Need comments/critiques on my LPR proposal

Great location for a front-facing license plate, which are hit and miss here in California. Seems not a lot of vehicle rules are being enforced these days, with overly-opaque drivers' windows, years-old registration tags, missing front plates, and where plates' reflective coatings have been purposely scaped off. But the idea of being able to capture all plates entering (or leaving) a cul de sac is a boon to the other neighbors as well.

I notice in the couple of videos that the plates appear at the bottom and quickly disappear from view. Can you point the camera a little lower to the ground? It looks like half the view is above the car.

Great work and a great project!
 
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One idea is to park your own car in the field of view you need, and tweak the settings accordingly. Nothing worse than waiting for a car to drive into view!
 
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DLONG2 said:
One idea is to park your own car in the field of view you need, and tweak the settings accordingly. Nothing worse than waiting for a car to drive into view!
Click to expand...

Thanks @DLONG2 when I get back from my vacation I will definitely tweak my settings a little bit more and then drive my car a few times to see the effects and edit again.
 
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So I just got back from my vacation and was settling down when I got another hit on my LPR setup. I had tweaked my settings a little bit moving the shutter to 1/1000 and pushing up the IRIS just a tad to 46. This was a slow moving car and went right into frame but at 9PM it is pretty dark. Looking for any more critiques and if you need me to post my full settings let me know.

 
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It doesn't look like you have enough light. Get yourself a narrow focus ir illuminator, probably no more than 15 degrees, mount it with the camera, and leave your shutter around 1ms. You will get licence plates that are really clear.

Alternatively, if your budget stretches to it, get one of the new 4mp Starlights from Dahua and mount it with your existing camera. Use it to capture plates, and use the 2mp to capture the overview image. I've got an older 4mp doing plates with the 2mp starlight doing overview. I will often get images of faded non reflective plates with the 2mp starlight. See below post.


Dedicated License Plate Cam project

when you will release the lpr software? I will donate money for your time. The main ALPR software discussed in this thread is OpenALPR which is available for free.
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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SyconsciousAu said:
It doesn't look like you have enough light. Get yourself a narrow focus ir illuminator, probably no more than 15 degrees, mount it with the camera, and leave your shutter around 1ms. You will get licence plates that are really clear.

Alternatively, if your budget stretches to it, get one of the new 4mp Starlights from Dahua and mount it with your existing camera. Use it to capture plates, and use the 2mp to capture the overview image. I've got an older 4mp doing plates with the 2mp starlight doing overview. I will often get images of faded non reflective plates with the 2mp starlight. See below post.


Dedicated License Plate Cam project

when you will release the lpr software? I will donate money for your time. The main ALPR software discussed in this thread is OpenALPR which is available for free.
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
Click to expand...

It is funny you mention new starlights I am eyeing the IPC-B5442E-Z4E 4MP Starlight+ as my next purchase to get a different angle for my LPR setup but I want to keep tweaking the settings of this camera to try and get some better results. The more I tweak the settings the better grasp I get on how these settings work in my situation but like you said I might end up needing some extra IR in the area to obtain some better plate readings.
 
You need to zoom in more.
 
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So I am not sure why the Youtube video was so bad but here are some screen caps from last night to today and I do feed pretty happy with the outcome so far. The images aren't great but for the purpose of LPR I am able to read plates which was my intention.

I will zoom in some more to see how it works tonight but unfortunately changing angle for me to try and center the image is going to be difficult.

InkedFLPR.20200727_205834144_1_LI.jpgInkedFLPR.20200728_034937342_1_LI.jpgInkedFLPR.20200728_052921056_1_LI.jpgInkedFLPR.20200728_060229632_1_LI.jpg
 
I need to zoom in a wee bit more and move right a little too.

LPR-E-N rt turn wide.jpg
 
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djernie said:
zoom in yes move right yes. Ideally you want to be so close that you only see the license plate. But if you can still read it at night the way you have then its all good.
Click to expand...
This was actually only a test shot. I have yet to install the cams. Having issues getting the wiring done.
 
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From your first post you mentioned you are about 130 feet from the "pinch point" - smallest area of the entrance/exit of the cul-de-sac.

As many, including myself, have mentioned, you need to zoom in tighter. You are tying to get too much of the cul-de-sac to try to get a good shot of a front plate. What if they car doesn't have front plates, you are screwed.

Zoom in to the pinch point and get the plate as they come in and as they exit. From one of your screenshots, I would suggest zooming in this tight. Then adjust left or right to get plates regardless of whatever angle they are coming/leaving at.

1595949313906.png
 
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wittaj said:
From your first post you mentioned you are about 130 feet from the "pinch point" - smallest area of the entrance/exit of the cul-de-sac.

As many, including myself, have mentioned, you need to zoom in tighter. You are tying to get too much of the cul-de-sac to try to get a good shot of a front plate. What if they car doesn't have front plates, you are screwed.

Zoom in to the pinch point and get the plate as they come in and as they exit. From one of your screenshots, I would suggest zooming in this tight. Then adjust left or right to get plates regardless of whatever angle they are coming/leaving at.

View attachment 67389
Click to expand...

I get what your saying and I will definitely try and zoom in more but the problem you state is a downside if I do zoom in too much on one side of this choke point. I see cars exit like you have shown but some also enter on this side of the road and exit on the other side. Was trying to make sure I got both entering and exiting for cases where they don't have a front license plate I would have a change to get it after. I do appreciate all the comments and I will be zooming in a bit more to test tonight.

I drew a picture with my camera zoomed out a bit because it is day time but I wanted to just illustrate my desire but in the end I might need to zoom in more and give out the side of the road which I would need another LPR to monitor.

InkedFLPR.20200728_080952384_1_LI.jpg
 
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Yeah, the yellow path may be a little harder to get back plates and the angle may not be ideal, but you might be surprised. Someone was posting in here some unbelievably tight angles that they were still getting plates to read.
 
Based on your situation and photo sample, you should be able to zoom in like this photo and still capture every vehicle on your street. This is zoomed in and captures only the area needed. No one is driving up on the sidewalk to avoid your cameras.

zoom.jpg
 
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@TheGooginator - check out this thread I mentioned earlier that @Robert G. started - look at that angle. Yours would be better and no worse than that.

I would go for a bigger plate image at a slightly worse angle than a smaller plate image at a better angle.

Rave to OpenALPR - A World Record?

We are always talking about angles, the best angles to get plate captures etc. I think I must have captured the world record, well it was actually OpeanALPR that did it. Take a look at this - it did get the number correct. Using your human eyes take a guess at the plate number.
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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Here are a few pictures tonight with me zoomed in a bit more. It definitely is an improvement but what setting could I tweak to lower the headlights?

InkedFLPR.20200728_205317848_1_LI.jpgInkedFLPR.20200728_213444272_1_LI.jpgInkedFLPR.20200728_214753092_1_LI.jpg
 
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