Determining X,Y,Z,T biomechanics of moving actor with multiple cameras

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12014503-B2
Application number	US-202318215416-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 28, 2023
Priority date	Apr 15, 2015
Publication date	Jun 18, 2024
Grant date	Jun 18, 2024

Abstract

A plurality of tracking cameras is pointed towards a routine hovering area of an in-the-field sports participant who routinely hovers about that area. Spots within the hovering area are registered relative to a predetermined multi-dimensional coordinates reference frame (e.g., Xw, Yw, Zw, Tw) such that two-dimensional coordinates of 2D images captured by the tracking cameras can be converted to multi-dimensional coordinates of the reference frame. A body part recognizing unit recognizes 2D locations of a specific body part in the 2D captured images and a mapping unit maps them into the multi-dimensional coordinates of the reference frame. A multi-dimensional curve generator then generates a multi-dimensional motion curve describing motion of the body part based on the mapped coordinates (e.g., Xw, Yw, Zw, Tw). The generated multi-dimensional motion curve is used to discover cross correlations between play action motions of the in-the-field sports participant and real-world sports results.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for determining performance attributes comprising:
at least one processor configured for network communication with a plurality of image capturing devices, and at least one server computer and/or at least one local computing device;
wherein at least one of the plurality of image capturing devices generates video data and/or image data including an individual;
wherein the at least one processor is operable to:
receive the video data and/or the image data from the plurality of image capturing devices;
determine the location of one or more body parts of the individual based on the received video data and/or the received image data;
develop a motion curve for one or more limbs of the individual based on the determined locations of the one or more body parts of the individual;
identify frames and/or scan lines from the received video data and/or the received image data associated with spatial points on the motion curve; and
display the frames and/or the scan lines on the at least one server computer and/or the at least one local computing device.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to develop the motion curve using respective temporal segment lengths from the received video data and/or the received image data.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to intertwine and temporally dispose the received video data and/or the received image data along a common timing reference and discard temporally adjacent images.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one server computer and/or the at least one local computing device is operable to display frames corresponding to an identified spatial point on the motion curve.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein a three-dimensional (3D) position is determined by merging the received video data and/or the received image data using a least squares or other error reduction technique.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of pre-registered references spots are known, and wherein when a pre-registered reference spot is captured in an image, coordinates of the image are automatically converted to the 3D coordinates.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein a database stores in-the-field biometric attributes including a heart rate, a breathing rate, a perspiration level, a blood pressure, a galvanic skin response, a topical temperature, and/or cranial electrical activity of a sports participant recorded at the same time as a play action activity.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the motion curve is a multi-dimensional motion curve.

9. A system for determining performance attributes comprising:
at least one processor configured for network communication with a plurality of image capturing devices, and at least one server computer and/or at least one local computing device;
wherein at least one of the plurality of image capturing devices generates video data and/or image data including an individual;
wherein the at least one processor is operable to:
receive the video data and/or the image data from the plurality of image capturing devices;
determine the location of one or more body parts of the individual based on the received video data and/or the received image data; and
develop a multi-dimensional (mD) motion curve for one or more limbs of the individual based on the determined locations of the one or more body parts of the individual.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein inconsistencies between the received video data and/or the received image data are resolved based on biomechanical rules of nature or physical rules of nature.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to intertwine and temporally dispose the received video data and/or the received image data along a common timing reference and discard temporally adjacent images.

12. The system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to construct a four-dimensional (4D) model based on the received video data and/or the received image data.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the at least one processor stores cross associating points of motion relating to environmental conditions and sport event results with the 4D model in a database.

14. The system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one processor develops the mD motion curve within a mD space having at least a time (Tw) axis and three spatial and orthogonal coordinate axes (Xw, Yw, Zw).

15. The system of claim 9 , wherein a database stores data relating to the individual and data including sport event results, and wherein the database is operable to return data and images in response to a user query.

16. A system for determining performance attributes comprising:
at least one processor configured for network communication with a plurality of image capturing devices, and at least one server computer and/or at least one local computing device;
wherein at least one of the plurality of image capturing devices generates video data and/or image data including an individual;
wherein the at least one processor is operable to:
receive the video data and/or the image data from the plurality of image capturing devices;
determine the location of one or more body parts of the individual based on the received video data and/or the received image data;
determine a common timing reference for the received video data and/or the received image data; and
intertwine the video data and/or the image data such that video data and/or the image data are approximately disposed in a temporal sense along the common timing reference.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to develop a multi-dimensional (mD) motion curve.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to identify frames and/or scan lines that correspond with spatial points along the mD motion curve.

19. The system of claim 17 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to fit the mD motion curve with curve fit optimization techniques relative to the received video data and/or the received image data where a subset of the received video data and/or the received image data is given greater weight due to closeness and/or a better point of view (POV).

20. The system of claim 16 , wherein the at least one processor is operable to automatically determine the start and/or end of a play action activity and generate a unique ID label for the play action activity.

Assignees

• Sportsmedia Tech Corp

Inventors

• Perry Mark
• Spivak Joshua
• Zander Ryan A
• Goldbeck Graham Wei-Feng
• Painter James G

Classifications

• G06T2207/10012

  Stereo images · CPC title

• G06T2200/04

  involving 3D image data · CPC title

• H04N23/90

  Arrangement of cameras or camera modules, e.g. multiple cameras in TV studios or sports stadiums · CPC title

• G06T2207/30241

  Trajectory · CPC title

• G06T2207/30221

  Sports video; Sports image · CPC title