What ANPR/LPR software is out there?

[buellwinkle 0]

Ssmith, what software do you use for LPR on your projects?

[ak357 0]

 

Don't know what the interface looks like yet to insert plate numbers and names. That's the problem, no product webpage I've been to shows that piece of the puzzle. I'm hoping worst case is they provide an SDK and I can write a Windows program to do this, probably in .net pretty quickly, how hard can it be? Keep a database of names, addresses and license plates and feed the plate numbers to store in the camera. What I like is then the cameras event handling can do what you want to do, send a text, trigger alarm output, email a picture based on a plate match.

 

Let me understand

You saying u can write program pretty quickly

to read Lic plate from captured video/pictures

and then store actual Lic plate number in database

right ?

what do u figure couple nights,weeks ?

do u need investors ?

[dexterash 0]

There are several SDKs available for ANPR. So writing a software to use integrated with a SDK from a camera manufacturer isn't an yearly job, but:

-you depend on the quality of the ANPR engine

-you still have to solve some issues and, probably, customize the engine

[thewireguys 3]

Can someone enlighten me as to how LPR works? I gather the video analytics searches the image for a reflective surface then there is some sort of optical character recognition software searches the reflective surface for alphanumerics? I presume the camera must take at least 30FPS to have any sort of luck. Black and white images seem to be best, why is this?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition

 

30 FPS is not a requirement but you will need higher FPS the faster the cars are moving

 

Black/white works best for 27/4 applications but there is software that works on color cameras and you need high contrast images for the OCR to work the best

[dexterash 0]

Also B/W requires less amount of processing power.

[buellwinkle 0]

[

Let me understand

You saying u can write program pretty quickly

to read Lic plate from captured video/pictures

and then store actual Lic plate number in database

right ?

what do u figure couple nights,weeks ?

do u need investors ?

 

What I'm saying is, if I there is camera embedded LPR software, or even PC based LPR software that can scan license plate numbers but has poor or no database of plate numbers, names, addresses to match and they provide an API in their SDK to provide a list, then yes, I can develop a Windows program in a few days to maintain the database of plate numbers and associated information and use the API to feed the information to the LPR software.

 

As to developing my own, sure, why not? There's LPR and OCR controls that I can call in my code. The issue is licensing. If I can get past royalty or licensing issues, maybe find open source code, I can develop something initially in a week or two and tweak it over time. I can offer it free or very low costs (depending on royalty fees I have to pay, for example, one I looked at had a $90 runtime fee).

[ssmith10pn 0]

Ssmith, what software do you use for LPR on your projects?

 

[thewireguys 3]

Ssmith, what software do you use for LPR on your projects?

 

 

Yes it works quite well.... I currently have the the dongle for testing

[buellwinkle 0]

I saw this last week, cute demo but no meat to it. I want to see an end to end demo, how do you enter plates to match on, how do trigger events on a match, can it trigger the camera to respond on a match and issue an alarm i/o event? Can you trigger events based on a good list and bad list separately? For example, say the police provide a list of Amber Alert plates and they wanted to be texted if that plate is captured, can it do that? Can you keep other information in the database, given the same example, can I put the name of the officer associated with this and his phone number and text him for this specific case but text a different officer working on a burglary case using a different set of plate numbers? Then can i give it a set of friendly plate numbers, maybe 2,000 of them and trigger an event off that at the camera, not at the PC?

[thewireguys 3]

I have a full demo running right now but this is a higher end solution nothing that would interest anyone one here.

 

Yes you can trigger rules and alarms based off the watch list. Email, Text, Pop-up alarms, messages and video, trigger PTZs to presets.....

[buellwinkle 0]

More expensive than Milestone XProtect? That's about $3K for one camera.

[ssmith10pn 0]

More expensive than Milestone XProtect? That's about $3K for one camera.

 

Yes but a second lane is half that.

[thewireguys 3]

More expensive than Milestone XProtect? That's about $3K for one camera.

 

Yes but a second lane is half that.

