Configure your camera for license plate recognition

Last modified: Monday March 20, 2023.

After you have installed your camera in a suitable location for the type of camera being used and the direction of vehicle traffic, configure the camera from within Alta Video to specify it as an LPR device.

Prerequisites

  • License plate recognition is a licensed feature; ensure you have a valid license for the cameras you want to use for LPR, and that LPR has been activated for your deployment.
  • Ensure you are enabling a suitable camera type for license plate recognition (LPR cannot be used with panoramic cameras).
  • Make sure that the camera has been installed following the best practice mentioned in Considerations when setting up cameras for license plate recognition.

Task — Enable LPR on the camera

  1. Choose Tools Open a tool > Devices Devices.
  2. Select the camera to use for LPR.

    If you have any licensed features enables on your Alta Video deployment, for example, Access Control or Sensors, select the Cameras tab to see the list of available cameras.

  3. Click Edit settings.
  4. From the Video page, click License plate recognition LPR settings.
  5. Toggle License plate recognition to enable LPR.
  6. Draw the rectangular LPR zones on the camera view.
    • Follow the best practice suggestions made in Considerations when setting up cameras for license plate recognition.
    • You can configure up to two zones per camera.
    • Define the LPR zones so that they allow you to only view one vehicle at a time in each zone.
    • Ensure the LPR zone is big enough that it includes all of the bounding box from the largest expected vehicle.
  7. Click Done to close LPR settings.
  8. Click Done to close Settings.

Task — Check that LPR is working as expected

  1. Select the LPR camera from Cameras.
  2. Select Detailed information.
  3. Scroll to the LPR section.
    The number of Plate detections and Vehicle detections identified over the last two days is displayed.
    • For existing cameras, the number of Vehicle detections is likely to outweigh the number of Plate detections for the first few days after enabling license plate detections.
    • For new cameras, or after a few days for existing cameras, the number of Plate detections should be close to the number of Vehicle detections.
      If this is not the case, try repositioning the License plate detection area to improve license plate detection and capture.