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This paper presents a quantitative analysis of free-viewpoint video techniques applied to the problem of virtual view synthesis in sports events. A consideration of errors in the synthesis pipeline is presented along with a taxonomy of these errors and a framework for evaluating the quality of view synthesis when compared to ground truth. Three reconstruction techniques are evaluated, billboarding, shape from silhouette and view-dependent shape from silhouette. View-dependent rendering is used for virtual view synthesis. It is shown that currently the shape from silhouette technique provides the best completeness, while the view-dependent shape from silhouette technique provides the best appearance.

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This contribution describes robust methods to provide a freeviewpoint video visualisation of sport scenes using a multicamera set-up. This allows generation of novel views of actions from any angle and is of interest for visualisation in TV productions. The system utilises 3D reconstruction techniques previously developed for studio use. This paper discusses some experiences found while applying these techniques for an uncontrolled ourdoor environment and addresses robustness issues. This includes segmentation, camera calibration and 3D reconstruction. A number of different 3D representations, including billboards, visual hulls and viewdependent geometry are evaluated for the purpose.

3DTV production of live sports events presents a challenging problem involving conflicting requirements of maintaining broadcast stereo picture quality with practical problems in developing robust systems for cost effective deployment. In this paper we propose an alternative approach to stereo production in sports events using the conventional monocular broadcast cameras for 3D reconstruction of the event and subsequent stereo rendering. This approach has the potential advantage over stereo camera rigs of recovering full scene depth, allowing inter-ocular distance and convergence to be adapted according to the requirements of the target display and enabling stereo coverage from both existing and 'virtual' camera positions without additional cameras. A prototype system is presented with results of sports TV production trials for rendering of stereo and free-viewpoint video sequences of soccer and rugby.