Engineers at Emmy-Award winning Sportvision (Chicago, IL, USA) have developed a system that can track and digitally record the position and behavior of baseball players.
The so-called FIELDf/x system captures video data from a baseball pitch using four GigE Vision Prosilica GX cameras from Allied Vision Technologies (AVT; Stadtroda, Germany) that are mounted on the stadium structure inside weatherproof enclosures overlooking the field.
The cameras image continuously at 30fps and produce a constant stream of video data at 230 MBytes/s. During the course of a typical baseball game, approximately 2.5TBytes of data are recorded.
Using the image data collected by the cameras, Sportvision's baseball software tracks and digitally records the position of all players, pitches, hit balls and throws and analyzes the data to provide information on a player's speed and reaction time as well as tracking the trajectory of the ball.
The data is also stored on a database which can be accessed by coaches, scouts and managers to help them prepare game tactics or select a bench line-up.
The FIELDf/x system has now been implemented in five ballparks across North America.
More information can be found here.
Other baseball related stories from Vision Systems Design you might also be interested in.
1. Vision-based tool gets a grip on pitching technique
Students at Rice University (Houston, TX, USA) have developed a vision-based tool that can be used for the qualitative analysis of a baseball pitcher's grip.
2. Vision improves bat performance
A sporting-goods manufacturer uses high-speed camera to improve the mechanical properties of baseball bats and hockey sticks.
-- Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design
