Slashdot Mirror
Rugby Ball Meets Web-Cam
comcn writes "What do you get when you cross a rugby ball with a web-cam? The BBC have an article about a polytechnic in New Zealand that is in the process of creating a camera that is small and light enough to fit inside a rugby ball. Boy, are you going to get a headache when watching rugby on TV now."
but the colon cam is better
--
Society has traditionally always tried to find scapegoats for its problems. Well, here I am.
Imagine the uses for porn!
endless...
Putting a camera in a baseball would be interesting. Or a basketball. Might screw up the weighting though.
I'm so dizzy, my world is spinning,
because I am watching the rugby on the TV,
and the ball keeps on a spinning,
and oh dear, mud on the camera lens already...
Rugby is kind of like American Football, except tough. Theres no pamby helmets, no 5 foot thick shoulder pads, no 3 minutes breaks every 3 seconds. etc. etc. Just a pure blood bath.
Now we can get all those close-up shots of the players sweaty arm-pits that we've been dying to see for so long! yay! Some has too much time on their hands I think...
- The auditors said to secure the server... hand me that duct-tape -
As usual, the rest of the media has already been trumped by the porn industry (the legendary (...) Dildo Cam!! Second only to the X10).
I can't imagine the view from the ball being particulary entertaining, compared to actually being able to see what the hell is going on.
Juln
Please build in a GPS, that will cut out the picture if it goes below waist height. I don't want aaaany crotch shots.
Gee. I cant wait until it can produce hi-rez full color faint blurry images.. What a scientific advance!
air and light and time and space
As long as we're gonna go around modding out rugby balls to give us "most excellent" visual shots, why not continue with this new tradition of improving on the game...
You could place internally stabilizing gyroscopes inside the thing to ensure the "always perfect" pass. Heck, if you're gonna do that, why not mod it out with anti-intercept electronic countermeasures too? Opposing player tryin' to snag the ball? No worries, mate... it's packing more punch than a hand-held taser.
Geez, this game could be really fun.
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If you're gonna email, use the public key!
I know this may be the first time that someone has sucessfully installed a video camera inside a rugby ball, but haven't video cameras that are miniature, lightweight, and durable been around for SOME time now? What about football (American) helmet cams? Do a search anywhere for miniature video cameras. It just doesn't seem like that great of a technological feat...
If there's a steadycam or fish-eye lens, it might help... with fish-eye you can see who had their hands on the ball!
Some text, even though what I have said is in the subject, and I don't want to post anything else...
How about a camera inside a baseball? That would make for some interesting video and would probably help umpires make better calls.
No, that should be "what exactly do YOU do with rugby balls?"
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Why are we doing this? Would it really add something to a game to be able to watch from the ball? I can understand putting the cameras in players helmets and stuff to get a better view of what they're seeing.
But will this really do that? Would it really see a steady picture or would it just be a blur? As for football, I think the XFL had the right idea in listening in on the huddle and stuff, of FOX putting a camera on the referee or umpire, because it would actually add something to watching the game. I know this is the idea with this, too, as the article says, to show better what goes on in a scrum or something, but it is difficult to see how this would provide a good shot. Nice idea, but a waste of time, I think.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the article doesn't seem to answer my questions.
I've always wanted a crystal clear, high-res action shot of a sweaty rugby player's armpit.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Look here for one of the first pictures of a rugby ball with video camera capabilities...
Wasn't it the BBC who had a snooker cue camera a while ago? ISTR it worked quite well until the player chalked it...
And who says ads are evil? =P
Since posting the story, I've found a better link to the Otago Daily Times. The story there has a rather good picture of the ball with the camera in it.
Also, here's a link to the Otago Polytechnic.
The Otago Polytechnic students who came up with the idea of ramming the camera into the end of a ball have been working on a much more interesting project (imho) of creating a pressure sensing system inside the tiny pads that some rugby players wear.
Hopefully Dr Samuel Mann, the supervisor of the students that are playing with this will drop in with a note. Dave
This thing will never sell until they figure out how to work it into sextoys...
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
The most impressive way to do this would be to have every surface of the ball be a lens, each one recording all the time and broadcasting all the results to a base station. Then the base station could choose which of all the cameras was currently facing forward and digitally rotate and merge the images from all of the cameras to produce a smooth flowing, forward looking shot from an otherwise crazily spinning ball.
Now THAT would be cool.
I could see the NFL using ball cams as an aid for the referees. Suppose a wide receiever and a defender were trying to go for the ball. The two players were trying to get in the best position. The referee calls offensive pass interference, but the call is challenged from the booth. The referee has the ball cam and any other cameras recording the play in question to determine if the penalty should be thrown out. The ball cam could have the best vantage point because of it most likely being comparable to an extreme close-up of a shot from the blimp.
Rugby can also be found here.
Hey Fucky, i feel this guy has the creativeness and power to ..erm ... bang you :)
Does this rugby ball have an Amazon Wishlist, blogger, or Yahoo fanclub yet?
In shock protection, anyways.
Ok then, I'll start, I'll start. Just a minute, stop pushing!
