LPR setup help

[Timokreon]

Purchased a 5241E-Z12E from Andy.
I live right at the T-intersection, so getting traffic from 3 different directions. Unfortunately the main road is at the extreme angle, while of course the T is almost straight on.

I really don't have a much better angle to put the camera (also keeping in mind WAF). I already have 2 cameras above my garage, so putting another one up is going to get the look. I may end up doing it anyway if I can't get this dialed in currently, but would at least like to try dialing in at this location.

Day time settings seem pretty good so far. Though I would like to dial in a bit better. Night time settings is where I'm struggling, and really not sure I'll be able to get any plates due to the angle.

Day settings are set to manual focus, manual exposure with shutter .5 and gain 30.

Night is manual focus, manual exposure with shutter 1 and gain 50.

A couple pictures showing the day and night difference. Cars coming straight from the T I can get without any problems, though at night headlight glare throws a wrench in thing.
The cars traveling on the main road, during the day isn't too bad. With the angle I can visually get probably 95% of the plates. Night so far if I'm lucky 10%.

From the current camera to near curb is 60 feet - 100 feet is far curb.
Camera 2 would be 50' to 100'. Going towards the far curb/island.
Camera 3 would be 100' to 130'.. if going towards the STOP sign.

 

[wittaj]

That is a tough angle and night will be problematic for the cars coming that direction.

The nighttime works by reflecting the IR off the reflective plate back to the camera. Most of the time it isn't going to be close to bouncing back with that sample for night you provided.

Post screenshots of your actual settings like the brightness, WDR, etc. For example, is your shutter 0-1 or 1-1? Makes a big difference in some cases.

Glare is usually knocked out by HLC at 50.

 

[Timokreon]

I'll test out color mode instead of b&w tonight as well. There is a streetlight right above where I have the camera pointing.

Settings for day and night.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, for night just go with 1-1 or 1/1000. When you give it a range, that is how it will miss.

Have IR at full 100. You might need to bump up gain and lower NR.

Hopefully the streetlight is enough but most are not able to get color.

 

[Timokreon]

Thanks much. I'll give color a shot tonight and see what happens. I just don't think bw is going to work for this camera location.

Do you think camera location 2 or 3 would work any better at night?
I may just have to re-think the whole LPR and maybe not do it. Instead use the camera for facial recognition and capture daytime plates as a bonus.

 

[Flintstone61]

5241e-z12 @ 10 FPS

 

[wittaj]

Realistically you need two cameras - Camera 3 pointed to the right to get a more straight on shot of the plate.

 

[Flintstone61]

 

[Timokreon]

Yeah, I'll have to think about having two of these. I'm waiting for the new mini-ptz that Andy states is coming out this year with auto-track to add onto the garage part. 3 cameras is pushing it, 4 cameras on the garage... I believe you'd have to file a missing persons report on me. lol

Yep.. I'd like to have that kind of angle Flintstone. Appreciate your settings just to compare.

 

[samplenhold]

See these two threads about planning and installing. Also below are my settings to get you started.

New to LPR? Considerations Before You Begin

Thought I would throw together a post on my experiences so far with LPR in an effort to help others that are considering running down that rabbit hole. There are some practical considerations you should know about LPR. I am approaching this from the position of using Blue Iris and Plate...

ipcamtalk.com

LPR Case Study: Scoping, Planning, Proof of Concept, Installation, & Results

Introduction This thread is about my journey into LPR (License Plate Recognition) after having about 18 months of experience with IP cams and having quite a bit of my system finished. I am not an expert on LPR, or IP cameras either. But I have spent a lot of time working with my system and...

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Day settings

Night settings

 

[Timokreon]

Thanks for the settings Sample.

I'm trying different settings, but so far the plates are just a mess at night. I'll keep trying though.

 

[wittaj]

It is as much an art as it is a science.

The best thing to do is to have someone stop a car out there and adjust it from there.

The shutter speed is what captures the plate, so don't mess with that. But then adjust all the other parameters until you can read the plate, but keep in mind that the image should still be mostly black and just seeing the head/tail light and plate.

How did you set the manual focus for nighttime? In some instances, the focus number is different for infrared than it is for color, so that may be part of the problem as well.

 

[Flintstone61]

There is another guy here from the Chicago area who put small pieces of 3m reflector tape on objects out in the street to stop the camera from "focus hunting"
and he was doing it with a Junker Jidetech 2MP ptz....(Good optics horrid user interface)

 

[Timokreon]

A few shots at night to show what the area looks like.
Cam 2 and Cam 3 are to the left and right. Possible spots for the camera, but...
The LPR I'm showing at a slower shutter speed just to see the area at night.

The other LPR is at 1/1000 shutter forced color and BW.

Focus was just eyeballing it at a slower shutter speed. I'm looking at a mark on the curb. I'll have more time in the next week to park a car or try to have a friend park and drive past.

 

[wittaj]

You might be right on the verge of being able to get color plates.

But you really need to have a car stopped in the middle of the frame to get the focus dialed in - the more the camera is zoomed in, the tighter the circle of focus becomes, so it is not uncommon to see blurry in front and behind where the vehicle would be, so if you are eyeballing on something on the curb, that could be enough of a distance to make the camera blurry where the plate would be.

 

[Timokreon]

Do you think I'm zoomed in ok? Or should I try to zoom in further or pull out a bit?
My zoom function doesn't give me any numbers to go by, but I'm estimating at about 80% zoom at the moment.

 

[wittaj]

I think it looks pretty good. If you hover over the slider it will tell you the number. Just make sure to put the step to 1 in order to get the exact number.

 

[samplenhold]

My zoom function doesn't give me any numbers to go by, but I'm estimating at about 80% zoom at the moment.

As stated above, hover over the slider. You might have to click on Refresh first to get the sliders to set to the current values.

Why are you trying to get plates at night in color? No need to do that and it will be a lot harder to do.

 

[Timokreon]

I was going the color route due to the angle. IR at the current angle doesn't seem to be enough.

I changed the position of the camera a bit today and am going more for vehicles coming down N-S 24/7 and get what I can for vehicles E-W.
What I'll most likely do is remove that camera and put it into the same location of Cam 3.

Since the camera position is currently right off my front door, I'll replace it with a different camera that will cover my side/front yard and porch.
I'll most likely get a turret for that spot.

 

[Timokreon]

Here is a look from Cam 2 zoomed into my mailbox. Varifocal turret zoomed in at 13.5mm. This would be about a 35 degree angle.
As well a pic from Cam 3 showing a truck coming around the corner. To compensate for vehicles turning left onto the street, I'd have set the camera to about a 45 degree angle. I could also have Cam 3 position pointed to the left, which would allow me to see the "T", and that angle would could be anywhere from 30 to 45 degree.

I think I'll do a test run at the Cam 3 position, try it both directions for 24-48 hours to see how things look.