nayr
IPCT Contributor
yep, Ive got a camera watching that camera, and another watching that.. and its just fucking cameras all the way down!
first car drove by, everything is looking excellent! plate is about 80 pixels high.
running it through OpenALPR with the defaults resizing to 720p, I get:
this camera outputs MJPEG 720p SubStream #2 at 20fps, going to try to pipe that right into OpenALPRD for a while and see how it goes.. while setting up line cross recording for h264 on my DVR.
I need to work on IR next for night time, I can actually read plates of fast moving cars manually @ 1/500 at night.. but only if they have there own good lighting and are driving away.. openalpr has no hope without illumination, but I knew that.
first car drove by, everything is looking excellent! plate is about 80 pixels high.
running it through OpenALPR with the defaults resizing to 720p, I get:
and it goes up to 90.9422 slightly when I bumped it to 1080p.. not big
this camera outputs MJPEG 720p SubStream #2 at 20fps, going to try to pipe that right into OpenALPRD for a while and see how it goes.. while setting up line cross recording for h264 on my DVR.
I need to work on IR next for night time, I can actually read plates of fast moving cars manually @ 1/500 at night.. but only if they have there own good lighting and are driving away.. openalpr has no hope without illumination, but I knew that.
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nice! you got any more zoom in that lens? also, 10fps is probably enuf to get one or more clear shots,
if alprd can't keep up (it'll drop frames itself as needed.)
as for IR, i think the 4500mw bullet i got might be a good fit. at 200ft, it may spread a bit further than you need,
but i bet it can throw that far, and perhaps you can mount it closer to the target than then the cam as it just
needs 12v, no network...
if alprd can't keep up (it'll drop frames itself as needed.)
as for IR, i think the 4500mw bullet i got might be a good fit. at 200ft, it may spread a bit further than you need,
but i bet it can throw that far, and perhaps you can mount it closer to the target than then the cam as it just
needs 12v, no network...
nayr
IPCT Contributor
yeah Ive got enough zoom to do just one lane of traffic heh.. its a 6-60mm and I'd guess I am about ~45-50mm right now, and its not full road width as it is.. ive moved it a bit to the right from that image as away traffic was leaving the frame and coming back.
yeah it wont need 20fps, but its alot better than the 2-5fps @ 720p that my HFW4300S puts out on the 2nd substream.. so it makes it very suitable for LPR use.. also seems to work fine giving me the main stream in h264 and the 2nd substream in mjpeg.. which my other cameras wont do, its all or nothing.. so thats also very good.
Ive got a few ways to progress from here to integrate OpenALPR, first I am going to just use the daemon to get me up and going quick and easy..
the bullet you have is high on my list, but I think i am going to try something like this first: http://www.amazon.com/Univivi-U06R-WideAngle-Lights-Illuminator/dp/B00M3O5ERK
just to see if I can do it a bit quicker and cheaper, for the price and power of your IR I am keen on trying the 940mm just so it remains discrete as it shines at cars.. I am pretty sure this lens will take it and I dont think i need that much power as I do the optics.. so win win?
the abf button on the back is auto back focus, open my tablet.. get the focus as good as I can then hit that buton and it fine tunes it.. very sweet.
yeah it wont need 20fps, but its alot better than the 2-5fps @ 720p that my HFW4300S puts out on the 2nd substream.. so it makes it very suitable for LPR use.. also seems to work fine giving me the main stream in h264 and the 2nd substream in mjpeg.. which my other cameras wont do, its all or nothing.. so thats also very good.
Ive got a few ways to progress from here to integrate OpenALPR, first I am going to just use the daemon to get me up and going quick and easy..
the bullet you have is high on my list, but I think i am going to try something like this first: http://www.amazon.com/Univivi-U06R-WideAngle-Lights-Illuminator/dp/B00M3O5ERK
just to see if I can do it a bit quicker and cheaper, for the price and power of your IR I am keen on trying the 940mm just so it remains discrete as it shines at cars.. I am pretty sure this lens will take it and I dont think i need that much power as I do the optics.. so win win?
the abf button on the back is auto back focus, open my tablet.. get the focus as good as I can then hit that buton and it fine tunes it.. very sweet.
