Panasonic options...

1st Choice: WV-CW484S Dome
2nd Choice: WV-CF294 Dome

Its going to be hard to capture a plate without a license plate specific camera. I would say your chances are in the 6% range. You have too many things against you, including the DVR.

I was looking at the Samsung SHC-740 WDR as a possible replacement. What do folks thing of this camera, possibly set it up on a lower-end Geovision card. Focus it tightly on the driveway as sort of a dedicated cam?

I sucessfully use a bullet camera for daytime license plate use!
mod. TC25 w/ 25mm lens rated 400tvl .5 lux.
Good luck.

how about a phone cam aimed through binoculars for license plate capture
model xz1 specs 432.6 tvl with Sony chip

:P :P :P :P

your problem would be solved by a Number plate CAM for sure.[REGx etc]

The pictures you posted are high in gamma and need to be reduced a bit.
-contrast and brightness up too high -might be set for better night use?
the resolution of 712x480 pixel depth 16million is great.
>the plate data is only 29x11 pixels -not much! -you need optics

You cant read the Number plates or get any fine details because your images are being degraded by high compression -mpeg etc

You can solve this by using the whole image not 20% like you have.
I would aim a No plate cam\color overview at the choke point at the start of the court then you will get the cars in the same position each time and a nice full frame. -use a 10-50mm lens or so to get it right.

you still need a wide angle overveiw there also.

my 2c

I can't believe the comments here....

The #1 reason why you can't get a plate is BAD ANGLE.

See if any of these dealers will issue a 100% refund on these mega expensive "LPR" cameras with a FOV like that. IT WILL NOT WORK.


You need to trap the vehicles and focus in on that area.

The camera that gets plates will be basically worthless for anything else.


EDIT:

Also your DVR has to suck, 1fps and .9fps??? For good plate identification you need to be able to burst some framerate.

Example of a b&w decent res camera (vantage dsp mono), Fitted with a manual iris 25mm lens,test shot through a upstairs window viewing across a road, so a fair distance away. Plate is readable, but if was parked at the rear of the shot, it would no longer be readable, unless I used a bigger zoom, or higher quality cam. (dvr used visimetrics fastar)

plate partially blocked for privacy reasons.

The exact answer is not enough ?

do-it-yourself LPR is not easy to attain, especially if your depending on it for night use. the equipment/technology used needs to be correct before you even try to figure out the "target" area.

I've been down both roads.built one that worked ok, purchased one that works. I prefer to use the one that works but will build one that is ok. I allow my clients to make the decision, which is always financial decison.

- placement of the camera, camera angle, and target area, are all critical in improving license plate video collection. I've learned that you need to get "behing and slightly above the targeted area. this allows for the varying license plate mounting points on varying vehicle. and when the target drives away from the LPR camera the picture continues to capture more than just a plate. Any angle to the target will create more "speed" in capturing the plate.........that equals additional fps to ensure plate is inframe. less angle equals less speed and therefore reduces the failure factor.

- gates and gated communities all have pullover ares for vehicles, and sometime the drivers pull over to the gate while entering to talk to the guard. all this can cause the target area to be huge. I don't try to capture that large of an area, I move the camera back to the entrance and point it at the back of incoming traffic. this way I get behind the target and will always get the target. even if they enter on the wrong side the targe will appear in the camera. maybe a bit large than perfect but I will get it.


I installed 2 LPR's a few weeks ago and am reinstalling them in the proper location this Thursday. Had to wait for trenching to get done.......I post some LPR captured right after I installed and it worked, but after I relocate them the actual overall reliability is going to be much better.

Semper.........

^^^^ This one is the only example that I see that truely needs an LPR cam to work right. The others might make it nice but could have been done without the extreme cctv boated costs.

[quote:1f4234fa72="CollinR"]
^^^^ This one is the only example that I see that truely needs an LPR cam to work right. The others might make it nice but could have been done without the extreme cctv boated costs.

I have had a REG camera up for about 6 months now. At first I was impressed, but the more I look at the video from it, the more I notice it misses a lot of plates. Could need to be moved closer to the road, but the whole reason I got it was because it was supposed to be able to read plates from the distance I mounted it at (90ft.)

I'd say it's hit or miss.

