Systems and methods for analyzing sports impacts

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016267663-A1
Application number	US-201415036628-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 14, 2014
Priority date	Nov 14, 2013
Publication date	Sep 15, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method for analyzing sports impacts includes capturing video of game play from multiple locations using video cameras, tracking the heads of players of the games in the video, computing motion parameters of the heads, and determining if one or more of the motion parameters exceeds a threshold established for that parameter.

First claim

Claimed are:

1 . A method for analyzing sports impacts, the method comprising:
capturing video of game play from multiple locations using video cameras; tracking the heads of players of the games in the video; computing motion parameters of the heads; and determining if one or more of the motion parameters exceeds a threshold established for that parameter.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein capturing video comprises capturing video using multiple video cameras positioned at different locations around a periphery of the field of play.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein capturing video comprises capturing video with four video cameras.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein tracking the heads of players comprises comparing frames captured by the cameras with one or more three-dimensional helmet models.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein computing motion parameters comprises automatically determining camera parameters from the captured video.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the camera parameters include camera orientation and zoom setting.

7 . The method of claim 5 , wherein automatically determining camera parameters comprises comparing frames captured by the cameras with a model of the field of play.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein computing motion parameters comprises calculating a planar homography for each pair of cameras.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein computing motion parameters further comprises generating planar projections from each camera to multiple points on each detected helmet using the planar homographies.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein computing motion parameters further comprises computing vectors associated with the planar projections.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein computing motion parameters further comprises computing intersections of the vectors for each pair of cameras.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein computing motion parameters further comprises computing centroids of the intersections for each pair of cameras.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein computing motion parameters comprises automatically determining orientations of the detected helmets.

14 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising issuing an alert if one or more of the motion parameters exceeds a threshold established for that parameter.

15 . The method claim 1 , further comprising recording all computed motion parameters if one or more of the motion parameters exceeds a threshold established for that parameter.

16 . A sports impact analysis system comprising:
multiple video cameras adapted to capture video data of a sporting event; and a computing device in communication with the video cameras, the computing device executing a video analysis system including:
logic configured to tracking the heads of players of the games in the video,
logic configured to compute motion parameters of the heads, and
and logic configured to determine if one or more of the motion parameters exceeds a threshold established for that parameter.

17 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the system comprises four video cameras.

18 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the logic configured to track the heads of players comprises logic configured to compare frames captured by the cameras with one or more three-dimensional helmet models.

19 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the logic configured to compute motion parameters is configured to automatically determine camera parameters from the captured video.

20 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the logic configured to compute motion parameters is configured to calculate a planar homography for each pair of cameras.

21 . The system of claim 20 , wherein the logic configured to compute motion parameters is further configured to generate planar projections from each camera to multiple points on each detected helmet using the planar homographies.

22 . The system of claim 21 , wherein the logic configured to compute motion parameters is further configured to compute vectors associated with the planar projections.

23 . The system of claim 22 , wherein the logic configured to compute motion parameters is further configured to compute intersections of the vectors for each pair of cameras.

24 . The system of claim 23 , wherein the logic configured to compute motion parameters is further configured to compute centroids of the intersections for each pair of cameras.

25 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the video analysis software further comprises logic configured to issue an alert if one or more of the motion parameters exceeds a threshold established for that parameter.

26 . The system claim 16 , wherein the video analysis software further comprises logic configured to record all computed motion parameters if one or more of the motion parameters exceeds a threshold established for that parameter.

Assignees

• Uab Res Found

Inventors

• Sicking Dean
• Cohen Seth
• Leonard Dennis

Classifications

• G06K9/00771

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06K9/00342

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06T2207/10024

  Color image · CPC title

• H04N7/181

  for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources · CPC title

• G06T2207/30221

  Sports video; Sports image · CPC title