Player viewpoint video synthesis using multiple cameras

In this paper, we propose a new method for synthesizing player viewpoint images from multiple view videos in tennis. Our method is divided into two key techniques: virtual-view synthesis and player’s viewpoint estimation. In the former, we divide the object tennis scene into sub regions, which are background, tennis court ground, players, and ball. For each sub region, a virtual viewpoint image is synthesized by considering the geometrical condition of each region. Then the virtual viewpoint images of the sub regions are merged into a virtual viewpoint image of whole scene. In virtual viewpoint image generating, “view interpolation”, which is a technique of synthesizing images in an intermediate viewpoint from the real images in two viewpoints, restricts a viewpoint position between two viewpoints. To avoid this restriction, we propose a new method of the ability to set up a viewpoint position freely. In the latter,viewpoint position is computed from the center of gravity of a player region in captured videos using epipolar geometry. By applying the computed player’s viewpoint to the former method, we can synthesize player viewpoint images. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can successfully provide tennis player’s viewpoint video from multiple view video images.