Extreme Reps always told me not to mount more than 80ft out...

The guy I talked to said with the Lens I ordered, I'd be good up to 100ft. no problem.

I've also noticed that if the plate is either old or dirty, it is completely unreadable as well.

well you can see the distance ours is mounted .. its right there.
Standard box cameras worked ok for the day, more miss than hit, but worked, but nightime they saw nothing.

PS. most plates here are dirty ;)

relocated the LPR's today into the proper locations...............they are working very well.......better angle, camera location is dark, and IR kicks in without any problem. will post pics tomorrow of tonight.

tried to post it but I get a "check ftp settings" error..........I did not change anything on my PC so??????????? any hints?

I have the same problem :(

Tried to upload pic today. Got the same error message also.

I have a home-made LPR setup that captures about 90% of plates 24x7. IT has an IR illuminator and IR filter so it doesn't get blinded by headlights. The illimnator lights the plate up really nicely dusk to dawn.

I also aimed the camera at the thinnest section of my driveway so I know where the car will be, so I can zoon into the width of the car.

All of the plates that I have missed fall into the following categories:

- Car has no front plates, drives in forward, backs out. Our mail carrier does this, so does the electric meter reader.

- Vehicle with license plate mounted to extreme left or right. UPS trucks are bad for this. The dump truck that brought my driveway gravel was the same - plate was mounted to the extreme left, behind the wheel of a vehicle that was wider than a car.

- Smoked licence plate covers


The setup work fine for me right now, just a residential setup. Not worth me freaking out and spending anouther coulpe hundred bucks every time I miss a plate. Did that for a while and wasted a lot of time. My two biggest issues were getting the car in a preduictable spot for a close zoom, and reading plates in low light / blinded by headlights. once I fixed those two issues my plate reading success jumped out to 90%, but there will always be exceptions.

Scruit, I am trying to duplicate the suggested setup, but can't find IR filters or filter material anywhere. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Got mine from ebay. My lens is threaded for 52mm, so I did a search for "52mm 850nm"

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=52mm+850nm&category0=

I tried the 80ft route and got almost 100% capture.

I got a different lense, set at 20 ft ,because it has a slightly wide FOV.

Capture rate 99%.

Only failures in capture are due to old or dirty plates, as the Reg series
are highly dependant on the IR reflectively of plates for night time capture..

Also some people use the plastic plate covers, which also deflect IR.

There are so many things to consider when doing licence plate recognition that it is often left well alone...here are some things that I have learned with it.

1/ Your camera will need to adjust shutter speeds on the fly and keep in mind that when doing this your light level exposure will change accordingly, also to avoid motion blur you need to be careful, if your shutter speed is too low then motion blur will occur on fast moving objects, and if set too high then you will need much more light, so having a camera that can adjust on the fly is imperitive.
The best cameras can adjust shutter speed according to light level...IE it sets the best speed based on available light and when that light deteriorates then it will adjust the shutter in increments until it finds a balance. You will need at least 1/500 shutter speed to read the plate on a fast moving vehicle.

2/ The license plate characters must take up a minimum of at least 5% of the monitor height for display identification and for digital recording the plate must be a minimum of 30 pixels in height before you add compression.

3/ Recording resolution of your DVR will matter, because this can be the difference between being able to read the plate or not.

4/ Compression really counts, some compressions take objects of the same contour and texture and compress those pixels most, flat objects can often be overly compressed unless the contrast between character and plate can be amplified or inverted.

5/ You need a camera that can handle the bloom effect and vertical smear associated with headlights of vehicles

6/ Your going to need to set a peak level for white, so that it does not affect the range of your camera, IE a wide dynamic range camera with programmable mask will help.

7/ Zooming in from distance affects the Field of View, so getting closer really can help.

8/ Do not use much gain at night time, gain will amplify the brightness of the headlights, you will find that the best result will occur when you actually set the camera so low in gain and peak that the picture is almost black until a car goes past, the MOST common mistake is to park a car with headlights on and use that scene to get the setting right for a camera, you will inveriably try to allow for too much lighting to ID more than the plate, the lights from the car will definately light up enough for the plate to be seen so it is best to set all your settings to low.

