License Plates / Vehicle info

[mikesus 0]

OK, I have looked at a bunch of the threads of folks that have tried to do this. But I couldn't find anyone trying to do it with the combo of lens/Camera that I have.

 

I am getting a 20-100 Tamron to go with my WV-CP484. (yes I need 100 for the distance)

 

The setup is as follows:

 

about 3 houses down is a "T" intersection with a stop sign. I plan on going for the cars leaving (North Carolina only has rear plates) and aiming at the right lane.

 

What settings should I start with on the camera? There is a streetlight there so I don't know if I will need IR lighting.

 

(The reason for this is that our local police are unable to catch a group of folks that are breaking into cars and houses, as their best response time is 20 (YES 20!) Minutes. So of course bad guys are long gone. They are hitting in the wee hours as to attract as little attention as possible. At this point, grabbing ANY vehicle info will be a help, and grabbing their plate will be ideal. As I sit near the chokepoint for our street, it makes sense to try to grab vehicle info from my vantage point, plus I get to play with cameras )

[Scruit 0]

I would recommend IR light anyway becuase you can't gaurantee the car's license plate lights will be working. Also, don't underestimate the brightness of brakelights...

 

Try to line the camera up in a way the the plate's side/side up/down motion is as little as possible (directly towards or away from the camera is ideal)

 

I have my field of view adjusted to be slightly wider than the car - ie I can see both mirrors, but only just. That makes the plate big enough to be captured.

 

The DVR must have GOOD compression. My new DVR's compression is not great and the plates were only visible 1/2 of the time due to blurry image. The same video recorded on an older DVR with better compression image quality was easy to read.

 

The faster the cars, the faster the framerate. Hope the camera maintains a high shutter speed so teh image is not blurry from the camera.

 

I have the video image from the LP cam being recorded on 3 channels simultaneously (Yes, 3!). 1 is recorded live,, then it's looped out the ch1 where i have the bright/contarst adjusted for best image during the day, then the looped the ch3 where I have the brightness/contrast set up for night (higher contrast really brings out the IR-lit plate).

 

No one channel gets all the plates!!! All it takes is a strong light ligth the sun peeking between clouds just as the car goes past for the plate to be washed out in the high contrast image, but the low contrast image is ok. and vice-versa.

 

My current setup has not missed a single plate (that would have been seen by the huiman eye) in about 30 days of running.

 

 

I use an IR filter on the len to help reduce headlight glare - but if you're only shooting the back then you may not need it. Your worst-case scenario to test for (in terms of extreme lighting) is to have a car with it's license plate lights off and all 3 brakelights on, moving through shot quickly.

 

MAKE SURE YOUDVR CAN STEP FORWARD THROUGH THE FRAMES ONE BY ONE!!! My new CPCam Dvr cannot advance by frame - you have to press play and hit pause at the right moment. Even as the car passes throught shot there may be time where the plate is unreadable, as the camera adjusts to the lighting changes etc I have had cars pass through where the plate can be read in only ONE frame out of 30. Even then, watching the car drive through with a mostly unreadable plate woud have made me give up, but watching the even frame by frame DID reveal the ONE frame with the good plate.

 

 

Oh, and I betcha this is inadmissable in court... But one time I had a car where the plate was really blurry. Adjusting the brightness and contrast on the TV capture card that was diaplying the freeze-frame was not helping (it sometimes does, but not often)... So what I did was printed out the picture under 3 completely different brightness and contrast settings, then held all 3 pieces of paper together and held it up to the light so I could line the plate up on all 3 pieces of paper. The overall effect was a *readable* plate. like I say, probably not admissable in court, but it allowed me to identify the car.

 

 

In my CCTV system (10 cameras) I probably have 33% of the total system cost invested in the license plate setup - probably more now becuase I have a 4ch DVR dedicated to just license plates while the 16ch DVR handles the rest of the cameras. If someone breaks into my house then I want a plate, darnit - not a fuzzy video of my stuff begin ripped off by a forever-anonymous villain.

[rory 0]

Unfortunately when you are doing it for a living, cant spend the time making your own app. So here is the Reg-L from Extreme

 

[rory 0]

And an interesting take from an IP software company:

 

(dont see any nightime video though!!)

[Scruit 0]

Unfortunately when you are doing it for a living, cant spend the time making your own app.

 

Of course, and that point is well taken.

 

[mikesus 0]

Unfortunately when you are doing it for a living, cant spend the time making your own app.

 

Of course, and that point is well taken.

 

 

Absolutely.

 

As this is being funded by ME that is not an option...

 

I will give it a shot as it is a WDR camera, and might be up to the task... Thanks for the tips!

[rory 0]

I know, just wanted the chance to post those images again.

 

Anyway, Scruit has done it, or is still doing it .. also there was another guy on the forum from Europe that used Bosch WDR camera and some IR that came out pretty good as well. maybe do a search for LPR or License Plate (search for all terms).

 

Rory

[Scruit 0]

I know, just wanted the chance to post those images again.

 

 

 

If you can show off, so can I...

 

 

 

These are all playback images. The LP video is recorded on 3 channels simultaneously so at least one combination of brightness/contrast settings will capture the plate. BEAR IN MIND: THe car on the right (that you see the back of) has a dark smoked license plate cover, and is STILL visible. That's why it's darker than the car on the left.

