The Ball Tracking Method by Integration of Multi-Viewpoint Images for Camera Viewpoint Selection in Soccer Game Broadcasting
Keisuke Matsumoto, Satoshi SUDO, Hideo Saitô, Shinji Ozawa · IEEJ Transactions on Electronics Information and Systems · 2001
In this paper, a new method for selecting a camera viewpoint automatically for soccer scene by tracking a ball is proposed. The soccer scene is taken by multiple fixed cameras. First, template matching is imple-mented for every image taken with each camera to detect and to track the ball. If the ball is occluded in one of images, the ball is tracked by using the position of the extracted ball in other camera. The tracked ball positions are integrated by using the geometrical relationship between cameras that is represented by Fundamental Matrix. For selecting the camera view, we define an evaluation function for camera selection based on tracking information of the ball. The system selects camera viewpoint of each frame automatically by finding the camera that gives maximum evaluation of camera selection. Experimental results demonstrate that the camera viewpoint is successfully selected for soccer scene by using the proposed system.