How does the "shotspot" on televised tennis matches work?

Question

The "shotspot" is a tool that generates an extremely accurate animation of any given shot that was close to a line to determine whether it was in or out.

Answer 1

Hawk-Eye is a multi-camera system which electronically tracks the flight of a moving ball and has become part of the umpiring process on Centre Court and No.1 Court at Wimbledon. The 2007 tournament was the first time this technology was used at Wimbledon by players to challenge an umpire's decision. from http://aeltc.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/g...

for more info click http://jtsang.blogspot.com/2006/07/techn...

also check http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/01/2...

"It is a vision processing system that uses the images from five or six cameras placed around and high above the court to triangulate the ball's flight and build up a 3D (picture) of its position through the rally," he said.

The cameras record the action at 60 frames a second, about double the speed of standard commercial TV.

It is "four-dimensional" technology, adding time to the triangulation that places the ball in space, much as a satellite-based global positioning system locates a car on the road, but with a precision in millimetres rather than metres. In Hawkeye a computer captured the image from each camera and worked out where the ball was in 3D space.

It then combined all that information and traced the trajectory of the ball in each rally, Dr Hawkins said.

"Once you have got the trajectory . . . you can interrogate it for the position of the ball at any specific time" - on, inside or outside the line, he said.

Data calculated at the rate of 1billion equations per rally is turned into a graphic by virtual reality software similar to that used in computer games and it is these images that viewers see on their TV screens.

1 week ago

Answer 2

The Hawkeye System, which is what Shot Spot uses, is a network of digital video cameras positioned all around the court which tracks the trajectory of the ball on every shot from every possible angle, and from all of that video data, which is fed to the Hawkeye main computer, the system's software can extrapolate a close-up virtual replay of any shot in particular, which is what Shot Spot shows on the big courtside video screen when a shot is challenged.

Answer 3

they have a radar around the stadium that track where the ball hits its pretty accurate and it is an amazing technoligy i mean they save matches pretty well