Optical Tracking Technology to Analyze NBA Players in Augmented Reality

A new technology developed by PlayfulVision, an EPFL startup bought by Second Spectrum, records all aspects of sporting events for subsequent analysis in augmented reality. The system will be used in all NBA games in the U.S. starting in 2017. The multi-camera system captures and analyzes the athletes' every move. The aim is to see how players pull off a great pass, for example, and to assess whether or not certain shots should have been taken. The system is based on optical trackers that capture every move by every player and by the ball, recording their exact coordinates 25 times per second. This information will be used to carefully analyze games: body position, shots, rebounds, and fouls.

Transcript

00:00:04 our technology allow to understand everything that is happening in the game the visible and unvisible we signed a 7-year deal with the NBA to provide an official tracking um information to the broadcasters the teams and the fans the technology behind uh our system is composed of optical tracking technology we are using multiple cameras to track all the players in the court and the

00:00:30 ball as well we analyze um the shots the rebounds fouls every action that is happening we can see what was once invisible so we can see things like how hard a shot was before you can only say oh that looked difficult but now we can actually tell you how hard that shot was we can see the game at more angles than any fan can uh we know the details about what a player does right so the techn te

00:01:00 ology we can use in any sport that has movement right right now we're focused on basketball and football there's many other applications in our real world like um traffic medical um retail we can apply it to things in your daily life the way we move the way we um you know the way traffic works