Abstract
This paper presents methods for the determination of players' positions and contact time points by tracking the players and the ball in beach volleyball videos. Two player tracking methods are compared, a classical particle filter and a rigid grid integral histogram tracker. Due to mutual occlusion of the players and the camera perspective, results are best for the front players, with 74,6% and 82,6% of correctly tracked frames for the particle method and the integral histogram method, respectively. Results suggest an improved robustness against player confusion between different particle sets when tracking with a rigid grid approach. Faster processing and less player confusions make this method superior to the classical particle filter. Two different ball tracking methods are used that detect ball candidates from movement difference images using a background subtraction algorithm. Ball trajectories are estimated and interpolated from parabolic flight equations. The tracking accuracy of the ball is 54,2% for the trajectory growth method and 42,1% for the Hough line detection method. Tracking results of over 90% from the literature could not be confirmed. Ball contact frames were estimated from parabolic trajectory intersection, resulting in 48,9% of correctly estimated ball contact points.
Highlights
With increasing computational power of modern computers, complex tracking algorithms are becoming more feasible even for real time applications
The methods presented in this paper were implemented to make video analysis more efficient for beach volleyball, allowing more videos to be analyzed in less time and giving more accurate statistics for an optimal technical or tactical preparation by the trainer staff
A new calibration was used for each new game, but the same calibration was kept for different game points of the same game, keeping the same reference histograms for the players
Summary
With increasing computational power of modern computers, complex tracking algorithms are becoming more feasible even for real time applications. Time efficiency can be an important issue. In the case of professional sports, when doing e.g. video analysis of matches during a tournament, it is important that the material needed by the trainers be available as PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0111730. The methods presented in this paper were implemented to make video analysis more efficient for beach volleyball, allowing more videos to be analyzed in less time and giving more accurate statistics for an optimal technical or tactical preparation by the trainer staff. Developed for the challenging situation that beach volleyball sets to tracking, such as mutual occlusion of the players, net occlusion, sunny and shadowy regions, sand structure and color similar to human skin, the presented methods can be applied to other sports or surveillance applications as well with little modifications
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