Intelligent filtering by semantic importance for single-view 3D reconstruction from Snooker video

In this paper we investigate the challenge of 3D reconstruction from Snooker video data. We propose a system pipeline for intelligent filtering based on semantic importance in Snooker. The system can be divided into table detection and correction, followed by ball detection, classification and tracking. It is apparent from previous work that there are several challenges presented here. Firstly, previous methods tend to use a fixed top-down camera mounted above the table. To capture a full table view from this is challenging due to space limitations above the table. Instead, we capture video data from a tripod and correct the viewpoint through processing. Secondly, previous methods tend to simply detect the balls without considering other interfering objects such as player and cue. This becomes even more apparent when the player strikes the cue ball. Our intelligent filtering avoids such issues to give accurate 3D table reconstruction.