ANPR & Facial Recognition Question

J

John Roberts

n3wb
Jan 1, 2025
9
6
Australia
Hiho!

I am very new to the world of CCTV and I am taking a deep dive in the world of Dahua cameras. I have already learnt quite a bit thanks to the users in this forum. Wildcat, your review videos have been a bloody godsend in helping me understand the many different models pros & cons.

A quick question for the brain trust: I am looking at setting up a couple of these cameras on my corner residential home for the purpose of ANPR & face recognition:

EmpireTech IPC-B74IR-Z4-AI 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP IR Bullet Network Camera Motorized 8mm–32mm Vari-Focal Lens, Face Recognition, ANPR​

Full disclosure: I am a LEO and have the luxury of accessing scumbag images and wanted vehicle number plates in my area. Am I able to feed that information into these cameras and have it flag as a notification if viewed by my cameras?
 
Welcome!

Yes you can upload pictures of people and plates of concern into they camera, but it would probably be better managed with an NVR.


READING PLATES

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH:

1675078711764.png



See the LPR subforum for more details.


FACE DETECTION

Keep in mind that most of us have found that facial identification is more gimmicky and novelty than anything else. If you have to put in 5 or 10 or 15 or 35 pictures or more of yourself in the system for it to recognize it is you...then you shouldn't expect much.... My success rate was under 5% so I moved on to other things LOL. YMMV

It can work in certain situations like a business that requires everyone to stop in front of the camera and the camera is at head height. Outside of that, the percentage of being accurate is probably not going to be super high. You will get a lot of false "confirmations" doing a search.

Someone here posted once how horrible it was inside his house identifying his neighbors and others as him. Another guy his kids and wife were being tagged as him inside the house.

Unless you spend the big bucks that casinos and airports have LOL.

Heck even in ideal situations like a business with the camera at ideal height and optimal lighting it fails....

What do you think of Dahua's "Uyghur Warnings"?​

 
Completely understand that. Thank you. I will probably save myself a lot of time and money not worrying about the facial recognition side of things then.

My plan so far would be to utilise a mixture of OBSERVE cameras to capture the perimeter of my property (with an ANPR camera to view the corner intersection), and use dedicated cameras for IDENTIFY purposes at all my main entrances into the property (I have 3).

I am really liking the 180 views afforded from the dual lense cameras for the boundaries.
 
The 180 cams are great OVERVIEW if you have enough light or are willing to use the built-in white LEDs. These cameras do not see infrared, so make sure you are aware of that.
 
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I have the camera you're asking about, the 7442H-Z4-X. My first question would be how close you are to the sidewalk and street when positioning the cameras? Also, how much light do you have around your house, street, sidewalk, etc... ?

Here are two examples of a face capture and license plate capture. The face capture is approximately 50 feet (15 meters) from the camera while the license plate capture is approximately 90 feet (27 meters).
 

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Thanks, Timokreon. Some good shots there.

The camera will be positioned approximately 6 metres from the road and pointing towards the main intersection. It is a very dark area with only a single street light at the intersection itself. I do, however, have solar sensor lights positioned close to where this camera would be mounted.

A crude drawing as an example.
 

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40 meters will be a stretch for that camera.

@Timokreon is an outlier able to get plates in color. He is only like 3 or 4 here that have enough light to run in color.

The streetlight in your case would create a backlit situation so you probably will not be able to run in color.

Unless those solar lights put out the lumen, they probably won't help either. We have to run faster shutters and the faster the shutter, the more light that is needed, which is why most of us here have all black images like I posted above.
 
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^^^^
This. 1 in 1000
 
I can live without colour for this purpose. I would be pointing the camera towards that intersection to capture any vehicles that may turn towards the camera (local hoons use this area as a drag strip past my home).

If i set up the 180 camera on this side as overview to capture colour, would the LED lights pumping out help or hinder the ANPR camera?

At the end of the day though, LPR is more of a 'nice to have' idea anyway. I won't lose too much sleep over it if it's not going to work.
 
As a frame of reference, I have no streetlights.

I am using a 3,800 lumen 10 degree focused spotlight that is triggered for a split second by the camera to capture a plate in color and this is all I get. To the eye it looks like a tug boat spotlight LOL, but for the fast shutters we have to run to capture the plate, it needs a ton of light.

1735776316113.png

Now the example above from @Timokreon is also a perfect case scenario where the cars are going slower, so you can slow the shutter speed down a bit, so you might be able to do the same, but again at 40 meters that would be tough with that camera.
 
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wittaj said:
40 meters will be a stretch for that camera.

