Font for registration number plates (license plates)

The development of an integrated automated system, the purpose of which is to automate the access control mechanism based on the license plate recognition system, is a complex and undoubtedly complex task. To solve it, as part of the qualification work for a bachelor's degree, it took me more than one month and more than one hundred cups of tea.

Today, we will look at the algorithm and the results of solving a local task of creating a font in a vector format in accordance with the normative documentation for displaying symbol standards in correlation recognition. At the first stage, we delve into the essence of the problem being solved.

1 "Motherboard": Registration number plate of the Russian Federation

According to GOST R 50577-93 "Signs state registration of vehicles. Types and main sizes. Technical Requirements ”most of the registration marks are of the form shown in the figure below.

Fig. one.

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The standard dimensions of the license plate are 520 × 112 mm. Character combinations on standard license plates are defined in three letters and three digits. The above GOST R 50577-93 refers to the use of 12 Cyrillic letters that have graphic analogs in the Latin alphabet: A, B, E, K, M, H, O, P, C, T, U and X. It should be noted that the letters font size smaller than numbers.

Character typeface is defined by the type 5 according to GOST 3489.2-71 “Typographical fonts. Headset Journal chopped. The figure below shows the area of ​​the GOST font style for pins from 12 and above.

Fig. 2

Before solving a problem, it is always necessary to conduct a study and determine “Have you already solved this task before me?” And “How did you solve it?”. Therefore, we proceed to the next stage, namely the search.

2 “Search”: Font for license plates

The Internet search was short-lived, on the correct request “font car number”, the corporation of good was glad to announce that the font in the vector is available for free download.

It is impossible to immediately rejoice at finding the “free cheese”, so the next step is necessary - to understand how the resulting template will allow to solve the task.

3 "Analysis of applicability": RoadNumbers. otf

In my opinion, it is impossible to get an excellent result without careful analysis, therefore it is recommended to spend a little time, so that convulsively not correct errors and flaws.

And so, the analysis showed the following:

• The font lacks a pair of characters (including the “D” character, see below)
• Font is lowercase
• Outlines only PostScript (I had some problems with it)
• Incomprehensible and superfluous characters

Note: the letter D is used in the registration plates of vehicles of diplomatic missions and trade missions of foreign companies.

4 Bicycle 2.0: RoadNumbers2.0.ttf, RoadNumbers2.0.otf

As a result, work was done to optimize the font, which received the attribute "2.0":

• The font has all 12 + 1 characters.
• Upper and lower case characters are full and have the same outline (provides error exclusion)
• TrueType and PostScript versions
• Unused characters do not have an outline (analogue to "space")

Fig. 3

Result

As a result, we will present a font that, although not perfect, allows us to solve a global problem.

Font Name : RoadNumbers

Version : 2.003 2009

Contours : TrueType, PostScript

Download : cloud.mail.ru/public/N9yx/KykoNxzyM

Sources:

1. GOST R 50577-93 "Signs state registration vehicles. Types and main sizes. Technical requirements"
2. GOST 3489.2-71 “Typographical fonts. Chopped Magnet Headset »
3. Wikipedia Article "Index of car numbers in Russia"