Impact of Font on Computer Recognition of License Plates on Automobiles

Abstract

The chosen font type in the license plate (LP) plays a vital role in the recognition phase in computer-based operations. Some fonts are challenging for humans to read; however, other fonts are challenging for computer systems to recognize. Here, we present two sets of results for font evaluation: font anatomy results, and recognition results for commercial products. For anatomy results, two typical LP fonts are considered: Mandatory, and Driver Gothic. Moreover, we evaluate the effect of these fonts in context for two datasets using two commercial products: OpenALPR and Plate Recognizer. The font anatomy results revealed some important confusion cases and some quality features of both fonts. The obtained results show that the Driver font has less severe confusion cases than the Mandatory font.