 

Basically they are the same price for the first lane and as smith said the price drops in half after the first lane. Also no recurring fees with the Avigilon solution

[dexterash 0]

I saw this last week, cute demo but no meat to it. I want to see an end to end demo, how do you enter plates to match on, how do trigger events on a match, can it trigger the camera to respond on a match and issue an alarm i/o event? Can you trigger events based on a good list and bad list separately? For example, say the police provide a list of Amber Alert plates and they wanted to be texted if that plate is captured, can it do that? Can you keep other information in the database, given the same example, can I put the name of the officer associated with this and his phone number and text him for this specific case but text a different officer working on a burglary case using a different set of plate numbers? Then can i give it a set of friendly plate numbers, maybe 2,000 of them and trigger an event off that at the camera, not at the PC?

IMHO: this should be done via dedicated software/solution, since there are many posibilities/configuration combinations/etc.

 

It's hard to integrate every client's request in a "general" software. If all options are left open (so they can be configured), would be a pain in the ... to configure the solution. For example, let's say a software will integrate all the posibilities/combinations/options etc. Usually, no more than 2-10% of them will be used by the client/user. So we have 90-98% of "bloatware" around.

[buellwinkle 0]

Has anyone used iSpyConnect, it open source NVR software and they have a free LPR plugin - http://www.ispyconnect.com/userguide-alpr.aspx

[pyro 0]

I can't tell you how the software side works because I don't know but the camera has filters on it to only see a narrow spectrum of light that the IR is in. That way any other light source won't affect the image.

 

Some LPR cameras do not have an IR cut filter. They actually have an IR pass filter. Using an IR illuminator both day and night, the license plate lights up like a neon sign. Visible light is hampered or greatly dampened so sunny glare is illiminated and high-beam head lights at night appear as round circles.

Don't use an auto-iris lens. Use an IR Mega-pixel. Regarding the ALPR software, there are excellent OCR type programs available. The main concern should be obtaining a pristine image the software can recognize. Use a high-res overview camera to capture video event details. The LPR cameras should be dedicated to license plates. Mfgs. trying to provide the cure all camera are either strong in the day and marginal at night or the other way around. Look at your tollway cameras. Notice how the illuminators are on 24/7 whether you can see them or not.

 

pyro

[buellwinkle 0]

I know Dallas uses tollroad cameras to charge people, here we use them to prosecute people that don't have transponders, so it's day cameras with white flash that goes off like taking a picture with a still camera. Same applies to red light cameras, day only, uses the canon sized white lights to blind as you cross the intersection. Dallas is what inspired me to go with LPR instead of transponders in this community.

 

The solution I'm shooting for is ipConfigure with the software embedded into an Axis camera, no PC required. Not crazy about the interface for adding plates so I'll just put a quick app together to manage the plate numbers and keep name/address associated with the plate number. They have a REST API, so can't image it's more than a few days of coding.

[booyes 0]

Check out OpenALPR (http://www.openalpr.com). It's an open source library, and it recognizes license plates/number plates from images.

[buellwinkle 0]

Sounds awesome, but it only appears to take still images. Are you going to develop an app that takes streaming video and calls OpenALPR for each frame?

 

Have you downloaded the source and compiled it yet?

 

Because he includes a CLI, I guess you can write a shell script to extract images from a camera pass them to the CLI to get a plate number. Be curious what frame rate you can get. I would be happy with a few frames per second as we currently use 4 fps at VGA resolution.

[chrishobbis 0]

I have come across an exceptional and very reasonably price ANPR software that is worth looking at - have a look at their website itracklpr.com. i am currently using it with 15 LPR cameras without a hitch - even better still its architecure is distributed so i can push my LPR server to the edge in areas where the wireless network is dodgy. please drop me a mail if you want any further info - will be only too pleased to assist.

[buellwinkle 0]

What does it cost, how accurate has it been for you day and night and can it handle U.S. plates (I see the company is in Africa, so I would assume plates there look different than U.S. plates.

[chrishobbis 0]

I Have recently been working with iTrack LPR Edge software and have found it to be exceptional in all conditions and speeds up to 200 Kph. it also has the ability to capture vehicles in multiple lanes, something which I have yet to see other packages achieve.