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In-ball cricket camera

 Mount a CCD sensor in a cricket ball and use it for imaging the action
 
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We have had the camera mounted in the cricket stumps, giving us a stumps-eye-view of the proceedings. The next step should be a camera (wireless, of course) mounted inside the cricket ball.

The normal approach, that of miniaturising a conventional camera and placing it inside the ball is likely to be no good. The ball spins, so de-spinning the video is going to be very difficult. Rather than compensate for the spin of the ball, I propose to make use of it.

The ball is fitted with a number of linear CCDs, similiar to that used in scanners. They are coupled to cylindrical lenses and arranged such that at almost any orientation of the spin axis, at least one will be 'sweeping' the ground with the sensor, similar to the scheme employed by weather satellites.

The video from the ball sensors are processed by computers which assemble a ball's eye view as it leaves the bowler's hand to meet with the bat, or the stumps. The action replay of a "six" can be enlivened by the view from the ball.

I envisage this being used for replay of particular shots rather than for live feed - the time required for computing the image might make live video from the ball impossible.

—neelandan, Mar 15 2003

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       I can see it, a very expensive ball which will only work for the first delivery. The last time I watched cricket, they tended to hit the ball very hard, that was yesterday.
—Trodden, Mar 17 2003
   

       Supposing that this ball would not ruin the 'ballistics' of the game and that the game would not ruin the ball...   

       You could'nt do this with current technology , at least the transmission of live video as the ball leaves the hand of Shoaib Ahktar(he bowls the ball at 100mph). Wireless LAN suffers from doppler problems when dealing with highly mobile targets. Thats on top of the computation required to organise the video (although I suspect a dedicated 'hardwired' chip could do it quite well).
A more workable idea might be to record the video into memory and transmit it when the ball is moving slower. This fits in with your replay thoughts.		   

       I would suggest that we would avoid the use of lenses. If there is a requirement for image processing anyway, we may as well try using the CCDs (charge coupled devices) in an array - then utilising signal processing (hardwired) to rearrange the image as required.
—Jinbish, Mar 17 2003
   

       Fishbone. If this is anything like the 'follow the missile' view that you can use in Medieval: Total War, then it'll be very difficult to watch without getting a headache and, like other gimmicks, the interest will wane rapidly. The stump-cam for instance, is used somewhat sparingly these days and doesn't really add much to the coverage.
—DrBob, Mar 17 2003
   

       Sounds great, but I think the drawback is the notion of using "action" and "cricket" in the same concept.
—whlanteigne, Apr 20 2003
   


 

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