SharpOS 14.2 Sharp Portal - ALPR settings page - SharpV | SharpOS 14.2

To navigate to the ALPR settings page, click Configuration > Analytics > ALPR settings.

The following information is displayed:

Location and position

Context

Select which plate origin the SharpV is reading.

Camera orientation

Select the pictograph that describes how the road appears from the camera's perspective. This helps the system to determine the direction that vehicles are traveling.

Analytics:

State

Select this option if you want the SharpV unit to attempt read the license plate origin. Depending on the region, this can refer to the issuing state, province, or country.

Vehicle make

Select this option if you want the SharpV unit to attempt to read the vehicle’s make from the brand or logo (Honda, Toyota, and so on).

Confidence score

The SharpV assigns a confidence score percentage to each license plate read. This value indicates how confident the SharpV is in the accuracy of the read.

NOTE: License plates that contain similar characters such as 8 and B are more difficult to read and generally produce reads with a lower confidence score.

Vehicle type, color, and orientation

Select this option if you want to include the vehicle type, color, and orientation with plate reads. Based on the context image, Sharp analytics can detect if the vehicle is, for example, a light yellow bus, or a dark green passenger vehicle. In addition, Sharp analytics can detect the vehicle orientation, for example, back, or front side.

NOTE: If you have not previously configured the cameras field of view when enabling one of the available analytics, you are prompted to configure it before enabling Vehicle type and color. Click Configure field of view, and follow the on-screen instructions.

Vehicle accessories

Select this option if you want license plate reads to indicate the presence of items such as hitches, spare tires, and other vehicle accessories.

NOTE:

• To enable this feature, contact your AutoVu representative.
• Hitches must be at least 20 px high in the image for detection. Hitch detection can be affected by environmental factors such as snow and ambient lighting.
• Using the vehicle accessories feature increases CPU usage and can affect the frame rate.

Filters

Optimize for static image background

This feature helps to decrease false positives by ignoring parked vehicles, signs, and other static objects.

IMPORTANT:

• Not recommended if only a small part of the image background is static, for example, if many moving trees are visible. This is less likely to happen in installations where the camera is tilted downwards.
• It is not recommended to use this feature in conjunction with Virtual Loop when vehicles are traveling at speed above 50 km/h (30 MPH).

Reads

Zones

If dual-lane monitoring is available in your region, you can configure the camera to identify two lanes in the field of view.

Reading mode

Select one of the following reading modes:

Continuous

Select this for plates to be captured continuously. This is the default setting.

Conditional

When this option is selected, the SharpV captures plate reads continuously as long as the selected input signal meets the condition defined (high/low). You must select an input and specify whether the state is high or low.

Continuous with virtual loop:

This option is automatically selected when you enable the virtual loop feature. With this option, a parking lot gate can still be activated for vehicles with damaged or dirty license plates which cannot be detected by the SharpV ALPR camera.

Single read on trigger

Select this option so the SharpV captures a plate read after a signal is received from an electrical trigger, or after a Security Center event-to-action or hot action. This configuration is useful for controlling vehicle access to gated parking lots. You can configure the plate read capture to occur before or after the trigger is activated.

Add trigger

Select to add a trigger. You must configure the following;

• When. Select which input receives the trigger signal and indicate the state of the input (Low or High). You can also select an External input (Security Center event to-action or hot action).
• Capture Window.
  • Start X ms before/after trigger. The capture can occur up to X ms before or after the trigger is activated.
  • Duration X ms. The system attempts to capture a plate read for up to 30000 ms. 4000 ms is the default value.
    IMPORTANT: The capture window cannot end before the time the trigger is activated.
• If no plates.
  • Capture image X ms after trigger. If no plate is read during the time specified in the Capture window, a "no plate" read is logged and the system captures a context image of the vehicle so the read can be manually edited.
  • Use ALPR image as context image. An image from the ALPR camera is used to replace the context image for the "no plate" read.

Read strategy

Slow-moving vehicle

Select this strategy for fixed Sharp cameras monitoring parking lots and for mobile Sharp cameras used for parking enforcement. Generally results in better ALPR accuracy, but occasionally misses or duplicates plate reads.

Fast-moving vehicle

Select this strategy for fixed Sharp cameras monitoring highways and for mobile Sharp cameras used for law enforcement. This strategy obtains ALPR reads quickly, but often duplicates reads if the plate is in the field of view for a long time.

Gate control

Select this when vehicles must come to a stop when the license plates are read. For example, select this option for a SharpV camera that is monitoring a gated parking lot entrance or toll booth.

Free-Flow

Select this when Free-Flow is enabled on the ALPR Manager. This strategy improves the accuracy of the parking lot occupancy calculation.

NOTE: When using the Free-Flow read strategy, the system waits for the vehicle to exit the field of view before selecting the best plate read. You might notice a delay of a few seconds when monitoring live plate reads. For this reason, we do not recommend using this strategy when the camera outputs are also used to control a physical gates.