The VMMR Project - Part 1

So you ask what is a VMMR? VMMR is an acronym for Vehicle Make and Model Recognition. A VMMR system utilizes computer vision techniques to determine the Make and Model of a vehicle e.g. BMW X3, FORD Focus etc.

Why VMMR?

Several vehicle monitoring and security systems are based on automated number plate recognition (ANPR), for example, an ANPR systems could be used to prevent illegal entry into a particular location, or to enforce traffic laws or taxes in a city and could also be used to track vehicles in the event of any crime. One of the available ways of circumventing monitoring and security systems that are based on the ANPR is number plate forgery; here the person involved clones an already registered number plate so as to either gain entrance into a facility as the original owner of the number plate or to evade tracking after committing a criminal offence. Because of number plate forgery, ANPR systems are not sufficient to ensure proper security. One way to solve the problem of number plate forgery would be to argument existing security systems that use ANPR with a vehicle make and model recognition (VMMR) system.With such a system, it will be possible to match the vehicle’s plate numbers with the pre-registered make, model, and even colour of the vehicle. This will the make number plate forgery a more difficult task although not completely impossible. Other possible applications of VMMR are tracking and marketing research.

The VMMR system could also provide improved surveillance and tracking in the event of crime. Most times when a crime is committed and the criminal escapes using a vehicle. The police officers collect a description of the criminal and the escape vehicle. These officers now have to review large amounts of surveillance videos to find the criminal using the given vehicle description. With a VMMR system, the amounts of video to be watched could be reduced to the few places where a particular make and model has been discovered thereby speeding up the capture of the criminal.

Another use of VMMR could for marketing research; a company might decide to do a survey of about the vehicles they manufacture or sell. They wanted to find out how many of such vehicles are being used in a region and target their marketing and advertising based on the results of the survey. A VMMR system can provide an automated way of performing such a survey and returning very accurate results. Now you know how important this project is ............sure you do. Now what's this project about?

The Project

I will be implementing a web-based VMMR system using the following:

1. OpenCv Python Libraries
2. Django - Python web framework
3. OpenShift - Free PAAS used to host the system
4. Other web technologies i.e. JQuery, Ajax..

Conclusion

As you can see the project will contain the works - feature extraction, machine learning etc. I might not release all the source code but will place pointers as to how to get started in each section and improve the articles as I learn stuff. So, I have to get back to work but I will see you soon. Happy coding !