9/ Full TV Frame recordings will not have an interlacing effect and therefore a good de-interlace must be used for fast objects if your DVR can not record a full frame.

10/ Remember that light reflects and that angle is critical, remember also that asphalt has little to no, scene reflectance.

Here's an example image from my home-built setup:


This is using a $100 hi-res B&W camera, 50mm zoom lens, 850nm IR filter and a matching 850nm illuminator. The car is about 80' away from the camera when it's being captured.

I'm still playing with the design - off and on for about 4 years - I have a auto-iris 50mm zoom lens on order and I'm hoping that will improve the night time recognition. I can capture plates at night, but when everything is dark the compression creates a bunch of colorful artifacts on the screen.

I would advise purchasing a true LPR before hacking together a homebrew like mine. It's only just reached 90% capture rate in the last year or so and I usually spens a couple hours a month adjusting it in response to missed plates.

This car approached my house and left a flyer. I was in the back garden and never heard them.

where's the night picture though .. or is that at night?

Anyway, as you can see it can be done without an LPR specific camera, but for someone making a living out of it, its really not worth the extra time, when there are so many other things they should also be doing.

I'll get a picture tonight.


I have older pictures, but what I did recently was move the aim point of the camera about 10' closer to the house, making everything appear bigger on the screen. The illuminator only lights up the license plate - but it lights it up very bright so reading it is very easy.

EDIT: Wait, I found one of my test images from the most recent adjustment...



This is staring directly into the hi-beams also - and the plate is still very clear.

Cool man.. she looks good ;)

Though like you said .. you spent alot of time on it .. most installers cant charge the client enough to keep going back and forth to the clients location over and over ... man after all that labour and gas, they may as well just get the LPR one time .. ;)

Agreed. If I had known how much time I'd be putting into tuning this camera I'd have gone with a true LPR from the start, or simply not tried for LPR functionality. :?

[quote:b8e8093d63="Scruit"]

Agreed. If I had known how much time I'd be putting into tuning this camera I'd have gone with a true LPR from the start, or simply not tried for LPR functionality. :?

Nah - I need a little RC car on autopilot that will chase him down the street.


I joked with a friend of mine a while back; "What if your home security system had a remote controlled plane that was launched when the alarm goes off, then flies around following anyone who leaves your house."

We laughed about that, right up until I saw the Isreali, British and US police are all running pilot programs (no pun intended) of autonomous helicopter drones that will launch themseves and hover at a couple throusand feet while an operator operates a PTZ to watch events from above - riots, disasters, missing persons etc.

Missed my chance - should have developed it myself. :roll:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6676809.stm

the way consumer electronics go, and false alarms .. we'd probably have alot of planes dropping out of the sky .. :D

Especially when you buy cheap OEM drones from eBay. :shock:

Have You tried to do it with Megapixel IP cameras?

I can send You pictures over day and night.

I'd need an NVR for that, right? at the moment my setup is all analog/RG6/BNC but starting now I'm going to install new cameras with CAT5/baluns so that I can upgrage to an NVR in the future. I saw a really nive DVR/NVR device the toher day - can take analog or IP cameras - and I'm sure as IP prices drop I could get much better quality from that.

The other advantage of running cat5 is I can send the power downt he same wire and not rely on local power - meaning I can run the cameras off the same big UPS as the DVR. And I also have 2 or 4 wires left for running a motion sensor near the camera, or possiblly for remote-triggering a ligth near the camera. Using a true motion sensor would be more reliable than visual motion detection (that's always being triggered by rain/snow/insects etc) for the close detail cameras over the doors.

Yes, You need a NVR or a Hybrid solution. I know, that NetAvis, an Austrian/Hungarian company has all things You need. They can do Hybrid (analog via GrabberCard) and/or pure IP solutions. From IP in CIF format up to 5MP. Every channel can be set up for licence plate recognition. The LPR is an option. If You need contacts, let me know!

Regarding triggering:
Most of the cameras themselve have a TriggerInput, where You can directly connect an IR PIR sensor; but with a LPR the better solution was to connect that input to a Inductive Loop in the road. Much better solution, almost False-Alarm-Free.
If You want to have a really good LPR You need to work with IR. I can send You pictures with/without IR, made with a Megapixelcamera, judge Yourself! IR is not so expensive!

