The intensity reduction of ground shadow To deliver better viewing experiences of soccer videos

Abstract

In this paper, we present a method for reducing the intensity of shadows cast on the ground in outdoor sports videos to provide TV viewers with a better viewing experience. In the case of soccer videos taken by a long-shot camera technique, it is difficult for viewers to discriminate the tiny objects (i.e., soccer ball and player) from the ground shadows. The algorithm proposed in this paper comprises three modules, such as long-shot detection, shadow region extraction and shadow intensity reduction. We detect the shadow region on the ground by using the relationship between Y and U values in YUV color space and then reduce the shadow components depending on the strength of the shadows. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme offers useful tools to provide a more comfortable viewing environment and is amenable to real-time performance even in a software based implementation.