10 / 24
Horesh Ben Shitrit
, manager of the
Computer Vision team at
Second
Spectrum
, tells us more about the
company:
“
We are doing sports analytics from
computer vision, machine learning and
artificial intelligence. We use multiple
cameras that we install in the courts,
then we analyse the position of the
players and the ball. We get the
position of everything that is moving in
the court in almost real time and then
do all the analytics on top of that. We
are analysing all the events that are
happening. All the actions on the
defense and offense. For example, in
basketball, we have the pick and roll
plays, blocks, assists, shots. All the
probabilities and efficiencies of all the
players
.”
Horesh says that every sport has its
own characteristics. In basketball, it
can be challenging because there are a
lot of occlusions. In football, it can be
challenging because it is an outdoor
scenario, with weather conditions like
rain, fog, snow, and even smoke from
the audience to deal with. However,
for most games it goes very well, and
they can track all the players, the ball
and the referees.
Six years ago, at ICCV 2011, Horesh
published a paper on multi-object
tracking that showed the basketball
player tracking they had developed in
the academic setting. He says it
worked nicely, but it was just a lab
prototype. Six years later, Second
Spectrum has a working system that is
the most prestigious in the field and is
the official tracking provider of the
NBA. It has been an amazing journey
for them.
10
Second Spectrum
Friday
Second Spectrum is exhibiting at
the ICCV2017 EXPO. It is a sports
analytics company with around
160 employees, based in Los
Angeles. It also has a small team
in Lausanne, Switzerland and an
office in Shanghai, China.
“
We get the position of
everything that is moving
in the court in almost real
time and then do all the
analytics on top of that
”