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nayr
IPCT Contributor
this was a surprise, it recognized the new paper person's plate.. well didnt read it correctly, but it still knew there was a plate and took a pic.. so I guess if you cant get good auto reads at night you can still get manual reads your self.. thats great news.
without IR I knocked the shutter speed back to auto since it was not getting plates, well I was wrong hah.. I suspect they stopped or were going very slow.
also appears to take an h264 stream, thats news to me.. but perhaps it forced mjpeg on my substream that I had configured for h264.. the cpu load did go down a bit when I changed it back to mjpeg.
without IR I knocked the shutter speed back to auto since it was not getting plates, well I was wrong hah.. I suspect they stopped or were going very slow.
also appears to take an h264 stream, thats news to me.. but perhaps it forced mjpeg on my substream that I had configured for h264.. the cpu load did go down a bit when I changed it back to mjpeg.
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yah, you may not need such short exposures as i do since you've got an almost straight shot at the plates coming/going,
compared to my 40 degree angle. i don't think that wide-angle unit will do much at your distance, but can't hurt to try.
could always use it in your back yard if not. the wide-angle unit will also be more visible at wider angles, of course.
you say alprd appears to take an h264 stream? i thought that was a commercial (ie, paid-for) feature only?
compared to my 40 degree angle. i don't think that wide-angle unit will do much at your distance, but can't hurt to try.
could always use it in your back yard if not. the wide-angle unit will also be more visible at wider angles, of course.
you say alprd appears to take an h264 stream? i thought that was a commercial (ie, paid-for) feature only?
nayr
IPCT Contributor
well thats a 60 degree IR and thats the lowest I can find on amazon that I can have next week.. since im working with reflectors I just need a lil bit to hit the plates and I should be good.. can lite up plates at much greater distances than anything else.
I am getting pretty much 100% captures right now @ 8fps (3072Kbps), most vehicles I get many captures of but the fastest I'll get a couple.. with 6fps I was only getting one of really fast cars, and it might not be a good one.
reading accuracy is not that great right now, its getting everything with a plate though.. even a BMW with a blank plate got captured, must of just recognized the shape..
accuracy right now I'd say is in ~70 range, for slower cars I get a bunch of reads out of its 98% accurate, well at last one of them will be right.. the others might not.. and thats just the first guess. many people simply have dirty plates or something throwing it off but they can still be read manually without much trouble and the correct one is often in the list.. WDR has been required to get reads in the sun, without it ALPRD wont even see a plate.
so going to need to save all the results for the plates if I want to have automatic correlation, but if you just want motion detection with snapshots of everything with a license plate on it.. well OpenALPR's requirements will be much less.. it can detect a plate with no chance of auto reading it, quite well.
I am getting pretty much 100% captures right now @ 8fps (3072Kbps), most vehicles I get many captures of but the fastest I'll get a couple.. with 6fps I was only getting one of really fast cars, and it might not be a good one.
reading accuracy is not that great right now, its getting everything with a plate though.. even a BMW with a blank plate got captured, must of just recognized the shape..
accuracy right now I'd say is in ~70 range, for slower cars I get a bunch of reads out of its 98% accurate, well at last one of them will be right.. the others might not.. and thats just the first guess. many people simply have dirty plates or something throwing it off but they can still be read manually without much trouble and the correct one is often in the list.. WDR has been required to get reads in the sun, without it ALPRD wont even see a plate.
so going to need to save all the results for the plates if I want to have automatic correlation, but if you just want motion detection with snapshots of everything with a license plate on it.. well OpenALPR's requirements will be much less.. it can detect a plate with no chance of auto reading it, quite well.
nayr
IPCT Contributor
gave it an h264 feed and it spit out images, but they were torn.. might need to play with settings, but it did connect and try processing it.. just the images it gave were only half there.. maby if I played with iframe settings or quality or udp.. I have no h264 hardware in my VM and load jumped a ton (from pegging one core to pegging two and adding io/wait) so I went back to MJPEG.
and found out today sadly line cross is not going to work for cars at this range, needs to capture the object for a few moments before it recognizes it.. and so tight a frame with a big line across the middle everything flies past before its realized its an object.. if I didnt need such a tight frame it might work.. works for cars heading towards me, but away it'd only get them on the far end of the image.. not up close where I want, maybe I can do 2 lines with a long enough pre-record so I can still get recordings of cars.. will play with it, but cant use it to capture a snapshot and have openalpr process unless traffic is all headed towards you with an approach to detect it.
