Estimation of rotational velocity of baseball using high-speed camera movies

Abstract

Movies can be used to analyze a player's performance and improve his/her skills. In the case of baseball, the pitching is recorded by using a high-speed camera, and the recorded images are used to improve the pitching skills of the players. In this paper, we present a method for estimating of the rotational velocity of a baseball on the basis of movies recorded by high-speed cameras. Unlike in the previous methods, we consider the original seam pattern of the ball seen in the input movie and identify the corresponding image from a database of images by adopting the parametric eigenspace method. These database images are CG Images. The ball's posture can be determined on the basis of the rotational parameters. In the proposed method, the symmetric property of the ball is also taken into consideration, and the time continuity is used to determine the ball's posture. In the experiments, we use the proposed method to estimate the rotational velocity of a baseball on the basis of real movies and movies consisting of CG images of the baseball. The results of both the experiments prove that our method can be used to estimate the ball's rotation accurately. © 2011 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.