Dahua 4MP Varifocal Bullet (IPC-HFW5421E-Z)

[nayr]

Its rated to -40C, which is easy to convert since its -40F too.. Ive had all my cameras down to -20F w/no problems and a few are not even rated to that.

Im building alprd on a Pi2 right now, I'll let you know what kinda FPS it can do.. worst case can you put in a driveway sensor to trigger the Pi to grab a snapshot? It could be wired to the camera directly

 

[nayr]

alprd with substream 2 on mjpeg in same position as above i can get about 2 reads per second

INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 462.3 ms.
DEBUG - Writing plate XJB857 (-cam1-1484794312895) to queue.

without a plate in frame im seeing about 10FPS processing speed looking for one, this is at night so this number will go down in the daytime:

INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 110.028 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 106.887 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 111.162 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 109.635 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 105.57 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 113.732 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 113.217 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 106.244 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 106.295 ms.

this is very reasonable LPR reading performance out of a RPi2, now the trick is going to be positioning it so you can get all sorts of vehicles through that lil frame.. might have to up the resolution from 352x288 CIF

 

[hmjgriffon]

alprd with substream 2 on mjpeg in same position as above i can get about 2 reads per second

INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 462.3 ms.
DEBUG - Writing plate XJB857 (-cam1-1484794312895) to queue.

without a plate in frame im seeing about 10FPS processing speed looking for one, this is at night so this number will go down in the daytime:

INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 110.028 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 106.887 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 111.162 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 109.635 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 105.57 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 113.732 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 113.217 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 106.244 ms.
INFO - Camera 1 processed frame in: 106.295 ms.

this is very reasonable LPR reading performance out of a RPi2, now the trick is going to be positioning it so you can get all sorts of vehicles through that lil frame.. might have to up the resolution from 352x288 CIF

I love *nix of all kinds.

 

[nayr]

tested D1 and 720p, idle looking for plates (black image) D1 did 1FPS, and 720p Did about a Half a Frame a Second (ie, 1 every 2 seconds).. so for a Pi your gonna have to live with CIF I suspect.. so you'd want to mount it along the drive so everyone passes there ass through this frame, and knowing how high plates can varry from low cars to high trucks I'm not sure how well this will work unless you also have em coming up/down

 

[tangent]

tested D1 and 720p, idle looking for plates (black image) D1 did 1FPS, and 720p Did about a Half a Frame a Second (ie, 1 every 2 seconds).. so for a Pi your gonna have to live with CIF I suspect.. so you'd want to mount it along the drive so everyone passes there ass through this frame, and knowing how high plates can varry from low cars to high trucks I'm not sure how well this will work unless you also have em coming up/down

That's a lot better than the 7 seconds per frame I saw quoted somewhere else (a in a post from a few years ago).

 

[nayr]

could work for a remote offroad driveway if your not expecting any fast traffic; as long as you can get the plate within frame for a couple seconds it should grab a few captures for reading.. daytime wont get the whole vehicle but mebe you can trigger record to SD when a plate is detected and get a full 4MP video.

 

[tangent]

could work for a remote offroad driveway if your not expecting any fast traffic; as long as you can get the plate within frame for a couple seconds it should grab a few captures for reading.. daytime wont get the whole vehicle but mebe you can trigger record to SD when a plate is detected and get a full 4MP video.

It's on my project list just pretty far down the list unfortunately. Probably looking at the road not the driveway to grab a more useful selection of plates <15mph with a view directly aligned with the plates. On camera line cross detection then FTP a clip or snapshot would be the simplest. A probe would be tough, property lines and rocks (in and next to the road) working against me for the location I'd need to put it. A PE detector or two is viable though and would trigger on people and animals too. I'd tie it into a passive alarm system and minimalist automation to make sure you didn't forget to turn off/down the heat when you leave and disarm on authorized license plates; pump the alerts and alpr matches through a particle.io.

 

[hmjgriffon]

could work for a remote offroad driveway if your not expecting any fast traffic; as long as you can get the plate within frame for a couple seconds it should grab a few captures for reading.. daytime wont get the whole vehicle but mebe you can trigger record to SD when a plate is detected and get a full 4MP video.

Install large speedbump, problem solved.

 

[TVT73]

I think this one will live in my garage watching the cat door, so I can hookup a cheap motion sensor and have it just record when the cats are eating or coming/going.. right now im using a very old 2MP Dahua there and its noisy and very low quality image.. Last summer a cat got injured and we wanted to see when it happened but the video quality was far too poor to tell.

