Milestone Systems XProtect® LPR 1.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Contents PRODUCT OVERVIEW .....................................................................5 MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ........................................................................ 6 LPR LICENSES ................................................................................................... 6 ABOUT XPROTECT LPR...................................................................................... 7 LPR FAQs ..........................
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual VIEWING AND INVESTIGATING LICENSE PLATE EVENTS.......................................... 29 LPR on the Live tab ............................................................................................................ 29 The LPR tab ........................................................................................................................ 30 Add license plates to license plate lists .......................................................
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Copyright, trademarks and disclaimer Copyright 2013 Milestone Systems A/S. Trademarks XProtect is a registered trademark of Milestone Systems A/S. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are trademarks of their respective owners.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Product overview License plate recognition (LPR) is video-based content analysis (VCA) and recognition of vehicle license plates. To read the characters in question, LPR uses optical character recognition on images aided by specialized camera settings. With XProtect LPR, Milestone provides an intelligent yet highly intuitive solution for interaction with your XProtect Corporate or XProtect Enterprise and your XProtect Smart Client.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual o An LPR Camera License per LPR camera o An LPR License Plate Library license for each country/region you need in your LPR setup (one License Plate Library license is included with the LPR Base License). To buy your LPR licenses, contact your vendor, or visit www.milestonesys.com to log into the software registration service center.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual 1. XProtect LPR camera(s) sends video to XProtect Recording Server(s). 2. XProtect Recording Server(s) sends video to XProtect LPR Server(s) to look for license plates. 3. XProtect LPR Server(s) sends recognitions to XProtect Event Server for matching with license plate lists. 4. XProtect Event Server sends events and alarms to XProtect Smart Client for viewing. 5. The entire LPR configuration (matching of lists, setting up of events and alarms, etc.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Reimplement - do not upgrade XProtect LPR 1.0 is a new product making use of new technologies such as the XProtect Event Server and Alarms. As a result, it is not possible to upgrade from former Milestone LPR solutions. Instead you must reimplement your solution.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Install XProtect LPR The XProtect LPR software can be downloaded from www.milestonesys.com/downloads. Here you must locate and download two installers, the Milestone XProtect LPR Plugin installer and the Milestone XProtect LPR Server installer. Run the Milestone XProtect LPR Plugin installer on (all) the machine(s) where your XProtect Management Client or Managemement Application and XProtect Event Server are installed.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual LPR servers, sources and lists To run XProtect LPR your must install (see "Install XProtect LPR" on page 10): at least one LPR Server the LPR plug-in on all machines running the XProtect Management Client or Managemement Application and the XProtect Event Server.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual o CPU usage: Shows current CPU usage on the entire machine where the LPR server is installed. o Memory available: Shows how much physical memory is available on the LPR server. o License plates detected: Shows how many license plates have been recognized by the LPR server since it was last down. o LPR cameras: Shows which LPR cameras are running on the LPR server and their status.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual 7. If prompted, confirm to save changes. Your list of cameras also contains cameras from any available slave systems. Due to technical restrains, however, if you have XProtect Enterprise slave systems, some of these might not be available in this view. www.milestonesys.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual LPR camera settings From the LPR Camera Information window, you can configure LPR settings for the selected camera. Info tab Here the selected LPR camera is identified: Enabled: LPR cameras are by default enabled meaning that they are used for LPR. If a camera should not be used for LPR, you must disable it. Disabling LPR on a camera does not stop it from performing normal recording in XProtect Corporate or XProtect Enterprise.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Processing (see "Processing tab" on page 17) This allows you to select a test image and set recognition settings for a specific LPR camera. Select image for test Before you can work with LPR camera settings you must capture a test image, which is used to visualize the effect of the LPR camera settings as they are applied. 