Robust trajectory estimation of soccer players by using two cameras

This paper proposes a method to estimate the trajectories of soccer players by using two cameras set in a large-scale outdoor space such as a soccer stadium, which is normally not advantageous for image processing. We estimate a player¿s position as the intersection of the primary axes of two body regions, corresponding to the two cameras, and a shadow region on the surface of the field. By projecting the foreground silhouette regions extracted from both cameras¿ images onto the soccer field, each player¿s body region and its shadow region are identified. Furthermore, our method utilizes color information of the players´ uniforms to improve the accuracy of object tracking. We have applied our proposed method to a real soccer game held in a soccer stadium and demonstrated its effectiveness.