Tree structure of VMS objects (cameras, intercoms)

The Tree structure of VMS objects (cameras, intercoms) documentation section describes the integration mechanisms with an external customer address system and associated video surveillance devices. It defines the methods for synchronizing and maintaining a hierarchical structure of objects within the Video Management System (VMS).

This hierarchical structure represents the customer’s address space and its linked surveillance endpoints, enabling structured organization and logical grouping of devices. The tree is rendered in the VMS Administrator interface and functions as a navigational and search framework for managing surveillance devices within complex organizational or geographic structures.

A hierarchical object structure is a tree-like model where each node – an element of the tree – represents a specific logical or physical object, such as a region, city, street, building, room, etc.

Each element of the tree can be clearly classified into one of two categories:

Parent node (branch) – represents a hierarchical entity that contains child elements. Examples include: region, city, street, building. These nodes act as connecting links and form the overall architecture of the structure.

Leaf node (house/unit) – doesn’t contain any child elements. These nodes are marked on the server side with a special flag: is_house = true. Examples of leaf nodes include: house, apartment, office, or room. Devices such as surveillance cameras and intercom systems can only be linked to these leaf nodes (leaf-level elements), as they are exclusively assigned to them.

The system uses two types of trees, each designed for a specific purpose.

• Camera tree: this tree structures video camera placements according to their physical location.

• Intercom tree: this tree is used to organize and configure intercom systems.

Camera tree

To integrate with a customer's external address system, branches (addresses) are automatically created and displayed as a tree structure in the video surveillance Administrator interface. This process is triggered by data received from the client's billing or CMS system, ensuring continuous synchronization and up-to-date information within the video surveillance system.

These branches form a tree structure that includes elements such as buildings or rooms at specific addresses. These elements, in turn, can contain other objects like cameras, as well as private folders used to manage access to those cameras. Private folders can only be created within leaf nodes of the tree – the parts of the structure where the cameras themselves are located. For more details on managing private folders via API requests, see the Private folders section.

Intercom tree

The intercom tree structure is similar to the camera tree and is also built from data received from the customer's external address system. However, unlike the camera tree, the intercom tree doesn’t support the use of folders; all objects are displayed within the address hierarchy without any additional grouping.

For details on each method, refer to a relevant documentation page: