Evaluation and Prospects of Semi-Automatic Video Distance Measurement in Ski Jumping
Matjaz Kukar
Progress in Signals and Telecommunication Engineering, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2019.
DOI: 
Link: http://www.dline.info/pste/fulltext/v8n1/pstev8n1_1.pdf
Abstract:
Great competitive results of Slovenian ski jumpers in world cup and continental competitions have sparkled a lot of interest for active participation in this attractive sport. In junior levels, national competitions with considerably more than 100 jumpers are becoming the norm. However, due to lack of technologic aids for distance measurement, such competitions can last over half a day. Only at the top-level competitions (world cup, continental cup) expensive and logistically demanding commercial video distance measuring tools are used for this purpose. In a previous project we developed a video
distance measuring system from low-cost commercial components, which was not suitable for real-time usage due to technological limitations, but worked great for offline measurement. We analyze the results of offline measurements for several competitions and show that measurement errors are often unacceptably high. This serves as a motivation for an ongoing project, where video measurement is performed in real time and supported by advanced computer vision and deep learning methods.