I MIGHT be able to back the zoom off, capture both sidewalks.. and be able to capture vehicles heading away up close with line cross.. then send 4MP snapshot to OpenALPR cropped down to a 720p digital zoom of the area of importance.. but it'd only have one shot to get the plate and if it missed then no dice.. Think I'll eat ALPRD's core chewing cpu and get better results.
now I am trying facial detection so it'll record any faces it see's of sidewalk traffic in the day.
and found out today sadly line cross is not going to work for cars at this range, needs to capture the object for a few moments before it recognizes it.. and so tight a frame with a big line across the middle everything flies past before its realized its an object.. if I didnt need such a tight frame it might work.. works for cars heading towards me, but away it'd only get them on the far end of the image.. not up close where I want, maybe I can do 2 lines with a long enough pre-record so I can still get recordings of cars.. will play with it, but cant use it to capture a snapshot and have openalpr process unless traffic is all headed towards you with an approach to detect it.
I MIGHT be able to back the zoom off, capture both sidewalks.. and be able to capture vehicles heading away up close with line cross.. then send 4MP snapshot to OpenALPR cropped down to a 720p digital zoom of the area of importance.. but it'd only have one shot to get the plate and if it missed then no dice.. Think I'll eat ALPRD's core chewing cpu and get better results.
now I am trying facial detection so it'll record any faces it see's of sidewalk traffic in the day.
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SyconsciousAu
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What was the brand / source / price on that lens. It looks like very good quality so far.
Save your $30. That thing claims 130 feet and you are capturing at 200 feet, so you are beyond the claimed specifications of the illuminator already. Remember that the inverse square law says that every time you increase the distance by a factor of 1.4 you halve the illumination. The specifications on those cheaper illuminators are also notoriously optimistic. The two schools of though I have seen are halve the distance claimed, or convert the claimed distance in metres to feet and you are in the ballpark. I'm not using an expensive illuminator but the angle is only 30 degrees. This is the type I am using. It claims 80m and I capture at 15-20m and 1/1000s shutter. At 50mm you could easily use a 15 degree illuminator so you aren't wasting any light.
Noise in the image appears to affect the ability of ANPR to recognise that a plate is there. I was using the test page of a local company providing ANPR solutions and it would happily and correctly read my day time captures, however it didn't even recognise that a plate was there in my night time captures, despite their being no difference in the human readability between the two. I'm using an old Dahua and the gain is all the way up so the image is incredibly grainy. You have a camera with better low light performance, plus you are running a slower shutter, so probably wont need so much gain, and it might not be an issue for you, but everything I have read, and my own testing seems to indicate that really clean images are important for night ANPR performance, and you should get as much illumination on the subject as you can to help achieve that.
I've got my eye on the Low Light 2mp version of the Dahua with that same feature as an upgrade to replace the old Dahua in my number plate capture setup. Can ABF be set to automatic so the camera adjusts for focus shift when moving from day to night, or when your depth of field changes due to iris settings, or is it strictly a push the button on the back function?
One last question. What hardware have you got crunching the numbers on the Open ALPRD? Is it CPU intensive, or could you run it as a background process on a server doing other tasks?
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nayr
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reconfigured main stream to MJPEG 1080p @ 8FPS full quality.. accuracy is now up in the high 90's for reads on any readable plates.. just needed more pixels, and im only using 2MP of the 4 at my disposal..
it started reading the numbers off my neighbors mailbox when I bumped it to 1080p, had to put a privacy mask on it to get it to stop.
i am very happy with these results, things are working very well.
it started reading the numbers off my neighbors mailbox when I bumped it to 1080p, had to put a privacy mask on it to get it to stop.
i am very happy with these results, things are working very well.
nayr
IPCT Contributor
Here is the lens I used, going to change the review to a bit better now that I used it.. was miffed I paid a bit more for a F1.4 and got an F1.6: http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/c3a3Po8o
I knew i should have jumped in with @pozzello when he got that varifocal IR for cheap.. now they are like $70 with slow shipping, ugh.. well I guess I'll get me a 4500mW varifocus (it goes all the way down to 5 degrees) and just wait another few weeks.. ugh.