Working with Software-MotionDetection is really not a very good solution, but working with a Hardware-MationDetection is ok, but very hard to adjust. You have to come to the installation site several times to eleminate all false-alarm factors. I had once a look at that at an Airport installation - lot of money, but...

You could do it with a LaserScanner from the company SICK. 1 Dimension-scanning, triggering with two areas (logic combinations) - together with LPR... but again, pricing...

Ivan

You should post pics for all of us to see!
There is a section for posting videos and pictures...or do it here. Also tell us what cams/lenses/software/etc... The more info the better.

Here are two pictures, one with IR and one without, both done with the IQeye752, a D/N 2 Megapixel camera from IQinvision. It could be a 1 Megapixel, not problem at all.
Its a Electronic Tollroad, where cars just driving through. The speed: between 30-60kmh (19-37mph).
The shutterspeed was 1/200, and the gainstyle like Average. The Exposurewindows was set to the whole picture, Gainspeed to medium. The lens was an IR corrected one from Tamron. The NVR was triggered by the inductive loop, but anyway, the car with its Licenceplate can be seen from at least 20m, no really triggering necessary.

The picture without IR was not OK for LPR, not enough contrast on the Licence Plate.

Awesome! thanks for the pics. I love seeing pics and videos from "in the field" and not some manufacturers website where everything looks pristine.

No problem! I have a lot of pictures, real installations, so when I see a related topic, I will jump in and post them!

Hey guys thanks for all the great information! This is one of those threads I'll have to re-read many times. I've already improved the LP readability considerably by changing the zoom and adjusting the level down.

On a similar note, I was looking up close at one of the many toll booths they are building here in Texas. They pretty much have it set up to photograph every single plate. They appear to be using strictly still digital images with a flash (even in the day time). It looks like fireworks with many vehicles blasting through the toll-tag lanes (where you don't have to stop).

Haven't seen much mention here of digital still for LPR.

A digital still, especially from a megapixel IP camera, would be an excellent way of capturing the plate - it should even allow for the capture of a plate in the wide turn-around spot from the original picture - assuming all other things are correct such as lighting and the plate not being intentionally obscured. A regular analog camera is not going to reliably read a US license plate (after the image is compressed
and the decompressed for viewing) unless the car takes up almost all the frame. You can't just point the camera at the car, look at a live image and expect that same quality on playback. Whenever I set up a camera, especially my license plate camera, I always check the playback quality.

Megapixel IP cameras are in the $1k range to start with, and unless you have terabytes of hard drive space you can't run a megapixel image as a realtime video. You still have the other issues like lighting / dazzled by headlights etc.

I have a driveway alarm that signals a computer attached to my CCTV system to email me a picture of any car that enters my driveway. If I had a megapixel IP camera then I'd have it take a picture with that instead, but only when triggered by the driveway alarm. I'd still have a regular camera showing the driveway overall and what is happening.


I did try taking a picture of a car in my driveway using an old 2.1 megapixel digital camera (not CCTV camera, just consumer handheld) that produces a 1600x???? image - very nice. Of course my 8MP camera can take a picture of a car from 50' and I can zoom in to the image an read the make/model from the emblems on the back of it. 8)

For the big turnaround area in your first post I'd try to aim the camera at the tightest bottleneck (the road before the turnaround?) and use a zoom len and a VERY good hi-res camera. If you have the $$$, that big area screams out for a megapixel camera.

Of course, you could have what happened to me recently - some guy came into my driveway to take a close look at the car parked near my house - and his license plate was covered with a piece of paper... :shock:

Here is a few shots from a late 2002 project.

Inclueded a link to a video clip as well, it is in Mpeg1 so should be easy to just copy and paste into Windows Media Player.

Video:
www.dvr.no/published/carplatempeg1.mpg

Picture 1
Taken from a photo camera of the GUI, you can read the number here too.



Picture 2
Taken from a photo camera of the outside cameras, not the cameras we usually use, but they wanted some cameras matching the 200 000,- USD roof.



This has been working good for 5 years soon and it is good quality 24 hours a day. It have good help from the outdoor lights!


