Using Joysticks in Nx Witness

Which joysticks are supported in Nx Witness?

The following joysticks are officially supported in Nx Witness on Windows OS:

• Axis T8311 (Nx Witness 3.0 and above)
• Hanwha Techwin SPC-2000 (Nx Witness 4.2.0.33306 and above)

Other USB joysticks may provide basic functionality but are not officially supported in Nx Witness and cannot be configured in Nx Desktop.

Note: When controlling a PTZ IP camera via analog joystick controls, expect latency from physical movement of the joystick to the resulting PTZ action of the camera. PTZ actions are only applied to items that are selected on the scene in Nx Desktop.

Initial Setup

Take the following steps to start using a joystick in Nx Desktop:

1. Close Nx Desktop.
2. Plug in the joystick to the computer that you will be using. Windows will automatically detect the device and install the necessary drivers.
3. Open Nx Desktop.
4. Open a PTZ camera and click on the PTZ icon with your mouse.
5. Use the joystick to pan, tilt, and zoom the camera.

Advanced Configuration

Officially supported joysticks can access additional configuration settings in Nx Desktop (Open Main Menu and click Joystick Settings). 

Joystick Settings contains two tabs: Basic Actions and With Modifier.

Basic Actions 

Adjust PTZ sensitivity and configure joystick buttons in this tab.

To adjust the sensitivity of PTZ controls, move the slider to the left to reduce sensitivity and move the slider to the right to increase sensitivity.

Each joystick button has a drop-down menu associated with it where you choose the button not to have an action or assign one of the following actions to the button:

• Focus Near
• Focus Far
• Autofocus
• Go to PTZ position (requires you to select the hotkey/PTZ position)
• Open Layout (requires you to select a specific layout)
• Set to Fullscreen
• Next Camera on Layout
• Previous Camera on Layout
• Modifier (requires additional configuration in the With Modifier tab)

All changes must be saved by clicking Apply or OK before exiting the settings dialog.

With Modifier

Select a secondary action for each joystick button in this tab. The secondary action will activate while the modifier button is held down. 

Refer to the picture above for the following example:

If you set button 11 as a modifier and open the With Modifier tab, you can configure button 1 to open a layout any time button 11 is held down. Button 1 will still retain its standard action of going to a PTZ position when button 11 is not held down.

Note: The With Modifier tab is disabled unless at least one of the joystick buttons is set as a modifier in the Basic Actions tab.

All changes must be saved by clicking Apply or OK before exiting the settings dialog.

Questions

If you have any questions related to this topic, or you want to share your experience with other community members or our team, please visit and engage in our support community or reach out to your local reseller.