Methods and systems for scoreboard text region detection

A computing system comprising:

• a processing unit;
• non-transitory data storage;
• and
• program instructions stored in the non-transitory data storage and executable by the processing unit to carry out operations for automatically detecting, within a digital video frame, a video frame region that depicts a textual expression of a scoreboard, the operations comprising:
• receiving the digital video frame, wherein the digital video frame depicts scoreboard image elements, and wherein the depicted scoreboard image elements include the textual expression and other image elements,
• engaging in an edge-detection process to detect edges of at least the depicted scoreboard image elements in the received digital video frame, wherein at least some of the detected edges (i) are of the textual expression and (ii) define alphanumeric shapes,
• applying pattern-recognition to identify the alphanumeric shapes, wherein applying the pattern-recognition comprises identifying one or more edges, of the detected edges, based on the one or more identified edges enclosing an area within the digital video frame,
• establishing a plurality of bounding rectangles,
• establishing in the digital video frame, based on at least two of the bounding rectangles, a composite shape that encompasses the identified alphanumeric shapes that were bounded by the at least two bounding rectangles, and
• based on the established composite shape occupying a particular region of the digital video frame, deeming the particular region to be the video frame region that depicts the textual expression of the scoreboard.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions executable by a processing unit to cause a computing system to perform operations for automatically detecting, within a digital video frame, a video frame region that depicts a textual expression of a scoreboard, the operations comprising:

• receiving the digital video frame, wherein the digital video frame depicts scoreboard image elements, and wherein the depicted scoreboard image elements include the textual expression and other image elements;
• engaging in an edge-detection process to detect edges of at least the depicted scoreboard image elements in the received digital video frame, wherein at least some of the detected edges (i) are of the textual expression and (ii) define alphanumeric shapes;
• applying pattern-recognition to identify the alphanumeric shapes, wherein applying the pattern-recognition comprises identifying one or more edges, of the detected edges, based on the one or more identified edges enclosing an area within the digital video frame;
• establishing a plurality of bounding rectangles;
• establishing in the digital video frame, based on at least two of the bounding rectangles, a composite shape that encompasses the identified alphanumeric shapes that were bounded by the at least two bounding rectangles;
• and
• based on the established composite shape occupying a particular region of the digital video frame, deeming the particular region to be the video frame region that depicts the textual expression of the scoreboard.