Enhancing a still from video

[jackhandsome]

I am trying to enhance this photo to grab the license plate number. This is only a print screen of the original video feed. I do also have the video clip in .264 and a converted .avi format if anyone would be interested. If anyone can suggest a program that will do what I need I would appreciate it greatly. Thank you in advance.

[edDV]

Is this truck stopped or in motion? If stopped and the camera is steady, then better deinterlace plus frame averaging will help make the numbers resolve.

[jagabo]

You need to post the original video.

[jackhandsome]

It is a vehicle in motion. The picture is just a print screen from the beginning of the video while paused. I have uploaded the video here. Thank you all for your replies so far.

[themaster1]

There is a software called Vreveal (not free) otherwise avisynth might help i guess
Edit:
if that can help i can clearly see the 1st part of the plate with number 18 then it's more ..blurry
I thought it was a 13 but after reflection it's an 18
Than the letter right after i'd say it a capital T but i'm less sure

Edit 2:
It's strange because i see 7 now rather than a T and 187 means murder; is this card related to a person's murder ?
So what i see now is 187/H (187 slash H). It's rather short for a car plate no ? I'm not familiar with american cars plates being french but i hope it helps.

other guesses:
187/13
18T/13
see pictures attached:
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8281/43090591.png

[lowellriggsiam]

It looks like AS5-1772. Unfortunately I am unable to load the avi into photoshop cs4, I just get a white layer with a film indicator. In this case a in a good video editor adjusting the color levels should clear it up a bit.

[jackhandsome]

This is all great stuff. I really appreciate the replies. I have been working on this for almost a month now and still haven't gotten it yet. AS5-1772 looks pretty close to me but when I look that up in publicdata.com it shows the truck as a ford which this one is a Chevy. Keep up the great posts as it is much appreciated.

[lowellriggsiam]

It appeared like AS5-1772 when I adjused the white/black color levels in After Effects. At least, I could import that that there.

[lowellriggsiam]

This is with a levels adjustment

[poisondeathray]

Is this a Texas plate ? or out of state ?

How are Texas plates arranged ? XXX-XXX ? or XXX-XXXX ?

it looks like 5 characters to me , like themaster1's guesses

13XXX
13978?

[jackhandsome]

Yes it is a Texas license plate. In the last year or 2 they went to the new plates with 7 letters and numbers as there were only 6 before then. To me it looks like a 7 number plate.

[poisondeathray]

The other ones you can try are Focus Magic, and Topaz In Focus

http://www.focusmagic.com/


The examples they have are incredible, license plates clear as crystal, forensic recovery etc... - but I tried them a while back and they don't work so good. Maybe they have recently improved but I doubt it

Things just aren't like CSI Miami in the real world

Good luck

[jackhandsome]

While I realize things aren't like CSI I have to think someone can get numbers off of that. I have been looking around for a video forensic place that can take a look at it. I think with the right program and knowing how to use it it can be done. Over the last month looking into this (which is all new to me) I have found that there are so many different programs that do so many incredible things. So to me it's just a matter of either figuring these programs out and hitting that sweet spot or turning it over to a professional.

[lowellriggsiam]

As5-17772? As5-17771?

[jagabo]

This is why AVC shouldn't be used for security cameras. That is the original video without reencoding, right?

Maybe someone can make something out of this...

[poisondeathray]

If you get a forensic place to look at it I'd love to hear how it turned out

Do you have difference license plates for "non regular" civilians or state vehicles ? In some places, plates might differ for say, a municipal vehicle than regular ones

Just to be clear, was that the untouched, original video ?

[themaster1]

Just a thought but if you know the type of font they use on these plates that would help a lot imo

[jackhandsome]

That's a good question about the municipal plates possibly being different from regular. I will look into that, haven't though about that. That's whats great about posting this here I can get all different perspectives and ideas. I really do appreciate all the help so far. As far as the video being untouched it is not. what I posted was a file converted from a .264 format to .avi as most people can not do much with a .264 file. The link below is to a zipped file that contains the original untouched .264 file and the .avi file.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M7PV3D74

Actually I guess I can just upload the .264 here:

Just tied uploading the .264 but says the file is invalid. It is in the above zip file though.