 

I have tried accelerating towards thr camera through the killzone as fast as possible (and that's in a 250hp Turbo AWD car, so the acceleration is as good as you get for normal cars) and the plate can still be read. I also tried driving away from the camera as fast as I could, but you really to come to a stop as you leave my driveway because it's a 55mph road (65mph traffic speed) and the traffic from the left is blind. Even if you didn't care about the traffic, it's a gravel driveway so you can't turn that corner at anything over 15mph without sliding off the driveway into the 55mph road - and the plate is STILL visible.

 

This latest iteration has proven that the only way to stop this cam capturing your plate if you obscure it in a manner than would render it unreadable to the naked eye. I think I'm about ready to quit messin' with it and let it do it's job now.

 

 

Who wants to bet someone robs me blind tomorrow and the plate can't be read becuase of something stupid...

[Lolo Wolf 0]

"Who wants to bet someone robs me blind tomorrow and the plate can't be read because of something stupid..." or worse if the tag comes back as stolen, oftn stolen vehicles are used for burglary in residental areas.

[mikesus 0]

Well the daytime image is good, the problem is night time. I think I am going to have to put up an IR light of some sort, problem is that its about 100' or so to the intersection... Ideas?

 

 

The image below is about the worse case scenario, the car drove about down the middle thats why its so far over to the left.

 

[Kiwi 0]

Could you post a night shot so we can see what we're working with?

 

You can already see what the IR does to your focus on the taillight.

 

edit: I see from the camera specs that it's supposed to compensate the backfocus automatically.

 

This plate is at 80 feet, the camera is looking down from about 30 ft. The lens is a Computar 8-80 electric zoom, manually stopped down slightly. JVC camera model is in my sig. Funny enough, when the gate is opened the headlights are bright enough, and the reflected light back to the plate (that was off the gate) low enough to make the plate number unreadable.

 

[VST_Man 1]

I've learned that no matter how much you spend on LPR camera's there is always going to be an issue capturing the plate. ALWAYs. Experience prevails in mapping it out but even then I always have to add something to the mixed depending onthe location, lighting, choke points, ect. I gave up and started using the cheapest ($$$) LPR camera out there and have been happy with the price and results. Bang for the buck!

 

not perfect, but, I tell my clients to buy a gun with the money saved!

 

and most of my "LPR pics" are of vehicles stolen. very rarley used to track a perps vehicle as they like to walk in and drive out. "yep, there goes my car, see the license plate number, it's mine!!!"

 

I go more for Bang for Buck! I'm getting the same plate numbers with the cheaper camera and saving 1000 dollars along the way. not to mention the replacement/maintenance costs are cheaper.

[Integratek 0]

sometimes its better to use 4 relatively cheap cameras to cover wide area where car might pass than buying an expensive megapix.

[Scruit 0]

Well the daytime image is good, the problem is night time. I think I am going to have to put up an IR light of some sort, problem is that its about 100' or so to the intersection... Ideas?

 

 

The image below is about the worse case scenario, the car drove about down the middle thats why its so far over to the left.

 

 

When testing I like to show pictures of the license plates to someone who doesn't know the number. It's easy to read a fuzzy plate if you know the number - try it with a number you don't know!

 

FYI, the plate you provided appears to be (blank)A6 Y60

 

The illuminator I use is is a 100' rated ebay cheapie. Of course it's actually only good for about 40-50 of visible illimunation, but it lights up a license plate perfectly well up to 100'. My 'killzone' is about 100' from the camera. Also, when I first got the illuminator the built-in light sensor (to turn off the illimator during the day) was WAY too sensitive and resulted in a 30 min period during twilight where ambient light was not too dim to light up the plate, but the illuminator was still off. I opened it up and blcoked the light sensor with electrical tape - and it's fine now.

 

I have a couple of spare plates that I use for focus adjustment, but learned very quickly that reading a stationary plate is MUCH easier than a moving one. Don't call you config 'good' until you can read the plates of moving cars...

[mikesus 0]

You are close, the first 6 is a G. Now in the video, its very easy to read, that single frame was one of the worse ones.

 

I guess I will have to try an illuminator, as the only thing visible at night is a little bit of the plate light, and the tail lights. Everything else is black. (I still haven't mounted the camera yet as I just had a Heart Cath done, so all playing around has been on a tripod about 3-4ft lower than the actual mount point.

 

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quote=Scruit]

Well the daytime image is good, the problem is night time. I think I am going to have to put up an IR light of some sort, problem is that its about 100' or so to the intersection... Ideas?

 

 

The image below is about the worse case scenario, the car drove about down the middle thats why its so far over to the left.

 

 

When testing I like to show pictures of the license plates to someone who doesn't know the number. It's easy to read a fuzzy plate if you know the number - try it with a number you don't know!

 

FYI, the plate you provided appears to be (blank)A6 Y60

 

The illuminator I use is is a 100' rated ebay cheapie. Of course it's actually only good for about 40-50 of visible illimunation, but it lights up a license plate perfectly well up to 100'. My 'killzone' is about 100' from the camera. Also, when I first got the illuminator the built-in light sensor (to turn off the illimator during the day) was WAY too sensitive and resulted in a 30 min period during twilight where ambient light was not too dim to light up the plate, but the illuminator was still off. I opened it up and blcoked the light sensor with electrical tape - and it's fine now.

 

I have a couple of spare plates that I use for focus adjustment, but learned very quickly that reading a stationary plate is MUCH easier than a moving one. Don't call you config 'good' until you can read the plates of moving cars...