How about this: Make a lot of tiny cameras and put them all over the rugby ball. These cameras will film everything going on around the ball. A computer could take these images and connect their edges, the way many still photographs can be attached to produce a 360-degree photo. The computer could remove unwanted spinning motion from the film. Or something like that. Oh well.
I suspect a rugby ball microcam would produce pictures akin to a running washing machine filled with 30 burly blokes & mud... but other types of cams & tech might work better, maybe.
I remember the XFL used a few innovative ideas (apart from those pneumatic cheerleaders), such as padded cameramen in the middle of the field, or cameras on cables above the field, or cameras in the lockerroom... ARGH! Maybe not that one. Rugby referees are now miked, can talk to their touch judges (sideline refs), and can call for TV ref to assist if things are too close to call. I think all these improvements are good, but as long as they add polish to the game, not change it.
People said the XFL in-your-face angles made it confusing, and annoying. The same has been said about coverage for competitive computer gaming, where the best spectator view is often NOT that of the player. This is why Valve created their spectator mode for Counter-Strike, so you could sit back "in the stands" and watch the teams work.
shut up man
...too be getting X10 pop-under ads. Otherwise, they would know that they could order this stuff for under $100 over the web (blond babe not included).
Of course I hope you understand that in order to maintain ballance in the universe there are two prop forwards sitting in a bar drinking Jolt and arguing if the Cube will kick the ass of the Xbox.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
League
Yep there are no rules against that sort of thing in Rugby League
& Rugby League players cope ok without helmets, padding or ballet tights.
You're talking about Rugby Union, AKA 'rugby', which is altogether a different game to Rugby League, AKA 'league'.
League is quite different with much of the rucking 'n mauling replaced by tackles 'n 'play-the-balls'
'League' is pretty big in Northern England, the East coast of Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand's North Island & some of the older industrial towns of France. Although no where near as big as Union.
Also 'League' probably translates better to the small screen than any other football code
Football (Soccer), American Football, & Aussie Rules are great games to watch live, but they don't really translate well to the small screen (the games are too spread out). For example take the srimmaging & forward pass of American Football, which don't work well at all on telly (too much going on all over the place).
Where-as 'league' is perfect for telly - the camera just has to follow the ball to get all the action of almost continued 3 on 1 tackles.
Check this game here (Windows Media Player + broadband, unless you want a postage stamp size screen).
Yes you can now watch both Rugby League Test Internationals & 1st grade Club Rugby League on the web.
Here is some information on Rugby for our American viewers. It's basically like your version of "football", except with a number of differences:
There. Now if you could do the same for us every time Thanksgiving/Independance Day/Labour Day comes around, we'd be most awfully grateful.
Bung ho, chaps
Stuii!
I wonder if there is a way of powering the camera using the balls own inertia? Kinda like the wrist watches that don't use batteries and don't have to be wound? Maybe that technology is behind current battery technology but the ball certainly will do a lot of moving.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
What you see through it is too unpredictable. When you're dealing with television, every second costs money. At any given time, they'll only be using the best view available. They determine that largely by preview and knowing what's already on that video feed.
The ball changes hands too quickly for those previews to be reliable.
What they'll probably do is collect stills during the game, and use them for various functions afterwards.
What's this Submit thingy do?
Mate, don't bother trying to explain to these fuckwits(Yanks), anything that is not popular inside of the bubble world they live in is inferior.
If you look up Sport in Websters (why do the Yanks need an different English Dictionary?) it will say, 99% Advertising 1% Sport.
Well, for one, we spell things differently from much of the rest of the world.
Webster was a colonial American who took it upon himself to make a dictionary, probably interested in including words that were introduced as a result of a faster-changing culture.
For a while, people used his dictionary out of patriotism, until it became the de-facto standard. That's where we still stand today.
What's this Submit thingy do?
ya mate, ya, this entire group of people that happen to live in a certain geographical and cultural area are uniformly 'fuckwits'.
Well, i'll agree that 90% of Americans are morons, but i'm willing to wager tha 90% of all of the earth's inhabitants are morons.
Juln
:)
Even if X10 do. It's a project. It would be a bit pointless to just buy the stuff.
They're also doing a helmet cam. The only helmet cams I've every seen a big and clumsy looking, not something that would be allowed in a game.
And they've inserted pressure pads into the players top to measure the impact force of tackles.
These a bit more going on than just shoving some crusty X10-like cam into a ball for the hell of it.
When Webster wrote his dictionary there was no standard official spelling for English words (both 'color' & 'colour' were ok)
Webster's dictionary set the standard for American English.
Later (on the other side of the pond) standard World English was set in stone.
Now I happen to prefer the spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary, over Webster's spelling.
But as English is a evolving language niether is right or wrong.
My gym class teacher in freshman year of highschool was a big redneck and ex pro wrestler (I won't say his name or wrestling name). He had made up this game which was a cross between football, basketball and of course wrestling. It was appropriately named, "warball". The rules went something like this: The class was split up into two large teams who had to score basketball goals, but there were no rules on how to get the ball and you could run with it, and kick it or who was holding it, etc.
