Computer vision for sports: Current applications and research topics

The world of sports intrinsically involves fast and accurate motion that is not only challenging for competitors to master, but can be difficult for coaches and trainers to analyze, and for audiences to follow. The nature of most sports means that monitoring by the use of sensors or other devices fixed to players or equipment is generally not possible. This provides a rich set of opportunities for the application of computer vision techniques to help the competitors, coaches and audience. This paper discusses a selection of current commercial applications that use computer vision for sports analysis, and highlights some of the topics that are currently being addressed in the research community. A summary of on-line datasets to support research in this area is included.