Compilation instructions (Ubuntu Linux)

The Easiest Way

(Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit)

wget -O - http://deb.openalpr.com/openalpr.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb http://deb.openalpr.com/master/ openalpr main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openalpr.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openalpr openalpr-daemon openalpr-utils libopenalpr-dev

Test the library

wget http://plates.openalpr.com/ea7the.jpg
alpr -c us ea7the.jpg

wget http://plates.openalpr.com/h786poj.jpg
alpr -c eu h786poj.jpg

The Easy Way

(Ubuntu 14.04+)

# Install prerequisites
sudo apt-get install libopencv-dev libtesseract-dev git cmake build-essential libleptonica-dev
sudo apt-get install liblog4cplus-dev libcurl3-dev

# If using the daemon, install beanstalkd
sudo apt-get install beanstalkd

# Clone the latest code from GitHub
git clone https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr.git

# Setup the build directory
cd openalpr/src
mkdir build
cd build

# setup the compile environment
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr -DCMAKE_INSTALL_SYSCONFDIR:PATH=/etc ..

# compile the library
make

# Install the binaries/libraries to your local system (prefix is /usr)
sudo make install

# Test the library
wget http://plates.openalpr.com/h786poj.jpg -O lp.jpg
alpr lp.jpg

The Harder Way (Compile all dependencies manually)

1. Make sure that dependencies and required tools are installed

• sudo apt-get install --assume-yes libpng12-dev libjpeg62-dev libtiff4-dev zlib1g-dev
• sudo apt-get install --assume-yes build-essential
• sudo apt-get install --assume-yes autoconf automake libtool
• sudo apt-get install --assume-yes git-core
• sudo apt-get install --assume-yes cmake

2. install opencv (tutorial) *http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/doc/tutorials/introduction/linux_install/linux_install.html
3. download and install leptonica and tesseract-ocr

• tesseract-ocr requires leptonica and at least one language package.
• http://www.leptonica.org/source/leptonica-1.70.tar.gz
• https://tesseract-ocr.googlecode.com/files/tesseract-ocr-3.02.02.tar.gz
• https://tesseract-ocr.googlecode.com/files/tesseract-ocr-3.02.eng.tar.gz
• move the downloaded tarballs to some directory. I will assume that they are located at /usr/local/src/openalpr/.

4. unpack the tarballs:

• tar xf /usr/local/src/openalpr/tesseract-ocr-3.02.02.tar.gz
• tar xf /usr/local/src/openalpr/tesseract-ocr-3.02.02.eng.tar.gz
• tar xf /usr/local/src/openalpr/leptonica-1.70.tar.gz

5. compile leptonica:

• cd /usr/local/src/openalpr/leptonica-1.70/
• ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
• make
• make install

6. compile tesseract:

• cd /usr/local/src/openalpr/tesseract-ocr/
• ./autogen.sh
• ./configure
• make
• sudo make install
• sudo ldconfig

7. clone the openalpr repo to /usr/local/src/openalpr/ directory

• cd /usr/local/src/openalpr/
• git clone https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr.git

8. update CMakeLists.txt compile openalpr

• cd /usr/local/src/openalpr/openalpr/
• gedit CMakeLists.txt &
  • SET(OpenCV_DIR "/usr/local/lib")
  • SET(Tesseract_DIR "/usr/local/src/openalpr/tesseract-ocr")
• cmake ./
• make

Note: For Tesseract 3.03 the source files can be downloaded from the main svn branch or https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7l10Bj_LprhQnpSRkpGMGV2eE0&usp=sharing#list.