SeeRoad - Software Trigger LPR system

Home > Products > SeeCar product line > SeeRoad

SeeRoad is a single-lane license plate recognition system using an internal software trigger. It is based on the image only, detecting the motion within a predefined "hot" detection rectangle. It is used in temporary installations - when a fixed installation or sensor are not available. It can also be used for installations where sensors are not available or not permitted, such as the case of casino gates.

The system can be used to monitor the traffic of vehicles at the side of a road or highway lane, in order to alert on the detection of wanted vehicles (for example, roadblocks for detecting stolen cars) or for other purposes. It could also be used to read license plates from a Video Tape for post analysis.

A sample session is shown below. In this typical display the following fields appear (press on the image to get a larger display):

Main image display (in the center) – shows the last capture and recognition result as title. In the capture history mode it will display the selected event.
Events history (on the right table) – shows the history of the recognitions. In Idle mode a certain event can be selected and displayed.
Trigger status (on the bottom) – the live status of the trigger (state switch from ON to OFF)
Operation mode status (on the bottom right corner)

SeeRoad Main display (press on the image to get a larger display)

This sample installation is used for catching cars in cases of warrant of arrest, unpaid fines or taxes and stolen cars. It deals with a database of up to 0.5 million entries. The stand-alone real-time system automatically recognizes the car plate number then searches a database. It sounds an alarm when a car has been detected in the 'black' list, and displays the vehicle and arrest information contained in the record. This revolutionary system simplifies the roadblock operation and thus helps to increase selective enforcement.

The system is portable and installed in minutes by the police officer. It is installed in a battery powered lunch-box PC. It operates day and night on a free-flowing traffic at average speeds of 10-80 KMH. All the officer needs to do is wait for the siren, then stop the car and verify the arrest details, as seen in the film clip above.

SeeRoad has only a single-lane configuration, but can be configured with several cameras to one of the following options (according to the ordered license):

Single camera per lane (the default option; for standard lanes)
Dual camera per lane (“Stereo”; for wider lanes)
Additional color camera (to take a wide color view)

The following illustration shows a typical configuration of a SeeRoad LPR system (for example, for 2-cameras per lane traffic monitoring system).

The application runs as a background Windows application in the PC (shown in the center), and interfaces to a set of SeeCarTraffic camera/illumination units (one for each vehicle) which are interfaced by the frame grabber. The application controls the sensors and controls via an I/O card (optional for SeeRoad) that is connected thru a terminal block to the outputs (illumination control and optional Siren activation).

The main output of the application is a DDE message, which is easily integrated into a Client application locally or across the network. Our SDK (Software Development Kit) comes with several ready-made Client applications that can be a basis for this integration and custom-built applications. For more details - see SeeLane integration concept.

SeeRoad triggers when the plate is seen entering a detection zone. The detection zone (a red rectangle) can be manually updated in both size and position, as seen in the following picture: