Smart-court system and method for providing real-time debriefing and training services of sport games

Abstract

A Smart-court system, adaptive to constrained sport environment, for enabling real time analysis and debriefing of sport activities is provided herein. The Smart-court system is comprised of: (i) an automatic recording system comprising a plurality of video cameras located in a court, arranged to real-time (RT) recording of a sport session and utilizing automatic calibration and stabilization module; and (ii) a data processing system comprising: (a) a capture module for grabbing a video stream; (b) an objects' detector module arranged to extract during the RT sport session, the objects from the foreground of each frame; (c) an event module for automatically analyzing, the motion and the activities of the tracked objects for automatically identifying and classifying events, creating a synchronized event log and calculating statistics that occurred during the RT sport session; and (d) a presentation module enabling to perform instant debriefing, combined biomechanical and tactical analysis of the video.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A Smart-court system, comprising:
 a computer programmed to implement:   a capture module, for receiving a video stream of a sport session;   an object detector module, for tracking at least one object as appearing in the video stream;   an event module, for analyzing motion of the tracked at least one object, for identifying a plurality of events and classifying the identified events into types based on said tracking and analyzing, and for creating a synchronized event log of the classified events based on said identifying and classifying; and   a presentation module, for allowing a user to selectively play at least one of the identified events classified into the types, by type, using the synchronized event log.   
     
     
         2 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , further comprising a tracking module configured to identify a part of the sport session, the part starting with a ball stroke and ending with a player gaining a score. 
     
     
         3 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein one of the at least one tracked object is a player and the computer is further programmed to yield a pattern of behavior of the player from more than one of the identified events. 
     
     
         4 . The smart-court system of  claim 3 , wherein the computer is further programmed to generate a profile of the player, the profile comprising information based at least in part, on the yielded pattern of behavior. 
     
     
         5 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein said computer is further programmed to perform automatic calibration by dividing a court as appearing in the video stream using at least one grid, and in each frame of the video stream, checking the grid for deviation of a line of the court from the grid. 
     
     
         6 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein the computer is further programmed to identify a start and end of a sport game or training session and to automatically identify a change of status of the sport game or training session. 
     
     
         7 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein the computer is further programmed to identify a change of location of players when the players switch sides on a court. 
     
     
         8 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , further comprising an additional techniques and strategies module, configured to provide recommendations to a player on how to correct activity in a sport game based on said analyzing. 
     
     
         9 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein said computer is further programmed to use said identifying of the events, for cutting out idle time in the video stream. 
     
     
         10 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein said presentation module is further configured to enable playing an abridged video displaying only some of the identified events by jumping between some of the identified events according to a user-input query and the synchronized log event. 
     
     
         11 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein the presentation module is further configured to play a virtual 3D dynamic scene using a 3D engine which simulates objects behavior based on said analyzing. 
     
     
         12 . The smart-court system of  claim 1 , wherein said computer is further configured to identify occurrence of a mental event based on said analyzing. 
     
     
         13 . A method for implementing a smart court system, the method comprising:
 by a computer, receiving a video stream of a sport session;   tracking at least one object as appearing in the video stream;   analyzing motion of the tracked at least one object;   identifying a plurality of events and classifying the identified events into types, based on said tracking and analyzing; creating a synchronized event log of the classified events based on said identifying and classifying; and   allowing a user to selectively play at least one of the identified events classified into types, by type, using the synchronized event log.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising identifying a part of the sport session, the part starting with a ball stroke and ending with a player gaining a score. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising yielding a pattern of behavior of a player from more than one of the identified events. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising identifying a change of status of the sport session according to a predefined gesture of a user. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising creating a customized video by integrating events according to a given criteria defined by a user. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising identifying unforced error based on identifying timing and position of a player before striking a ball. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising automatically calculating a game score based on said identified and classified events and on an analysis of player and ball position and motion. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising providing performance matching between players.