I am running OpenALPR on a VM and its sucking up a full core, seems thats what it does no matter what.. hex core nas that just uses its cpu for video transcoding tv/movies (Plex).. so I can afford to burn one core on this task
load averages: 2.72, 3.31, 3.40
CPU: 2.4% user, 0.1% nice, 24.5% system, 0.2% interrupt, 72.8% idle
I could probably take it out of a VirturalBox VM and build it on a BSD Jail, that might take off a bit of load.
ABF can be done through the UI too, but not set to auto mode permanently. you can see the sensor jump around a bit, its not smooth like a PTZ.
I knew i should have jumped in with @pozzello when he got that varifocal IR for cheap.. now they are like $70 with slow shipping, ugh.. well I guess I'll get me a 4500mW varifocus (it goes all the way down to 5 degrees) and just wait another few weeks.. ugh.
I am running OpenALPR on a VM and its sucking up a full core, seems thats what it does no matter what.. hex core nas that just uses its cpu for video transcoding tv/movies (Plex).. so I can afford to burn one core on this task
load averages: 2.72, 3.31, 3.40
CPU: 2.4% user, 0.1% nice, 24.5% system, 0.2% interrupt, 72.8% idle
I could probably take it out of a VirturalBox VM and build it on a BSD Jail, that might take off a bit of load.
ABF can be done through the UI too, but not set to auto mode permanently. you can see the sensor jump around a bit, its not smooth like a PTZ.
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nayr
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some sample captures @ 1080p, these all had perfect matches.
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SyconsciousAu
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Have you done any calculations on the pixels per metre? Australian standard says 420 pixels per meter for reliable plate recognition. You seem to be gotting pretty much perfect recognition now.
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nayr
IPCT Contributor
now I havent, @pozzello does your IR look like this? if so I can see why that attracts attention lol!
this picture alone convinces me to try a 940nm, I think its got enough focus and power I could make it work with invisible IR.. I am hiding this in a rock to be discrete.. drivers will notice that pointing in there face, even 100ft away. I think 850nm at this level and focus would be too much.. I know my Black Face PTZ's built in IR can light up a plate no problem for 1/500 @ 100ft from my own testing and its good but not that bright
I like the adjustable focus IR for this job, its kinda like a dimmer.. can put all the power right on the plate or spread it out if its too much.
its too damn expencive tho, going to have to wait til next payday. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/940nm-LED-5-100M-Adjustable-Focus-IR-Invisible-Light-Illuminator-for-Varifocal-Camera/32408798716.html
this picture alone convinces me to try a 940nm, I think its got enough focus and power I could make it work with invisible IR.. I am hiding this in a rock to be discrete.. drivers will notice that pointing in there face, even 100ft away. I think 850nm at this level and focus would be too much.. I know my Black Face PTZ's built in IR can light up a plate no problem for 1/500 @ 100ft from my own testing and its good but not that bright
I like the adjustable focus IR for this job, its kinda like a dimmer.. can put all the power right on the plate or spread it out if its too much.
its too damn expencive tho, going to have to wait til next payday. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/940nm-LED-5-100M-Adjustable-Focus-IR-Invisible-Light-Illuminator-for-Varifocal-Camera/32408798716.html
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SyconsciousAu
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If you buy that one you are going to be dissapointed.
This 850nm one from the same seller claims the same specs
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/CCTV-5-90-Adjustable-Focus-4500mW-Surveillance-IR-Illuminator-LED-Array-850nm-10-100M/934758_32408878337.html
940nm halves your effective distance, so one of two things is true. The seller has understated the performance of the 850nm, or the seller is massively overstating the performance of the 940nm. I think you would be a mug to bet on anything but the latter. You can get 940 to 200ft (60m) but be prepared to pay for the privilege.
For 940 at that range you will need to think about spending more on your illuminator than you did on the camera.
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Scene-High-power-30W-IR-illuminator-Infrared-Lamp-invisible-IR-light-with-Aluminum-material-night-vision/113605_32284107050.html
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Scene-46W-IR-illuminator-Infrared-Lamp-invisible-IR-light-with-Aluminum-material-night-vision-light-sources/113605_604777119.html
The former would be easier to hide in your faux rock though.