1. Click Select Image... and select Capture Image. Use Previous and Next to browse. 2.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual You should avoided completely including irrelevant moving objects such as people, trees, or traffic in the recognition area. Eliminating irrelevant elements and areas in the recognition area is very important to systems performance. If to many irrelevant items are included in the recognition area, this results in "noise" and too many resources spent on analyzing and detecting these irrelevant items instead of license plates.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Character Height tab Here you define the minimum and maximum height of the license plate characters (in percent). These character settings influence the recognition process as they partly determine the recognition time. As a rule, the larger the difference between the minimum and the maximum character size: 1. the more complex the LPR process is 2. the higher the CPU load is 3. the longer you have to wait for the results.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual By tuning the settings on the Processing tab, a trade-off between processing speed and recognition quality can be defined. Thus the recognition process halts if any of the stop criteria are met. Furthermore, limiting the processing frame rate allows using a higher frame rate on the camera without adding an unnecessary load to the LPR server.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual When you are done specifying settings for your LPR system, test your setup (see "Test current LPR configuration" on page 19) in live view to see if it recognizes license plates as expected.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual o Character height: The height of characters (see "Character Height tab" on page 17) on the recognized license plate (in percent). o Confidence: The percent of confidence (see "Processing tab" on page 17) with which the license plate has been recognized. o Lists: The license plate list(s) (see "Working with license plate lists" on page 21) used to recognize the license plate. 3.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual moving/disturbing objects (leaves, people, traffic, signs, patterns, etc.) from the picture and recheck the CPU load (which should be going down). Keep optimizing the picture by removing more unwanted objects and eliminating everything but the license plate and watch the CPU load go down until you are satisfied with the result.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual 3. In the window that appears, give the list a name and define its properties (see "License plate list properties" on page 22). 4. If prompted, confirm to save changes. 5. As soon as you have created a license plate list (see "Working with license plate lists" on page 21), it becomes visible in the License Plate List and on the Lists tab of your LPR camera (see "Add new LPR camera" on page 12).
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Page size: Lets you choose (in intervals) between 50 - 1000 rows, indicating how many license plates should be shown in one page (one screen). Events triggered by list match: Lets you select which event(s) should be triggered by a list match (see "Events based on LPR" on page 24). It is possible to choose between all available types of events available in your XProtect Corporate or XProtect Enterprise.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Events based on LPR You can associate all types of events available in your XProtect Corporate or XProtect Enterprise with a license plate list. However you must first create a license plate list (see "Add new license plate list" on page 21).
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Alarms based on LPR You can base some types of alarms on LPR recognitions. Do the following: As soon as you have created a license plate list (see "Working with license plate lists" on page 21), it becomes visible in the License Plate List and on the Lists tab of your LPR camera (see "Add new LPR camera" on page 12). 1. Create the license plate list (see "Add new license plate list" on page 21) you want to match license plates against. 2.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 b) Administrator's Manual In the second drop-down, select the specific event message to use. If you selected License Plate Lists in the drop-down above, select between your license plate lists. If you selected License Plate Recognition Server, select the relevant LPR server error message: LPR server triggering events messages. LPR cameras: Lets you select which LPR camera(s) or server(s), the event should originate from.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual o Time limit: Lets you select a time limit for when operator action is required. Default setting is 1 minute. The time limit is not active before an event is attached. o Events triggered: Lets you select which event to trigger when the time limit has been reached. Choose additional settings: o Related cameras: Lets you select (a maximum of 15) cameras for inclusion in the LPR alarm definition (note that they do not trigger the alarm themselves).
