Questions · Cameras
At what angle and at what distance do you put a number plate camera?
As head-on and as flat as possible: in general you aim not to go beyond about twenty degrees off the axis of the car, either horizontally or vertically, and below that figure it reads much better. Every extra degree distorts the characters, and past a certain point the plate stops being a rectangle and becomes a trapezium the reader does not recognise.
That means putting the camera low and far away, not high and close, which is exactly the opposite of what instinct asks for. A camera above the barrier looking down sees the bonnet and the roof of the car. The same camera at head height, several metres back from the reading point and with a long lens, sees the plate head-on. If the place does not let you move back, you move the reading point, not the camera.
You also have to fix where the reading happens, and make sure the car goes through there without fail: a narrowed lane, a barrier, a speed bump, the geometry of the entrance itself. A number plate camera pointed at an open yard where every car comes in wherever it likes does not get it right, because the plate falls at a different distance and angle every time.
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