Movement-examination system for electronically determining strike-zone location

A movement-examination system for a ball-movement region in which each of at least two designated physical body features of a batter situated near a strike zone overlying a regional surface of the ball-movement region is variably spaced vertically apart from a batter reference situs, the zone having lower and upper zonal boundaries at respective temporary lower and upper boundary locations dependent on how far each body feature is vertically spaced apart from the situs, the ball-movement region having a pair of batter's boxes on opposite sides of a home plate, the system comprising:

• a boundary determiner for (a) collecting feature data of imagery of each body feature when the batter is in a selected one of the batter's boxes and (b) processing the feature data to determine the locations of the lower and upper zonal boundaries as a function of how far each body feature is vertically spaced apart from the situs;
• and
• a movement analyzer responsive to the determinations of the locations of the lower and upper zonal boundaries for (a) collecting article-location data of moving imagery of a ball pitched by a pitcher toward the zone and (b) processing the article-location data in response to the determinations of the lower and upper zonal boundaries to electronically determine within the system's purview whether at least part of the ball entered the zone, the determiner and analyzer together comprising:
• electronic data-collection apparatus for examining or/and sensing the batter, each body feature, and the ball, including their locations and movement, to collect data of moving imagery of at least the batter, each body feature, and the ball, the data-collection apparatus comprising a video camera network comprising a plurality of video cameras each having a field of view, the cameras including a pair of above-surface video cameras situated above the regional surface approximately opposite each other relative to the home plate and respectively farther from the home plate than the batter's boxes such that the above-surface cameras together generate moving imagery capturing the zone, the batter including each body feature when the batter is in a selected one of the batter's boxes, and the ball when it is unobstructedly within the fields of view of the above-surface cameras, the data of moving imagery collected by the data-collection apparatus comprising data of the moving imagery of the above-surface cameras;
• and
• electronic data-processing apparatus for processing the data of moving imagery to electronically determine (i) the locations of the lower and upper zonal boundaries as a function of how far each body feature is vertically spaced apart from the situs and (ii) within the system's purview whether at least part of the ball entered the zone dependent on the determinations of the locations of the first and second zonal boundaries.