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 openalpr
 ========
 
-Automated License Plate Recognition library
+OpenALPR is an open source *Automated License Plate Recognition* library written in C++.  The library analyzes images and identifies license plates.  The output is the text representation of any license plate characters found in the image.
+
+Check out a live online demo here: http://www.openalpr.com/demo.html
+
+User Guide
+-----------
+
+OpenALPR includes a command line utility.  Simply typing "alpr [image file path]" is enough to get started recognizing license plate images.
+
+```
+user@linux:~/openalpr$ alpr --help
+
+USAGE: 
+
+   alpr  [-t <region code>] [-r <runtime_dir>] [-n <topN>]
+         [--seek <integer_ms>] [-c <country_code>]
+         [--clock] [-d] [-j] [--] [--version] [-h]
+         <image_file_path>
+
+
+Where: 
+
+   -t <region code>,  --template_region <region code>
+     Attempt to match the plate number against a region template (e.g., md
+     for Maryland, ca for California)
+
+   -r <runtime_dir>,  --runtime_dir <runtime_dir>
+     Path to the OpenAlpr runtime data directory
+
+   -n <topN>,  --topn <topN>
+     Max number of possible plate numbers to return.  Default=10
+
+   --seek <integer_ms>
+     Seek to the specied millisecond in a video file. Default=0
+
+   -c <country_code>,  --country <country_code>
+     Country code to identify (either us for USA or eu for Europe). 
+     Default=us
+
+   --clock
+     Measure/print the total time to process image and all plates. 
+     Default=off
+
+   -d,  --detect_region
+     Attempt to detect the region of the plate image.  Default=off
+
+   -j,  --json
+     Output recognition results in JSON format.  Default=off
+
+   --,  --ignore_rest
+     Ignores the rest of the labeled arguments following this flag.
+
+   --version
+     Displays version information and exits.
+
+   -h,  --help
+     Displays usage information and exits.
+
+   <image_file_path>
+     (required)  Image containing license plates
+
+
+   OpenAlpr Command Line Utility
+```
+
+For example, the following output is created by analyzing the plate image at this URL: http://www.openalpr.com/images/demoscreenshots/plate3.png
+
+The library is told that this is a Missouri (MO) license plate which validates the plate letters against a regional template.
+
+```
+user@linux:~/openalpr$ alpr ./samplecar.png -t mo -r ~/openalpr/runtime_dir/
+
+plate0: top 10 results -- Processing Time = 58.1879ms.
+    - PE3R2X     confidence: 88.9371	 template_match: 1
+    - PE32X      confidence: 78.1385	 template_match: 0
+    - PE3R2      confidence: 77.5444	 template_match: 0
+    - PE3R2Y     confidence: 76.1448	 template_match: 1
+    - P63R2X     confidence: 72.9016	 template_match: 0
+    - FE3R2X     confidence: 72.1147	 template_match: 1
+    - PE32       confidence: 66.7458	 template_match: 0
+    - PE32Y      confidence: 65.3462	 template_match: 0
+    - P632X      confidence: 62.1031	 template_match: 0
+    - P63R2      confidence: 61.5089	 template_match: 0
+
+```
+
+Compiling
+-----------
+
+OpenALPR has been compiled successfully on Linux, however other operating systems should also work.
+
+OpenALPR requires the following additional libraries:
+
+    - Tesseract OCR v3.x (https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/) 
+    - OpenCV v2.4.x (http://opencv.org/)
+
+After cloning this GitHub repository, you should download and extract Tesseract and OpenCV source code into their own directories.  Compile both libraries.
+
+Update the src/CMakeLists.txt file in the OpenALPR project.  Update the following lines to match the directories of your libraries on your system:
+    - SET(OpenCV_DIR "../libraries/opencv/")
+    - SET(Tesseract_DIR "/home/mhill/projects/alpr/libraries/tesseract-ocr")
+
+Finally, in the src directory, execute the following commands:
+    - cmake ./
+    - make
+
+If all went well, there should be an executable named *alpr* along with *libopenalpr.a* that can be linked into your project.
+
+
+Questions
+---------
+Please post questions or comments to the Google group list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/openalpr
+
+License
+-------
+
+Affero GPLv3
+http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html
+
+