Patent ID: 8792682

Claim:
A method for locating a license plate, said method comprising: analyzing an image of a vehicle utilizing a top-down analysis method to identify a potential license plate area of a license plate by producing a binarized image of said image of said vehicle; locating and binarizing a busy area of said image of said vehicle and thereafter classifying a black run with respect to a binarized image and generating a plurality of objects based on a black run classification; classifying said black run of said binarized image into at least three categories based on length by a run classification unit; utilizing a run-length based filter to filter out non-text objects by retaining at least two smallest categories of said at least three categories of said black run in order to thereafter spatially cluster at least one leftover object; analyzing said at least one leftover object utilizing a bottom-up analysis method by examining a uniformity and a linearity of a clustered object of said at least one leftover object based on a linearity test in order to thereafter match a detected object with a plate edge characteristic in order to locate a license plate; and generating a license plate identification of said license plate.