Tracking players in highly complex scenes in broadcast soccer video using a constraint satisfaction approach

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with player tracking in broadcast soccer video. In soccer games, players sometimes gather in a small area in the case of, for example, a corner kick. In such a case, due to a heavy occlusion, a simple detection-and-tracking method will certainly fail. We cope with such difficult cases using a constraint satisfaction approach. To integrate pieces of evidence at various places and frames, we construct a graph of player blobs representing possible player transitions. The view of each blob provides a constraint on the number of players in the blob. All such constraints are propagated through the graph to reduce the ambiguities in the numbers. The remaining ambiguities after the propagation is handled by a statistical approach in which a set of the most likely interpretations on the numbers is selected. Finally the players' trajectory are determined based on their smoothness. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the method.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.10 Vision and Scene Understanding
            Subjects: Video analysis

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.4 IMAGE PROCESSING AND COMPUTER VISION
      I.4.8 Scene Analysis
          Subjects: Tracking

General Terms:
Algorithms

Keywords:
broadcast soccer video, constraint satisfaction, player tracking