Angle, camera, lights, and how big is the plates on the recorded files and what compression and how much compression!


JD

What is the resolution of the camera that is looking at the white van?


EDIT: That is some NICE video! What is the camera and DVR you used??

We dont use this camera as we have better but this was choosen here becasue of size and color.

Camera:
Imagesensor 8.5mm (1/3") CCD
Signalsystem PAL
Sync hor. 15,625Hz, vert. 50Hz
Pixels hor. 500, vert. 582
TVL 480
Lens 1:2.0/3,6mm/6mm/8mm/12mm
Min 0.05 lux
Signal/noise level > 50dB
Video 1Vpp/75Ω
Temp. -10 °C til +50 °C
Power 230V˜/50Hz/10VA
Size Ø 32mm x 130mm
Weight 2,2Kg with PSU and 30m cable
Other IP68, AGC, BLC

The DVR is a PC based using hardware compression cards, we dont use these cards anymore (Recording: Mpeg1 CIF @ 25FPS every channel up to 16) we have better now (Recording: H.264 2CIF/4CIF @ 25/12FPS every channel up to 64). But software pretty much the same, can use it on many different HW cards. The software is our own.

It does the job quite well.


JD

just a side note, there are license plate covers available on the market today that will disrupt most cctv images. these covers reflect light at odd angles, visually to the naked eye they just look like a tinted cover, but CCTV is all but useless.

Those plate covers can be defeated. Easy to do. If you buy one anticipating running a red light in the U.S. and slipping past the red light run cameras, forget about it. Total waste of money.

The spray on stuff from the local "Spy Store" is worthless also. These may work on low lit areas with the cheapest cameras used for surveillance, but then again a cheap camera cannot pull in a number.

For viewing car licence plate, there is the special box camera, you should choose this.

Hi,

anyone could tell me if this camera will work on LPR at night with decent street lights.
distance is about 50 feet, slight angle. speed of car under 15 mph

Item Code: ISC-P540X
Description: HQ1 540 TVL Hi-Res Infrared Varifocal
1/3" Sony SuperHAD HQ1 Color CCD
540 Line
Weatherproof
Tamperproof
Varifocal 4 - 9 mm
48 LED
Spot Monitor Output

spec sheet is here:
cctvdealers . com/customer/intsys/PDF/ISC-P540X.pdf

excerpt:

GENERAL PHYSICAL
Sensor Type 1/3-inch Sony Super HADTM HQ1 CCD
Effective Pixels 768 (H) x 494 (V)
Scanning System 2:1 Interlace
Scan Frequency 15.734kHz (H), 59.94Hz (V)
Horizontal Resolution 540 TV Line
Iris Control Adjustable
CCD Shutter Speed 1/60 - 1/100,000 second
Auto Iris DC
Minimum Illumination 0 lux:LED On
S/N Ratio >48dB
Automatic Gain Control On/Off switchable
Electronic Shutter Control On/Off switchable
Backlight Compensation On/Off switchable
Flickerless Mode On/Off switchable
White Balance Auto
Sync Type Internal
External Lens Adjustment Yes
Signal Processing Digital Signal Processing (DSP)
Gamma Correction 0.45
Video Output 1.0Vp-p(Sync, Negative), 75 ohms

Nope, it probably won't work and here is why:

Regardless of the resolution of the camera, the effective resolution of your captured image will be the result of your recorder and the compression applied to the image.

Let's start with a standard 320 X 240 captured image. In order to get even minimal license plate recognition you are going to need around 60 pixels wide covering the plate. With a captured resolution of 320 wide this means that 320/60 = 5.3 which means that the license plate will need to fill at least 1/5th of the width of the picture.

A license plate is about a foot wide in the US so that means your maximum field-of-view needs to be about 5-6 feet wide. At 50 feet your 1/3" camera has the ability to zoom (set to 9mm) to a width of 35 feet. So you are looking at too wide an area.

So next lets assume your recorder can record at 4CIF so we will use the maximum horizontal resolution which is 704 pixels.

704/60 = 11.73 and again since a plate is about a foot wide this means your maximum horizontal width is about 11-12 feet. Again, I say your camera can only zoom to 35 feet wide at that distance.