I doubt it looks anything near that bright to human eyes. cameras even with IR filters tend to let (a lot) more in than human eyes can see in my experience.
nayr
IPCT Contributor
good point @bp2008, hadn't considered that.. just saw that image and I remembered him saying his caught a lot of attention and brought people onto his porch after installing it and thought oh crap thats why haha.
we are talking about reflective plates here, I dont know how much those range estimates are going to be useful.. i mean attached is my front door cam and its firing up a plate a 125ft away from the camera with its piddily lil wide angle IR.. it dont have the optics to view that far and its parked, but I cant imagine its hard to light up a reflector ~200ft away.
a 5-10 degree beam of just about any reasonable power should get the job done I think.. my black face Dahua PTZ can read plates going up the culdesac with its built in IR @ 200ft, but I dont want to sacrifice that for plate reading... alot of guys here are getting Huisun's to read plates at night with built in IR @ 50mm ranges.
if we were not talking highly reflective objects here I would agree more with your distance/power reasoning.. those bullets are more about optics than putting led's on a board, havent seen anything else with a 5 degree spread..
stolen from poz, his 4500mW 850nm at full focus is way to much for plates at his distance of 60ft.. 200ft, yeah no problem as thats brighter looking than my big black face PTZ.. (which you can see in my attached file across the street @ ~100ft distance)
I am willing to go for 850nm, just to be safe..
we are talking about reflective plates here, I dont know how much those range estimates are going to be useful.. i mean attached is my front door cam and its firing up a plate a 125ft away from the camera with its piddily lil wide angle IR.. it dont have the optics to view that far and its parked, but I cant imagine its hard to light up a reflector ~200ft away.
a 5-10 degree beam of just about any reasonable power should get the job done I think.. my black face Dahua PTZ can read plates going up the culdesac with its built in IR @ 200ft, but I dont want to sacrifice that for plate reading... alot of guys here are getting Huisun's to read plates at night with built in IR @ 50mm ranges.
if we were not talking highly reflective objects here I would agree more with your distance/power reasoning.. those bullets are more about optics than putting led's on a board, havent seen anything else with a 5 degree spread..
stolen from poz, his 4500mW 850nm at full focus is way to much for plates at his distance of 60ft.. 200ft, yeah no problem as thats brighter looking than my big black face PTZ.. (which you can see in my attached file across the street @ ~100ft distance)
I am willing to go for 850nm, just to be safe..
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SyconsciousAu
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Remember that cam is doing about 1/30 sec shutter in that shot. You are planning to run 1/500. That means that each exposure lets in 6/100ths of the light it does at 1/30. Try setting that same cam to 1/500 and see if you can even make out that a plate is there at all.
Also remember the inverse square rule which means that 200 feet, whilst significantly less than double the distance, means you get less than half the light as you do at 125ft.
I think that will put you in the ball park, and you can always repurpose it if it isn't quite up to scratch and you need something better.
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nayr
IPCT Contributor
ok 940mm it is, thanks for talking me out of it.. 
here is my 4MP 6mm Dahua with built in LXIR @ 1/500 holding a plate @ ~50ft, IR its not very focused right there as thats kinda the edge of the patten.. little late to be standing in my neighbors yard
I dont think i'd see anything more than a glimmer across the street ~100ft with the IR on this camera.. ok relenting
this looks nice: http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bX6ioYbI
I could mount it near the rock and it would not look too suspicious.. its a 120vac tho, I can work with it.
edit: attached a night time selfie of the test setup.. new ptz preset to check alpr camera
here is my 4MP 6mm Dahua with built in LXIR @ 1/500 holding a plate @ ~50ft, IR its not very focused right there as thats kinda the edge of the patten.. little late to be standing in my neighbors yard
I dont think i'd see anything more than a glimmer across the street ~100ft with the IR on this camera.. ok relenting
this looks nice: http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bX6ioYbI
I could mount it near the rock and it would not look too suspicious.. its a 120vac tho, I can work with it.
edit: attached a night time selfie of the test setup.. new ptz preset to check alpr camera
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nayr
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here is my black face dahua @ 1/500 reading the plate of that car seen in my front door camera.. since its mounted to the back of the house the distance is roughly ~160ft & 60mm
