Vector Orientation

Vectors are indoor only devices, so when counting people into shops, offices and other buildings directly from the outside, ensure the Vector is installed on the inside of the building.

Vectors are not waterproof, but performance may also be adversely affected by direct sunlight.
Once you have found a suitable location inside the building, it is strongly recommended to install Vectors pointing into the building and away from the door.

On the Vectors base plate is a direction arrow to assist with this, and it will mean that the Vectors camera lens and time of flight lens will be furthest from the door once it is installed on the base plate:

The arrow should point into the area of interest.
The reasons for doing this are: more accurate height detection, more accurate staff detection and tracking, and, no issues with strong sunlight. 
For those wanting to know the reasons why Vectors work better in this orientation, it is because of the layout of the time of flight sensor and the time of flight IR array. Because they are at different ends of the Vector, any sunlight that may be partially illuminating the area within the doorway, will not be reflected up into the Vectors time of flight sensor when orientated correctly.

For external doorways, when installed in the recommended orientation, and you configure the device, you will see the doorway at the bottom of the screen view: 

Additionally, orientating the Vector in this way, will mean - by default - that Line 1 will count IN through the door and Line 2 will count OUT.
Knowing what the data coming out of a Vector relates to is very important, so standardising on Line 1 counting IN and Line 2 counting OUT is strongly recommended.
See here for more details of configuration.

 

Device Orientation at Doors Within a Building

It is not uncommon to want to know the utilization of the various areas inside a building, as well as the whole floor itself, so mounting devices at many doors will be required. 

When counting within a building, sunlight is not an issue at all, but the orientation of the Vector is still important for other reasons - specifically for ease of setup and correct IN/OUT allocation of data -  and consequently, there are a number of recommendations that should be followed:

Recommendation 1: When counting on and off a floor, the Vector should be orientated so that it points on to the floor.
Recommendation 2: When counting in and out of a meeting room, restroom, canteen, or other area of interest, the Vector should be orientated so that it points in to the area you want to count in and out of.
It should be noted that when installing a Vector to count within a building, it can be positioned at either side of the doorway, but the above recommendations still apply, its just that the doorway may be seen at the top or bottom of the view when it comes to setting up, but importantly line 1 will count IN to the area of interest - in to the meeting room, on to the floor etc. and line 2 will count OUT.

When you have the option to install on either side of the door, bear in mind the following issues:

Mounting Height - if one side of the door is very low, it may be better to install on the other side where the field of view is higher and therefore the amount of available field of view will be greater. This will simplify configuration later.

Available field of view - related to the mounting height, you need to be sure that the field of view fully covers the doorway so as to not allow people to go through the door without being counted. For example, where a door at the end of a corridor opens into a completely open area, the field of view only needs to be wide enough to cover the width of the corridor on one side of the door, but the whole area around the door on the other side of it. Note that it doesn't matter if the field of view will see the corridor walls.

Type of door - a swing type door, can swing into the field of view. When configuring the Vector the counting lines must be positioned around that swing so that they do not produce additional unwanted counts. Clearly installing on the other side of a swing door will negate that requirement and make configuration easier later. When in stalling at automatic doors it is very important to install the correct distance back from the door as some modern door sensors work in a similar way to the Vectors time of flight sensor and so can interfere with each other.

Ease of Installation - lastly how easy it is to install a Vector as well as run the cabling to a location can be a consideration. For example, the requirement to run cables through firewalls within buildings may preclude installing on one side of a door. It should be noted that ease of installation should not take precedence over the above factors - accuracy of the Vector should always be front of mind.

 

In this example of a typical office layout, you arrive onto the floor via a central staircase or via one of two elevators. There are also a number of different sized meeting rooms and some restrooms:

To count IN and OUT of the main elevator, there is only only location possible:

But it is important to remember that we want to count ON and OFF the floor, so the recommendation is to orientate the Vector so it is pointing ON to the floor, and away from the elevator. 

With the stairs location this is effectively a lobby with two doors, which also includes a second elevator. Again orientating the Vectors to point on to the floor is recommended:

 

When it comes to the meeting areas, and other rooms, the Vector could be installed on either side of the door, but the Vector should be orientated to point into the area:

In all the above cases, each floor, meeting room, restroom, canteen, or other significant area of the building are commonly referred to as zones. You are essentially moving from one zone to another as you move around the building - between floors, in and out of the various rooms, etc.

By following the above orientation recommendations (and leaving the default count line directions), the hierarchy of the data will be similar to the below:

One or more Vectors counting at the doors into the building. 
One or more Vectors on each floor counting on and off each floor 
Vectors at strategic meeting rooms counting in and out of the room on that floor.