But you have other problems such as lighting. Your camera is not really a low light camera .. it says zero lux because they have included those nifty little IR led's that they claim will illuminate up to 100 feet. Well, first thing is that they won't. In the dark you will see movement and objects but not detail.

You did say that the area was well lit, but I will guess that it is overhead lighting and only a small percentage will be reflected towards your camera. Next is the real deal killer, and that is that your target (the car) will probably have it's headlights on at night. Those two little glaring blips of light will flood the scene with light, the electronic shutter will speed up and your plate will be very very dark.

Electronic shutters are a cheap mans auto-iris which provides a more limited dynamic light range than you would with an auto-iris.

Next problem, your target is moving, and assuming we solve the headlight problem we will now be dealing with low light levels.. The electronic shutter will slow down so the CCD can capture enough light for an image. The camera is interlaced so it will capture one frame when the car is at one spot and capture the next frame a few feet further down the road. This will make the picture look like it's made up of two pictures that don't exactly match up .. becuase that is exactly what it is. I should point out that there is software you can use to clean this up after the fact .. but hey ..

So what do you do?

Can you add more zoom to reduce the field of view? Yes, but the more you zoom the less light you can capture. To improve the image to where you need you would need this:

• 10 foot max field of view at that distance.
• Higher light levels
• Light directed directly onto the plate so that it will reflect back to your camera.
• A slower moving car
• and finally a recorder that could capture the required resolution

We also did not touch on compression. Compression will destroy the quality of your image so you would need to back it way way off and of course this will increase your file size. So then you might decrease your frame rate to compensate, but you can't do that because you have a moving target and you need as many images as you can get in the hopes that you will capture one at the correct lighting and angle.

Is all lost? lol Perhaps, but the real deal is that people all want to capture license plates and it really is more of an engineering challenge than most people anticipate.

One very real option you have today are the newer megapixel cameras. Consider that the camera you specified at 4CIF recording would be the equivalent of 400k pixels .. less than half a megapixel.

Now contrast that to one of the newer 5 megapixel IP cameras. That is about 10 times the resolution which would be fully capable of the resolution you need at that distance.

But, you need a recorder that will record the entire 5 megapixels per image. Check out 3xlogic .. of course .. lol



You still need to deal with the fact that your car is moving and that you have light issues and more specifically headlight issues. With more light your car can move faster, with less light your car will need to be going slower.

You can always do a little trial and error and see what your real issues are.

Dave

Dave,

awesome answer, thanks that helped a lot to get the picture.

[quote="dnieweg"]Nope, it probably won't work and here is why:

Regardless of the resolution of the camera, the effective resolution of your captured image will be the result of your recorder and the compression applied to the image.

Here is how I would make a camera to capture number plates.

Start with a fairly low cost monochrome camera that allows you to set fixed shutter speeds. Set the speed so you get sharp images of fast moving plates. Leave it at this speed. Don't use electronic iris, this ranges from 1/50 - 1/100,000s and you will get blurred images on the slow shutter speeds.

Fit an IR pass filter (Note - this passes IR and is not the IR CUT filter as used on colour and day/night cameras). With this in place the camera will only see IR light. The camera won't be bothered by headlights as it won't see them. This will make the camera useless for everything but seeing number plates.

Shine IR at your on coming cars. The IR will reflect off the plate and you will see it. You won't see the car, its headlights or the road just the plate.

CameraGimp,

That a great idea. So your IR pass filter is actually a cut filter for visible light? Have you tried this? Can you provide a link for this type of filter? I can think of several situations in which this could prove useful.

Thanks!

Dave

Yes, an IR pass stops everything below a wavelength but allows those above. I'm fairly sure this is how some anpr cameras operate. You remove all the useless parts of the image so the computer has less trouble finding the plate and you control the light level not the sun.

Filters are available via the net or maybe try the glass fitted over old ir lamps, the ones that use filament bulbs. They stop visible light and pass ir.w

It seems that ANPR (Plate Recognition) is much more in demand in the UK than it is here in the US and I wonder why that is. I've talked to many station owners, parking lot's and even airports and while they appear to see the value, in the end they don't pursue it.

Anyone have thoughts or comments on this? Anyone in the US have a client using ANPR successfully to help manage their business?

Thanks