Indoors I think is where you'll find the best places for these Eco 4MP's, Garage bays will be ideal and the ability to wire up a motion sensor will be very nice.. but these could also make fine LPR cameras if you can get it within range.

I ordered a modern/undamaged colorado license plate off ebay for $5, I'll be doing alot of testing on this for LPR use since having the ability to adjust the focus along with legacy MJPEG streaming for OpenALPRd are required for LPR reading.. A starlight camera for LPR is pretty unessicary and the extra pixels will prove more useful for automatic number reading.

here's a daytime shot outside:
...

Your daytime pic looks like a overdriven WDR. The trees are looking partial negative, not that much i have seen with my hdw5231r-z, but thats what i meant for my weathercam.

 

[nayr]

in that pic there was lens flare from the sun, and WDR was enabled

 

[TVT73]

Yea i have seen it, and it was nearly the same light condition as i had. But for me, there where no lens flare visible in picture. And the sun was not in the picture. Its a fault of the wdr, my oppinion. BLC doesn´t have this problem. I will send a pic of sun in the picture in my weather cam topic.

 

[TVT73]

@nayr, could you please link your pictures as thumbnails, a 4mp picture embedded in a topic will dramatically slow down the website load. And i have a 100mbit DSL connection ... And its for mobile devices not so nice. Thx

 

[nayr]

@TVT73 done, sorry for the burden on your pathetic lil internet connection

I took down my 6mm Fixed 4MP Dahua Bullet today, and last night I managed to get the old 12mm lens off another 4MP Dahua Bullet, wasent easy but I have a 25mm lens coming monday.. My plan is to stake out the yard again next week and run a bunch of LPR tests in the back yard with these 4MP Cameras.. I'm going to gather captures at 10ft intervals using internal IR largely, run them through alprd and report back on confidence levels.. Im going to drag the confidence levels way down for those wanting to do manual/visual reading can really stretch the capabilities to the limits.

I'll gather up all the results and produce a 4MP License Plate shootout video that summarizes everything.. I'll do another video simply comparing ID quality between the varifocal and fixed focus Dahuas.

Gona take a lil bit to get all this done.. dont hold your breath.

 

[nayr]

assembled the test rig today, just finished staking out the yard.. gonna wait til I got the 25mm lens mod done til I start so I can grab images from both cameras at same time with same ambient lighting conditions.. basically trying to figure out at what distance the two cameras overlap and when you should start considering taking a camera apart and start chipping away at epoxy.



ground is kinda lumpy this time of year, might need to add my level to the rig.. going to want to pay attention to the B/8, G/C and 0/D combinations as there the ones that get hard to distinguish from any distance.. if/when those start becoming hard to separate we've gone beyond usefulness.

 

[n0xlf]

@nayr - Can you hit me up in a PM (can't send to ya)?

Thanks!

 

[nayr]

permission granted @n0xlf

glad I got another test plate, the brand new one was way over exposed when I thought settings were good.. the old one been sitting in the sun on my race car for a decade or so, should be a good variation.. trying to find the plates that came on my motorcycle to give you an idea of bike reading abilities too.

mebe i should get a couple europlates too

 

[Jmtyra]

Im building alprd on a Pi2 right now, I'll let you know what kinda FPS it can do.. worst case can you put in a driveway sensor to trigger the Pi to grab a snapshot? It could be wired to the camera directly

This is what I would be curious about...also wonder if a RPi 3 would yield a higher FPS (if it's multi-thread enabled)

 

[hmjgriffon]

Anyone ever think of building a mailbox with two lpr cams inside? At least my mailbox is only about a foot off the street, perfect location lol

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[nayr]

yes, many times heh.. its my only hope for the other direction..

but you know me; hella project.. mebe when I pour a new driveway out front.. gonna bury some conduit from garage to the mailbox.. then I'd have to build a mason one with a giant package repository and heavy duty lock, with dead space in each direction for the LPR cams heh.. oh wait, 3 directions.. estimated price: are you fucking insane?

 

[hmjgriffon]

yes, many times heh.. its my only hope for the other direction..

but you know me; hella project.. mebe when I pour a new driveway out front.. gonna bury some conduit from garage to the mailbox.. then I'd have to build a mason one with a giant package repository and heavy duty lock, with dead space in each direction for the LPR cams heh.. oh wait, 3 directions.. estimated price: are you fucking insane?

I like to say that I am not insane, a little eccentric maybe.