Triggering for Rear License Plate

[wittaj]

Yes! That is looking good.

Now just some minor tweaks to get that to show up as the alert image!

What is the pre-buffer?

One thing you will notice is that we can't get every plate - some are rusty, some dirty, some are temp tags, etc.

Now that we have the coding and what not figured out, I would first try a bump up of the gain to see if that gets the darker plates. Maybe try 70-70 and then 80-80

If not, now that we have you generally there, you can play with the shutter speed a little if you get too many of those dark plates, then try 1/1500 and 1/1000. The issue with that will be that is will exaggerate the light shine off the pavement coming from that speed bump.

 

[icpilot]

Yes! That is looking good.

Now just some minor tweaks to get that to show up as the alert image!

What is the pre-buffer?

One thing you will notice is that we can't get every plate - some are rusty, some dirty, some are temp tags, etc.

Now that we have the coding and what not figured out, I would first try a bump up of the gain to see if that gets the darker plates. Maybe try 70-70 and then 80-80

If not, now that we have you generally there, you can play with the shutter speed a little if you get too many of those dark plates, then try 1/1500 and 1/1000. The issue with that will be that is will exaggerate the light shine off the pavement coming from that speed bump.

Pre-trigger video buffer is set to 0.2 seconds.

The latest capture was much like the last one posted - too dark to read. I will do as you suggest and play with the settings to see if those can get to the dark plates.

 

[icpilot]

Hey, this has been really educational for me. I hope maybe some other readers might learn from your guidance here as well.

Thanks a bunch for your time and coaching.

 

[misterfredsr]

I bookmarked this one.

 

[Flintstone61]

It’s not the same bookmark as,”I get triggered by her rear license plate.”

 

[ProTapper]

This is almost the same angle that I helped @ProTapper set up with TeamViewer - wanna fill him in on more zoom LOL.

You are correct my virtuoso brother! This angle gives me PTSD though obviously I still have it! ... What can I help with here?

 

[wittaj]

You are correct my virtuoso brother! This angle gives me PTSD though obviously I still have it! ... What can I help with here?

I think we got it worked out, but wow when his picture came up it looked almost exactly like yours LOL. And I know we ended up zooming more than you had planned cause that angle just wasn't able to get the vehicles from the far street and those in front of your house. Fortunately yours didn't have a speed hump like his that added a new wrinkle to nighttime alert images for Plate Recognizer!

 

[icpilot]

Still struggling with the damn rear license capture. Daytime, I just kept getting triggers that were too early or too late, depending on where I placed the zones in BI. At one point I was too closely zoomed. While it MIGHT give me a nice view of the plate, the fact that the vehicle is larger than the camera view meant I could not get the leading edge of the vehicle (for firing the trigger) while the rear of the vehicle (with that damn license plate) was visible.

I don't have a good solution as yet. Temporarily I zoomed out so that the entire vehicle can be seen in the camera view and still trying to adjust for the variability of speeds of different vehicles.

 

[icpilot]

I've tried various combinations of Make Time and Pre-Record settings. If something works once or twice, it is soon defeated by other vehicles driving faster or slower. Really tricky triggering problem.

 

[wittaj]

Have you tried the min make time to account for the size of the vehicle? If it is zero seconds it will trigger early every time. Try 0.2 and move up by .1 until you get most of them. That in conjunction with placing the zones in the right spots should get you 95% + as there will always be that larger vehicle or truck or slower moving vehicle that it misses.

Also, make the target object size a lot larger for the daytime. Night time is the size of the plate or so, but make daytime a lot larger.

 

[wittaj]

If you want me to TeamViewer in sometime and take a look at it, let me know. It is a tricky angle and other factors you have going on, but we should be able to get it working the majority of the time.

Or maybe @ProTapper would like to take the first shot at it LOL as he is learning quickly.

 

[icpilot]

Have you tried the min make time to account for the size of the vehicle? If it is zero seconds it will trigger early every time. Try 0.2 and move up by .1 until you get most of them. That in conjunction with placing the zones in the right spots should get you 95% + as there will always be that larger vehicle or truck or slower moving vehicle that it misses.

Also, make the target object size a lot larger for the daytime. Night time is the size of the plate or so, but make daytime a lot larger.

Default Make Time I am working with is 0.0 sec. If/when I see the capture occurring early, I've tried bumping it to 0.1 or 0.2, but as I mentioned, it is then defeated by some other variation in speed of the vehicle.

I am going to find that solution you mentioned yesterday where someone crafted a custom profile for BI/DS to recognize. If it's a 3-hour exercise I will come out way ahead of what I've spent so far....

 

[wittaj]

@aesterling is the person I mentioned that created a custom model based on his field of view. I haven't gone down that path yet.

5.4.7 - May 25, 2021 - Support for DeepStack custom model files

I'm on the latest version, my lightning bolt stays orange but everything as far as BI and Deepstack are working as expected. Same here

ipcamtalk.com

 

[icpilot]

If you want me to TeamViewer in sometime and take a look at it, let me know. It is a tricky angle and other factors you have going on, but we should be able to get it working the majority of the time.

Or maybe @ProTapper would like to take the first shot at it LOL as he is learning quickly.

Sure, I would appreciate the assist. My schedule is pretty flexible, so just let me know when - and what I need to configure on my end.

Thanks.

 

[wittaj]

What time zone are you in and is it just daytime that is the issue now, or are the nighttime alert images still a problem?

 

[icpilot]

What time zone are you in and is it just daytime that is the issue now, or are the nighttime alert images still a problem?

Arizona time (we don't go on Daylight Savings).

Fundamentally it is the triggering. I made numerous adjustments to the BI zones moving them from right to left to center, all while trying to find a triggering point that allows consistent capture of the rear plate. It managed to botch up the nighttime capture, but your coaching was pretty good, so I think I can fix that once I sort out the basic trigger problem.

 

[wittaj]

One thing I didn't mention is what FPS are you running? I have found that this can impact when BI triggers. At 15FPS mine missed most plates. At 10 FPS it caught the back of the plate. Who would have guessed. Some field of views probably doesn't matter, but these awkward views, I have found that the slower FPS can allow more of the vehicle to get into the frame before BI detects it, so when it does, the plate is in view.

And make sure for at least this camera that you are running a day and night profile - you may need to have different zones for day and nighttime to accommodate the zoomed in view and what it sees during the day and night.

 

[icpilot]

One thing I didn't mention is what FPS are you running? I have found that this can impact when BI triggers. At 15FPS mine missed most plates. At 10 FPS it caught the back of the plate. Who would have guessed. Some field of views probably doesn't matter, but these awkward views, I have found that the slower FPS can allow more of the vehicle to get into the frame before BI detects it, so when it does, the plate is in view.

And make sure for at least this camera that you are running a day and night profile - you may need to have different zones for day and nighttime to accommodate the zoomed in view and what it sees during the day and night.

Running at 30 FPS. I based that on seeing that commercial LPR cams are setup for 60 FPS, so concluded that more is better.

I'll setup day/night profiles for the camera in BI.

 

[Flintstone61]

my z12 is running at 15 FPS

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, you do not need 30. Commercial is usually set up for ideal angles and lighting so they can run higher FPS and have a lot more horsepower in terms of CPU and programming than we use. That may be contributing to the problem for your angle. My other LPR is running 8 FPS.

I was shocked too when I was dialing mine in and figuring out that FPS impacted getting the back of the car or not.