Added Number plate detection project

[iamdevdhanush]

What is this Python project?

This is a real-time Number Plate Detection project using Python and OpenCV.
It detects vehicle number plates from webcam feed, images, or video, and optionally saves cropped plate images.
It is beginner-friendly and modular, so others can expand it for automation, security, or traffic monitoring projects.

Features

• Real-time detection using OpenCV (Haar cascades + contour filtering)
• Works with images, video, and webcam feed
• Saves detected number plates as images with timestamp
• Modular and easy to extend for ANPR or traffic analytics projects

Why it is useful / Difference from similar projects

• Lightweight and runs in real-time without heavy models
• Easy-to-understand code for beginners learning OpenCV and image processing
• Can be integrated with OCR tools like EasyOCR for full license plate recognition
• Serves as a base for traffic monitoring, security, or AI experiments

---

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[github-actions]

👋 @iamdevdhanush
Thank you for raising your pull request.
Please make sure you have followed our contributing guidelines. We will review it as soon as possible.

[iamwatchdogs]

Hi @iamdevdhanush, Please make the following changes:

• Remove mp4 file
• Remove xml file
• Update your program (either with suggested workaround or your own logic that doesn't include those file locally)
• Remove the licensing part from README.md

Important

To remove those mp4 and xml file, please perform interactive rebasing along with force push to the branch which you made this PR. This would remove the existance of those files from commit history.

Note

If you need help with interactive rebasing, please refer to YouTube tutorials or ping @iamwatchdogs for help. Remember, Closing PR won't fix this issue.

[iamwatchdogs]

Please remove this mp4 file from this PR. The PR shouldn't include any binary files.

[iamwatchdogs]

Please remove this xml file from this PR. Despite being a formatted text file, this is more like a config file that contains some sort of metadata.

[iamwatchdogs]

We have requested that you remove the required files (mp4 file and xml file) for this program to work properly. Here's a workaround that could work for your program:

Suggested change

	import cv2
	import os
	import time
	cascade_path = 'indian_license_plate.xml'
	plate_cascade = cv2.CascadeClassifier(cascade_path)
	if plate_cascade.empty():
	print(f"Error loading cascade from {cascade_path}")
	exit()
	os.makedirs('plates', exist_ok=True)
	video_path = 'Trafic Camera.mp4'
	cap = cv2.VideoCapture(video_path)
	if not cap.isOpened():
	print(f"Error opening video file {video_path}")
	exit()
	import cv2
	import os
	import time
	import urllib.request
	import tempfile
	def download_if_url(path):
	if isinstance(path, str) and path.startswith(('http://', 'https://')):
	try:
	suffix = os.path.splitext(path)[1] or ''
	tmp = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(delete=False, suffix=suffix)
	tmp.close()
	print(f"Downloading {path} ...")
	urllib.request.urlretrieve(path, tmp.name)
	return tmp.name
	except Exception as e:
	print(f"Failed to download {path}: {e}")
	return path
	return path
	cascade_path = 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iamdevdhanush/Number-Plate-Detection/refs/heads/main/indian_license_plate.xml'
	cascade_path = download_if_url(cascade_path)
	plate_cascade = cv2.CascadeClassifier(cascade_path)
	if plate_cascade.empty():
	print(f"Error loading cascade from {cascade_path}")
	exit()
	os.makedirs('plates', exist_ok=True)
	video_path = 'https://github.com/iamdevdhanush/Number-Plate-Detection/raw/refs/heads/main/Trafic%20Camera.mp4'
	video_path = download_if_url(video_path)
	cap = cv2.VideoCapture(video_path)
	if not cap.isOpened():
	print(f"Error opening video file {video_path}")
	exit()

[iamdevdhanush]

Hi @iamwatchdogs,

I’ve updated the implementation to remove any dependency on local mp4 or xml files by using OpenCV’s built-in Haar cascade and defaulting to webcam input.

I’ve also performed an interactive rebase and force-pushed the branch so the mp4 and xml files are completely removed from the commit history, and removed the license section from the README.

Please let me know if any further changes are required.

[iamwatchdogs]

Hi @iamdevdhanush,

We have reviewed your changes. We want to remind you that reverting changes doesn't completely remove the traces of"input" files (such as mp4 or xml). These files can be recovered by reverting the "deleted" revert commits.

We want you to perform interactive rebasing for this branch to edit the initial commit (i.e., 6f94836c) and delete the mp4 & xml file, and during the same interactive rebasing session, remove the reverting commit that you have made. After all these changes, force-push your reorganised commit history to the remote branch.

We can proceed with these changes. Please feel free to ask any questions for clarification or help needed.

Tip

Here's a sample YouTube Tutorial for using interactive rebasing.