Raspberry Pi
ANPR Camera Project by Jamie Johnson
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Update Feb 2016
I am back working on on this project. this time using a Pi2 and doing the OCR on the Pi
i will be updating this site over the coming weeks as i progress through the project
Here is a blog of my project to build a cost efficient ANPR camera. i first become interested with the whole anpr concept when i started noticing them everywhere i went whilst driving. having worked in the security industy i started installing them to log staff for one of our clients. I started looking into how these work and if they can be bypassed or tricked, and to what the limitations are compared with standard high end cctv cameras. With help from Google i found some interesting reading and found the main characteristics of the anpr camera in details
The Prototype
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I then thought "How about using the Raspberry pi" so i went to work on building the Anpr Camera
The hardware i used are :
1, raspberry pi
2, Pi NoIr camera
3, ZTE MF10 router
4, 6-50mm lense from old concept pro VCP701/IRH
5, housing from old 12v-240v Inverter
6, large window sucker
7, 940nm Infra Red bypass filter
THE BUILD
First of all i needed to get the pi noir setup to capture numberplates
On a fresh install of Wheezy i installed the camera and enabled it on the install settings (the blue screen on a fresh install) . Then i updated the pi with the following:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo rpi-update
Then i needed to be able to no only interact with the cameras settings remotely (lan network) so i did not have to connect a keybord but also view the stream to see the settings real time.
I found a handy source code on git hub called RPi-Cam-Web-Interface so i installed it with the following commands:
git clone https://github.com/silvanmelchior/RPi_Cam_Web_Interface.git
cd RPi_Cam_Web_Interface
chmod u+x RPi_Cam_Web_Interface_Installer.sh
./RPi_Cam_Web_Interface_Installer.sh install
After a reboot I connected to the Raspberry Pi's IP address i was greeted with this screen on my note 3
This is great to set the shutter speed from any web browser.
Then i needed to be able to also stream a raw live image to a seperate anpr engine on my laptop
i did this with the following command:
sudo ln -s /run/shm/mjpeg/cam.jpg /var/www/cam.jpg
now i get a raw jpg stream at192.168.1.101/cam.jpg
with the basic done i begun the build on the housing and lense
click images for details on build
First of all I found to fit the components in comfortably i needed to remove the blue audio and yellow video outputs. So out comes the soldering iron. i would have like to have kept them on oh well
Then i needed to mount the pi to the base plate i did this with what i had available so i used pc motherboard mounts and plastic spacers
in this picture i have the lense with the raspberry pi camera glued in place behind the lense. the lense was originally powered by small motors, which if i had the space i would of powered then by the gpio's on the pi. i had to attach the empty centeres of Biro pens to extend them outside the case so focusing could be done without opening the case.
close look at the pi noir
Below is a video of the raspberry pi ANPR camera
in the daytime without the Infra Red bypass filter fitted. the vehicles are traveling at aproximatly 35-50 mph. the laptop is doing the OCR and i am uing the ipad a a remote desktop to the laptop all from the wireless signal produced from the camera.
streaming almost realtime with regognition instantly uing Visec ANPR Engine
now i can confirm the camera works i will be adding the infra red filter and doing more tests at night and during the day too..
from the images below we can see the zoom quality with the infrared bypass filter on