Fine-Tuning help - Daytime Plate Blur

th182

th182

BIT Beta Team
Sep 11, 2018
701
1,220
Minnesota
I've been pulling my hair out trying to get my LPR set up for daytime captures. I have a IPC-HFW5231E-Z12E set up on a pole 10ft from the road. Thanks to all the threads on here I am getting decent night images most of the time. Thankfully I don't need max zoom so the focus bug has not been an issue.

My problems come during the day when the sun is brightest. My camera faces east and in the morning or on cloudy days it gets great images. However, once we get into afternoon/evening the sun is reflecting off of the plates and I get horrible blur on the plates. I have been playing with settings but can't seem to find what one/combination of settings I need to fix this. It seems either I find a combination that gets me good sunny day plates but not dusk, or good dusk but not sunny :banghead:. It was cloudy all day yesterday and I think I captured every plate that went by. This morning was going well too until the clouds cleared up.

Here are a few example of the Blur:




Here is a decent capture from earlier in the day before the clouds cleared up. There is still some blur but LPR can make them out, I think the sun just exaggerates it.


And then a night capture


My day settings are:
  • Picture: defaults (Standard/50 for all)
  • Exposure:
    • Anti-Flicker: Outdoor
    • Mode: Shutter-Priority
    • Shutter: 1/100,000
    • 3D NR: On / Grade 3
  • Backlight: WDR 50
  • WB: Auto
  • Day/Night: Auto / Middle / 6s
  • IR Light: SmartIR
Night Settings:
  • Picture: Standard
  • Contrast: 85
  • Sharpness: 85
  • Exposure:
  • Anti-Flicker: Outdoor
  • Mode: Manual
  • Shutter: 1/500
  • Gain: 0-10
  • Iris: 50
  • 3D NR: On / Grade 100
  • Backlight: HLC 50
  • WB: Auto
  • Day/Night: B/W
  • IR Light: SmartIR

I would gladly welcome any suggestions on how to fix the day problem or improve the night images. My neighbor is having a yard sale so there has been extra traffic this weekend, making testing much faster!
 
Your biggest challenge is the angle. Pretty steep.

Im guessing on the day Exposure you meant 1/1000? Try manual 1/2000
Also cut way back on WDR. It causes motion blur
Set DNR as low as you can stand it, but 20-30 should be plenty for daytime
 
My one Z12 is in a similar position though not quite as bad of an angle, I'm capturing at 120ft. I keep it in color during the day and use these settings. Cars are 15-25 mph. WDR and all backlight off. You're not going to get them all, but I run high 90%. Here's some random captures from today
 

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I can certainly push the angle out more. I will adjust the settings some and see what happens! I really appreciate the help!
 
Not sure how much play you have with angle, remember, in a perfect world you want to be as straight on to the plate as possible. Often this means zooming and getting the capture further down the street
 
Also check bitrate and FPS. While Exposure has the most to do with good capture, more FPS can helpful on LPR cameras when the plate is only seen for 3-6 frames, and I like Max bitrate. At very minimum 4096
 
I will crank it up! Once I get this one tuned in I'll be ordering a second for the opposite direction. I put a nice lamp post in at the end of the driveway for LPR cameras. Ran 1" conduit to it with 3 Ethernet runs to future proof
 
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Cant see any motion blur?
Not possible to have motion blur at such high shutter speed
  • Shutter: 1/100,000 is way too fast
  • try 1/5000
  • try reduce WDR,
  • remove sharpness if any
  • reduce or remove noise reductions
 
Motion blur is probably not the correct term. Its more of an artifact of some kind that just appears to hit the plate (or bright areas? as it appears on rims of some vehicles).

Increased to 30 FPS, Shutter 1/4000, WDR of 1, Sharpness is at default of 50.

Should I turn off 3D NR completely? Currently at default of 50.

Today will be my last day to really play around for a bit until next Saturday as we will be on vacation. Wife probably wouldn't like me remoting in on our anniversary trip :)
 
Changed 3DNR to 20. Its a fairly cloudy day to day so not seeing any issues so far. Attached are screenshots of what I am seeing. the silver car is today (11:48 am), with a fairly clear plate but still seems kinda blurred. The orange car is from yesterday (3:21 pm) showing the distortion. The plate on the left is a stationary car, the orange car is moving. I can frame-by-frame through the distorted video and find semi-clear shots, but 99% have the plate distorted.

20190511 1148.PNG 20190510 1521.PNG
 

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JbXAZKn.jpg


See how the plate looks a little bit doubled? 3D noise reduction and WDR both cause artifacts like this in moving objects (especially high contrast objects like a license plate). I'm guessing this specific example is WDR given that it looks like the two captures were very close together (either that or the car was moving very slowly).


The other pic with the "blur" could be a number of things. It could be a thin layer of crud on the front of the camera scattering light a bit, or perhaps the lens wasn't focused perfectly. Lenses aren't perfect, especially when Dahua is doing the autofocusing.
 
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bp2008 said:
JbXAZKn.jpg


See how the plate looks a little bit doubled? 3D noise reduction and WDR both cause artifacts like this in moving objects (especially high contrast objects like a license plate). I'm guessing this specific example is WDR given that it looks like the two captures were very close together (either that or the car was moving very slowly).


The other pic with the "blur" could be a number of things. It could be a thin layer of crud on the front of the camera scattering light a bit, or perhaps the lens wasn't focused perfectly. Lenses aren't perfect, especially when Dahua is doing the autofocusing.
Click to expand...

Thank you! That is the info I'm looking for and can hopefully fix.
 
Agree with @bp2008 - definately an improvement from yesterday.

Turn WDR off. Keep DNR 20 or below.
1/1000 - 1/4000 depending on car speed
Then bump contrast up a bit.

And fwiw I do see a difference between 4096 and 8192
 
bigredfish said:
Agree with @bp2008 - definately an improvement from yesterday.

Turn WDR off. Keep DNR 20 or below.
1/1000 - 1-4000 deepending on car speed
Then bump contrast up a bit.
Click to expand...

It's a residential street so fairly slow 25-30 most of the time, except for the guy down the street who seems to always be in a hurry. I wish the clouds would clear up so I could get bright sunlight on them as that's when the problem really presents itself.
 
bigredfish said:
My one Z12 is in a similar position though not quite as bad of an angle, I'm capturing at 120ft. I keep it in color during the day and use these settings. Cars are 15-25 mph. WDR and all backlight off. You're not going to get them all, but I run high 90%. Here's some random captures from today
Click to expand...
How are the night captures at that distance? Have you had to add additional IR or is the cameras sufficient?
 
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