@Timokreon is an outlier able to get plates in color. He is only like 3 or 4 here that have enough light to run in color.

The streetlight in your case would create a backlit situation so you probably will not be able to run in color.

Unless those solar lights put out the lumen, they probably won't help either. We have to run faster shutters and the faster the shutter, the more light that is needed, which is why most of us here have all black images like I posted above.
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That is very true. I happen to have a street light right at the T-intersection, which hopefully the city is going to install a brighter light there. Which will make it even easier to grab plates and faces.

Now, going to other directions, I do have b&w from the IPC-B52IR-Z12E-S2. This is picking up plates from around 120 feet (36.5 meters), which would be closer to what you would be going for. It's a 5-60mm camera lens.
Also, this camera could also pick up face captures as a bonus during the day, though at night it's just b&w.
 

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wittaj said:
As a frame of reference, I have no streetlights.

I am using a 3,800 lumen 10 degree focused spotlight that is triggered for a split second by the camera to capture a plate in color and this is all I get. To the eye it looks like a tug boat spotlight LOL, but for the fast shutters we have to run to capture the plate, it needs a ton of light.

View attachment 211006

Now the example above from @Timokreon is also a perfect case scenario where the cars are going slower, so you can slow the shutter speed down a bit, so you might be able to do the same, but again at 40 meters that would be tough with that camera.
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I like that, using a spotlight. Neat idea.


I also have a dedicated ANPR, the older 437 model, though they do have a newer 431 model. All this does is plate captures 24/7. Color during the day, b&w at night. Though I am THIS close to getting color 24/7... if the city installs the new and brighter light bulb on my street lamp. lol..
 

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Timokreon said:
I like that, using a spotlight. Neat idea.


I also have a dedicated ANPR, the older 437 model, though they do have a newer 431 model. All this does is plate captures 24/7. Color during the day, b&w at night. Though I am THIS close to getting color 24/7... if the city installs the new and brighter light bulb on my street lamp. lol.
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That is essentially what I would like to achieve. Again, I'm not too worried about colour during the night as long as it will capture those plate numbers. I'll take a look over that camera as well.

Thank you for your knowledge and experience fellas.
 
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John Roberts said:
Timokreon: Similar to this one mate?

empiretech01.com

EmpireTech LPR413-Z3 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP Starlight+ 8mm–32mm Vari-Focal Du

4MP 1/1.8"CMOS | License Plate Recognition Distance Distance up to 20 m (65.62 ft) | Capture and Recognize License Plates from Vehicles Traveling up to 120 kph (75 mph) | Starlight+ Technology | Dual Illuminators | Supports Intrusion and Loitering Detection | Built-in Mic and Speaker | Active...
empiretech01.com empiretech01.com
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That is the 8-32mm model. If you really need 40 meters this one MIGHT be able to capture plates that far. 431ANPR. But this one is much more expensive, and I don't think it can capture 40m plates.
If I were you, I'd purchase the 5241 and capture plates with that. Bonus, during the day you might get face detection as well. This one can get 40 meters plate captures.

Plus, it's a LOT cheaper. That will also give you an idea what you might need for other cameras as well. This one 54ir would be a good one to see if the 7 series cameras would be able to capture what you want, while spending half the cost of the 7 series. However, it also depends on what you're using for a NVR, blue iris. The more expensive 7 series cameras will be able to capture face, plates, video metadata, on the camera itself, rather than needing to use the AI on the NVR/blue iris.

So a lot depends on the NVR/blue iris, and how much you really want to spend. lol..
 
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+1 on getting the Z12E and just manually read the plates at the distance you are trying.

I have the 413-Z3 and it is rated to 65 feet and in my testing it would be pushing it at 65 feet at night.

Now granted I think you all have big @$$ plates the size of the bumper LOL, so you might be able to stretch it a bit.

Also the 413-Z3 uses a more visible infrared, so it will be seen.
 
wittaj said:
+1 on getting the Z12E and just manually read the plates at the distance you are trying.

I have the 413-Z3 and it is rated to 65 feet and in my testing it would be pushing it at 65 feet at night.

Now granted I think you all have big @$$ plates the size of the bumper LOL, so you might be able to stretch it a bit.

Also the 413-Z3 uses a more visible infrared, so it will be seen.
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Just one addition. The 413 I linked has the 10-50mm lens. I'm thinking of purchasing that one, but it's quite a bit more expensive than the 8-32mm 413. Even though more expensive, I'm still VERY tempted in getting it. lol
 
Oh yeah the 50mm would certainly help.

You have so much light it would probably stay in color. It is a brighter image than my 5442-S3 when set up the same.
 
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