Method and apparatus for receiving vehicle information from an image and posting the vehicle information to a website

A mobile apparatus, comprising:

• an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, wherein the optical image comprises a plurality of object images, and wherein one of the plurality of object images comprises an image of a vehicle license plate;
• a license plate detector configured to:
• process, by a processor, the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,
• process, by the processor, the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,
• process, by the processor, the electrical signal to score each of said cropped one or more of the object images based on a probability that the cropped object image comprises the vehicle license plate image, wherein each of the cropped one or more object images is scored by:
• detecting a plurality of alphanumeric characters in the object image, and
• applying a score based on a position of one of the plurality of characters relative to a position of another one of the plurality of characters, and
• based on said scored object images, process, by the processor the electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image from a portion of the electrical signal corresponding to said one of the plurality of object images;
• and
• an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus, receive vehicle configuration information for a vehicle corresponding to the vehicle license plate in response to the transmission, and receive user input to post the vehicle configuration information to an external website.

A mobile apparatus, comprising:

• an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, the optical image comprising an image of a vehicle license plate;
• a display;
• a rendering module configured to render the optical image to the display;
• an image filter configured to apply one or more filter parameters to the electrical signal based on at least one of color temperature of the image, ambient light, and motion of the apparatus;
• a license plate detector configured to:
• process, by a processor, the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,
• process, by the processor, the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,
• process, by the processor, the electrical signal to score each of said cropped one or more of the object images based on a probability that the cropped object image comprises the vehicle license plate image, wherein each of the cropped one or more object images is scored by:
• detecting a plurality of alphanumeric characters in the object image, and
• applying a score based on a position of one of the plurality of characters relative to a position of another one of the plurality of characters, and
• based on said scored object images, process, by the processor the electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image;
• wherein the rendering module is further configured to overlay a detection indicator on the displayed optical image to assist the user position of the apparatus with respect to the optical image in response to a signal from the image filter;
• and
• wherein the rendering module is further configured to provide an alert to the display when the license plate detector fails to recover the vehicle license plate information;
• and
• an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus, receive vehicle configuration information for a vehicle corresponding to the vehicle license plate in response to the transmission, and receive user input to post the vehicle configuration information to an external website.

A computer program product for a mobile apparatus having an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, the optical image including a plurality of object images, wherein one of the object images comprises an image of a vehicle license plate, the computer program product comprising:

• a non-transitory machine readable medium comprising code to:
• process the electrical signal to select said one of the object images;
• process the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,
• process the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,
• process the electrical signal to score each of said cropped one or more of the object images based on a probability that the cropped object image comprises the vehicle license plate image, wherein each of the cropped one or more object images is scored by:
• detecting a plurality of alphanumeric characters in the object image, and
• applying a score based on a position of one of the plurality of characters relative to a position of another one of the plurality of characters, and
• based on said scored object images, process a portion of the electrical signal corresponding to the selected said one of the object images to recover information from the vehicle license plate image;
• transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus;
• receive vehicle configuration information for a vehicle corresponding to the vehicle license plate in response to the transmission;
• and
• receive user input to post the vehicle configuration information to an external website.

A mobile apparatus, comprising:

• an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, the optical image including an image of a vehicle license plate;
• a timing circuit configured to sample the electrical signal at a frame rate;
• a license plate detector configured to:
• process, by a processor, the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,
• process, by the processor, the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,
• process, by the processor, the electrical signal to score each of said cropped one or more of the object images based on a probability that the cropped object image comprises the vehicle license plate image, wherein each of the cropped one or more object images is scored by:
• detecting a plurality of alphanumeric characters in the object image, and
• applying a score based on a position of one of the plurality of characters relative to a position of another one of the plurality of characters, and based on said scored object images, process, by the processor the sampled electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image;
• and
• an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus, receive vehicle configuration information for a vehicle corresponding to the vehicle license plate in response to the transmission, and receive user input to post the vehicle configuration information to an external website.