units that would otherwise have been needed to cover the same ground. A vandal-resistant dome was part of the specification, because the camera hangs in a public and semi-exposed entrance.
Fiber to a legacy building
The most useful mounting point had no network at all. The distance back to the nearest network closet exceeded what copper Ethernet can carry, and trenching across a working yard was not an option the site wanted.
We ran fiber optic cable to the mounting point instead. It carries the PTZ feed over the distance without the interference risk of a long copper run, and it keeps real-time control responsive.
Patrol routes instead of a fixed shot
A PTZ camera only earns its cost if it is aimed at the right thing when nobody is driving it. We programmed patrol and guard-tour routes into the camera, so it steps through the high-risk zones on its own.
The operator can take control from the central VMS at any point, pan to an event and zoom in, then let the tour resume.
What the entrance covers now
The facility manager can look at the entire entrance at once or examine a single vehicle, and the recorded video keeps the detail needed for a later review.
A camera that turns is also a moving, visible one, and that visibility does some of the deterrent work on its own.
The project ran for two weeks. It is a good example of matching the camera to the geometry of the site instead of adding units until the frame is covered.
Related:All projectsContact us