Stabilization and visual analysis of video-recorded sailing sessions

Abstract

One common way to aid coaching and seek to improve athletes’ performance is by recording training sessions for posterior analysis. In the case of sailing, coaches record videos from another boat, but usually rely on handheld devices, which may lead to issues with the footage and missing important moments. On the other hand, by autonomously recording the entire session with a fixed camera, the analysis becomes challenging owing to the length of the video and possible stabilization issues. In this work, we aim to facilitate the analysis of such full-session videos by automatically extracting maneuvers and providing a visualization framework to readily locate interesting moments. Moreover, we address issues related to image stability. Finally, an evaluation of the framework points to the benefits of video stabilization in this scenario and an appropriate accuracy of the maneuver detection method.