It all started off just like this. Someone threw the ball to me. I couldn't throw it to anybody else because no one wanted it for obvious reasons. I was hit by a running punch which smashed into my nose spurting blood. I then fell into an oh shit I'm dead position. This was shortly followed by being rammed in the chest and head from both sides by the shoulders of no less than 15 people who then procceeded to pound my limp body to the ground ignoring the ball which had already moved downcourt. I crawled to the sidelines to witness the continuing carnage and spilling of blood. I was quickly joined by others that had been seriously beaten and injured.
Fortunately the very next day our teacher said we had to cancel playing warball because "some crybaby told thier parents and they called the school". We all then recieved a lengthy punishment for being such wusses.
I don't know much about brits and their rugby, but believe it, down yunder in the states, some of those teachers have us play some rough games too.
Ice Hockey came 1st, so when one talks about 'hockey' they mean Ice Hockey'
Field Hockey only came later.
I knew a hooker who was a Chem. major before she dropped out. Does that count?
Didn't Otago just get smacked around by Auckland a few weeks ago? 50-9? Ouch.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
As soon as QB's throw knuckle balls on a regular basis, sure, it might work.
This would only work if a cam was mounted on the tip, the pass was a tight spiral, and it had a hi-frame-rate cam to power it along w/ some software at the receiving station to un-rotate the image.
there are some people around here who don't have any sense of humor.
Of course the really tough Rugby playesr are from Tonga/Samoa/Fiji
heheh. that's the whole point of webcams right?now we'll have more hot pictures of cute girls ...
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damn that gurl has a groovy booty!
I already get a headache watching rugby on TV.
So what's new ?
Actually, I'd better keep my mouth shut.
As a white South African male I could be lynched for dissing rugby in public....
The really interesting part of this invention is not the camera itself. The interesting part is how they intend to get useful pictures from the camera while the rugby ball is in motion. A rugby ball is almost always passed, thrown or kicked with a spiral motion on the ball for stability and accuracy. Such motion will cause the picture to rotate rapidly and make the viewer rather nauseous ;) On a TV interview the student said that they intend to process the TV feed and remove / reduce the spinning to make the pictures more viewable.
Rugby vs Gridiron: Different game, different skills, different physical builds. In gridiron you have massive guys whose job is simply to get in the way of other big guys trying to tackle the quarterback. In rugby all the big guys are expected to be able to run, pass, catch and even kick the football not to mention play for two straight 40 min halves. A rugby player is a better-rounded athlete while a gridiron player tends to be much more specialised. The goal kickers are a case in point, in rugby your goal kicker can't just run on for the vital 10 seconds and the kicks are not always taken from directly in front of the posts.
Of course, even a rugby goal kicker is going to be pretty picky about someone shoving a camera into the ball that might alter its weight / balance and reduce kicking accuracy.
I would love to see the camera angles with this sort of technology in NFL (passes from quarterback). There would be a problem with rotation though.
"Helmet mounted camera" - you just made me wash my nose out with coffee.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
This ball sounds perfect for what's going to be the next *big* televised sport - the Eton Wall Game, possibly the most violent organised sport ever, and that includes ice hockey, and played only at hyper-posh Eton school in England. Unfortunately because of the nature of the game (one large scrum) there isn't anything for spectators to see because their view of the ball is blocked by a) the wall and b) players - so a video-ball is the techno-breakthrough this sport needs to get to a mass audience. That and Prince Harry, son of Charles and Di, who is on one of the teams.
= %2 Fnews%2F2001%2F11%2F23%2Fnharry23.xml
More here:
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml
fair dinkum
What do you get when you cross a rugby ball with a web-cam?
The lamest pr0n in the Universe?
Want Linux games? HERE.
Backgroung info: I'm 6' tall, from England, went to a "special needs" boarding school for boys. Toughest + smartest in the year. (14 students) That was 3.5 years ago, and i'm still recovering.
:)
At school we had a game [which was a trigger for me to bugger off with a laptop] called "Touch Rugby"... instead of wrestling the ball off ur opponent, u had to just touch them [can ya tell where this is headin yet?] and the rules stated they had to release the ball to you.
Ah sod it, I think you all know the score from that. [Our male games teacher also did Art]
As for exercise, i could have slaughtered any of the guys who verbally (i.e. psychologically) slaughtered me, but i couldnt afford to get expelled. Unfourtunateley, I havent seen any of them since, which sux cos my job has at least doubled my mucle mass
I liked computers, but I never knew I was a Geek, much less that I wasnt the only one...
Part of the problem is it looks like they intend to put the cameras in each end of the ball. This will make it hard to balance and the picture will spin as the ball rotates. If the ball itself was transparent you could put one self levelling camera (or more) in the centre of the ball. This would give a level picture with little spin (you would need to refine on this). You could weight the ball to the standard weight by adjusting the density of the transparent material. You might need to colour the material (so the ball can be seen easier) but perhaps with image processing software you could correct the image back to real colours.
Hello
I'm one of the developers of the rugby ball cam. It's the main sport in NZ that's why we used that ball. There's been a lot of interest and we're grateful for all the suggestions.
There's some more stuff on our BInfoTech's degree page at bit.tekotago.ac.nz including my email.
Peter Brook, Head of IT School