[lowellriggsiam]

Adjusted color levels. I wish I had recorded a forensic video on how NASA cleaned up a video taken from an ATM.

[jagabo]

I thought I would try tracking the license plate and zooming in with AviSynth's Animate() function. I would then average all the frames together and try an unsharpen mask. But the motion of the plate isn't linear so it wanders within the frame. So I left it after the animate stage, with a little contrast enhancement. I didn't go too far with the contrast enhancement to leave room to fiddle with individual frames. The attached HuffYUV video may help (frame rate slowed to 2 fps)...



It looks to me like the number may be A54 1723. Although the 1 seems to be too thick so it may be something else. Knowing exactly what all the numbers and letters should look like would help.

I think there's still hope for the average and unsharpen mask technique, but someone with more patience than me will have to go through the video frame by frame to align the license plate.

[davexnet]

The irony is this: What is the good of a security camera where the detail is so low, you can't really see anything.
Surely, defeats the whole object of having the camera in the first place.

[Cornucopia]

I don't remember the terminology at the moment, but in forensic work there's varying levels: Recognition of something occuring (AT ALL), Identification of what type/model, etc something might be, and actual Verification of Identity. This last one is what is asked for by the OP.
That security cam is still great at telling you that at 11:28:09 AM on 3/25/2011 a truck appeared in it's view. You might even be able to figure out the make/model of the truck. But you often DO need much more resolution than many security cams currently give to be able to verify the identity.

Scott

[poisondeathray]

I think there's still hope for the average and unsharpen mask technique, but someone with more patience than me will have to go through the video frame by frame to align the license plate.

You can motion track it using AE to align the plate

The only thing I adjusted was a bit of levels, no other enhancements, sharpening or nnedi3.

I only included "good" frames. If you wanted some of the distorted frames let me know

This is RGB uncompressed . Maybe someone can frame average it or do something with it

[themaster1]

I'd be curious to understand how one can see the numbers A5XXX written on this plate, really.I'm not saying my guesses are best but i fail to see how one can see an A when i see a 1.

[poisondeathray]

I'd be curious to understand how one can see the numbers A5XXX written on this plate, really.I'm not saying my guesses are best but i fail to see how one can see an A when i see a 1.

I'm with you! All the American posters seem to see something different



Here is a manipulation done in AE on a static frame (not on the motion track clip above) , where I'm moving a shining light below the plate and it embosses the edge to enhance the characters at different angles

I can only see 5 characters. Looks like 1847H to me . How are you guys coming up with 7 or 8 digits or placeholders ???

Included is a lower quality animated gif illustration and the uncompressed RGB simulation in the zip file

[themaster1]

Good job poisondeathray i can see 184XH aswell.I'm not sure about the 7 though. I suppose if a u.s car plate contain only letters and numbers then that's a 7 otherwise i stick with the slash.

You earned your "foresensic of the month" title

[poisondeathray]

Yeah good point about the "7" . The top part isn't completely visible. If looks sort of like a "7" on the motion tracked sample.

I was hoping someone could clean up or frame average the motion tracked clip...But now I see a problem with that. If you open up the raw stream in an analyzer - the 1st good frame ,19, is the keyframe (I) . Every other frame that has a license visible is a P-frame based on that I frame . While in theory, you could get a higher quality P-frame coding the differences, these are very low bitrate P-frames . So I doubt a frame averaging approach will add much

How is everyone else seeing 7 or 8 characters length ?

[jackhandsome]

Wow all really good posts I really appreciate the effort put into them. Thank you all. Oh, did I mention I would give $100 to anyone that could figure all numbers out?

[jagabo]

FWIW, 16 frames from poisondeathray's motion tracked video averaged together:



normal size and 4x precise bicubic enlargement in VirtualDub.

[themaster1]

That's what i get when i use my favorite tools (avisynth and video enhancer among other things)