Debunk license plate capture myth

[CollinR 0]

jisaacmagee, how many Kbps on that?

 

 

It might be nice to see what a modern camcorder does via firewire if you happen to have one.

[frank04090 0]

Did the flash go off when you had taken the photo?

[GECAMGUY 0]

Wow lots of cool stuff for me to post about today.

 

First, I think megapixel is the bomb when it comes to license plate recognition or any application where super high resolution images are needed.

 

The problems I tend to see in license plate capture applications are:

 

1) Installers/End-Users try and use the same camera for general surveillance in a field of view that they use for license plate capture

 

2) They buy the wrong camera to use in WDR or Low-Light applications.

 

I see this all the time in my business, where customers buy our cameras wanting to use them for General Purpose AND License Plate Capture at the same time, then are disappointed.

 

I always recommend that

 

A) They zoom in the camera on the choke point where license plates will be visible 90+% of the time, and/or;

B) They buy a megapixel camera

 

Another thing to consider is Ambient Rejection cameras, which focus on a specific reflective illumination range. Since license plates by their nature are very reflective, what happens is an auxillary illumination source (usually a defined wavelength range of IR) is distributed where the cars are passing the camera. The camera is tuned to that specific range of IR and discards all other video. The end-user is left with a bright as day image of the license plate in pretty much any environment.

 

The downsides are you need a dedicated LPC camera and Ambient Rejection cameras are very pricey. In lieu of that, I'd recommend my A/B solutions above.

 

Best,

 

GECAMGUY