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual LPR in XProtect Smart Client The XProtect Smart Client is the access client used for viewing LPR video and must be installed on every computer used for this purpose. Any LPR related events or alarms are displayed in the XProtect Smart Client on the LPR tab. www.milestonesys.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Viewing and investigating license plate events License plate recognition (LPR) uses optical character recognition on images to read vehicle registration plates and to extract the alphanumerics of the license plate and store these as records in the system. This information generates events in the system. You can monitor LPR events on the Live tab as these are recorded in the system, and you can view and investigate particular LPR events on the LPR tab.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual LPR settings Displays the name of the LPR camera that generates the list of license plate numbers displayed on the right. To change the camera, click the ellipsis button to open the Select LPR Camera dialog and select a different LPR camera. If you want to display the list of license plates from one camera but want to view video from another, select a different camera in the Camera name field.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Filter LPR events There are several ways you can filter the LPR event list, so it displays just the LPR events that you are interested in; you can click any of the filters at the top of the list to see only LPR events associated with that filter. Any filters you apply are immediately reflected in the list. Period: Select one of the available time periods to see LPR events for that particular period.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual About LPR cameras LPR differs from other kinds of video surveillance. Normally, you choose cameras based on their ability to provide the best possible images for viewing by the human eye. However, when choosing cameras for LPR, only the small part of the images which contains the actual license plate is important.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual o Vehicle speed in km/h: Shutter time in seconds = 1 second / (11 × max vehicle speed in kilometers per hour) o Vehicle speed in mph: Shutter time in seconds = 1 second / (18 × max vehicle speed in miles per hour) where / denotes "divided by" and × denotes "multiplied by." The following table provides guidelines for recommended camera shutter speeds at different vehicle speeds: Max. vehicle Shutter time speed in in seconds kilometers per hour Max.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 o Administrator's Manual Smear is an effect leading to unwanted light vertical lines in images; it is frequently linked to slight imperfections in cameras’ charge-coupled device (CCD) imagers (the sensors used to digitally create the images). In general, CCD imagers with large surfaces are less sensitive to smear than CCD imagers with small surfaces.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Single-line rule: Mount the camera in such a way that you are able to take an image of a single line license plate recorded by the camera, and draw a horizontal line that crosses both the left and right edge of the license plate: Acceptable mounting Incorrect mounting Plate in image center: Mount the camera in such way that an ideal image of the license plate is captured when the license plate is in the center of the recorded image.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual For single line European style plates (plate width 52 cm; stroke width around 1 cm) this typically means that the plate width in the image must be at least 170 pixels. When vehicles are moving when recorded, and an interlaced camera is used, only a half of image can be used (only the even lines). This means that the resolution requirements almost must be doubled. For single line US plates (plate width 30.5 cm; stroke width around 0.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual interfere with the algorithms used in the LPR process. It is therefore recommended that you disable cameras’ contour, edge and contrast enhancement algorithms whenever possible. Automatic compression: High compression rates can have a negative influence on the quality of license plate images. When a high compression rate is used, more resolution (see "Resolution" on page 36) is required in order to achieve optimal LPR performance.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual LPR Server Services When you have installed an LPR server, you can check the state of its services locally via the XProtect LPR Server Manager. This is done via the LPR Server Manager icon in the notification area of the computer running the LPR server. The notification area icon also lets you start and stop the LPR Server Service, view status messages, read log files, etc. Tip: The notification area is also known as the system tray or the tray icon.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Show LPR server log Logs are very useful tools for monitoring and troubleshooting the status of the LPR service. All entries are time-stamped, with the most recent entries at the bottom. 1. Right-click the notification area's LPR Server Manager icon. 2. From the menu that appears, select Show LPR Server Log File... 3. A log-viewer appears listing all relevant server activity with precise time stamp.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Uninstall XProtect LPR When removing XProtect LPR, bear in mind that it consists of two components that have to be removed separately. On the machine(s) where the LPR plugin is installed you must uninstall Milestone XProtect LPR Plugin. On the machine(s) where the LPR server is installed you must uninstall Milestone XProtect LPR Server.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Glossary A Aperture: On a camera, aperture refers to the adjustable opening (a.k.a. iris) used for controlling the amount of light coming through a lens. The aperture thus has a significant effect on the exposure of images. D Dynamic range: A camera's dynamic range determines, among other things, its sensitivity in low- and high-light conditions, how it reacts to changing light conditions, and how sensitive it is to infrared lighting.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Keyframe: Used in the MPEG standard for digital video compression, a keyframe is a single frame stored at specified intervals. The keyframe records the entire view of the camera, whereas the following frames record only the pixels that change. This helps greatly reduce the size of MPEG files. A keyframe is similar to an I-frame. Km/h: Kilometers per hour.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.0 Administrator's Manual Underexposure: Underexposure is when images are exposed to too little light, resulting in a dark image with hardly any contrast. www.milestonesys.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.
® Milestone XProtect LPR 1.
About Milestone Systems Founded in 1998, Milestone Systems is the global industry leader in open platform IP video management software. The XProtect platform delivers powerful surveillance that is easy to manage, reliable and proven in thousands of customer installations around the world.
