Methods and Systems for Scoreboard Region Detection

A method for automatically detecting a scoreboard frame region, the method comprising:

• (a) carrying out, by a computing system, a scoreboard-frame-region detection process at least two times, the scoreboard-frame-region detection process including:
• receiving a sequence of video frames, wherein the video frames of the sequence depict image elements including (i) scoreboard image elements that are unchanging across the video frames of the sequence and (ii) other image elements that change across the video frames of the sequence,
• engaging in an edge-detection process to detect, in the video frames of the sequence, a set of edges of the depicted image elements,
• identifying a subset of the detected set of edges based on each edge of the subset being unchanging across the video frames of the sequence, wherein the edges of the identified subset are candidate edges of the scoreboard image elements, and
• detecting, based on the edges of the identified subset, the scoreboard frame region;
• (b) determining, by the computing system, whether, in carrying out the scoreboard-frame-region detection process the at least two times, the computing system detected the same scoreboard frame region at least a predetermined number of times;
• (c) if the determination is that the computing system detected the same scoreboard frame region at least a predetermined number of times, then, responsive to making the determination, the computing system taking a first action that corresponds to detection of the scoreboard frame region being accurate;
• and
• (d) if the determination is that the computing system did not detect the same scoreboard frame region at least the predetermined number of times, then, responsive to making the determination, the computing system taking a second action that corresponds to detection of the scoreboard frame region being inaccurate.

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 a scoreboard frame region, the operations comprising:
• (a) carrying out a scoreboard-frame-region detection process at least two times, the scoreboard-frame-region detection process including:
• receiving a sequence of video frames, wherein the video frames of the sequence depict image elements including (i) scoreboard image elements that are unchanging across the video frames of the sequence and (ii) other image elements that change across the video frames of the sequence,
• engaging in an edge-detection process to detect, in the video frames of the sequence, a set of edges of the depicted image elements,
• identifying a subset of the detected set of edges based on each edge of the subset being unchanging across the video frames of the sequence, wherein the edges of the identified subset are candidate edges of the scoreboard image elements, and
• detecting, based on the edges of the identified subset, the scoreboard frame region;
• (b) determining whether, in carrying out the scoreboard-frame-region detection process the at least two times, the computing system detected the same scoreboard frame region at least a predetermined number of times;
• (c) if the determination is that the computing system detected the same scoreboard frame region at least a predetermined number of times, then, responsive to making the determination, the computing system taking a first action that corresponds to detection of the scoreboard frame region being accurate;
• and
• (d) if the determination is that the computing system did not detect the same scoreboard frame region at least the predetermined number of times, then, responsive to making the determination, the computing system taking a second action that corresponds to detection of the scoreboard frame region being inaccurate.