Real-time camera pose estimation based on volleyball court view

The use of technology in sports has increased in recent years. One of the most influential of these technologies is referee support systems. Team sports such as volleyball require accurate and robust tracking systems that do not affect either the players or the court. This paper introduces the application of intrinsic and extrinsic camera calibration in a 12-camera volleyball referee system. Intrinsic parameters are calculated by using the classic pinhole model and Zhang’s method. To perform extrinsic calibration in real time, the volleyball court is treated as a global calibration artifact. Calibration keypoints are defined as court-line intersections. In addition, a new keypoint detection algorithm is proposed. It enables achievement of an accurate camera pose in regard to the court. With all 12 cameras calibrated in a common coordinate system, a dynamic camera stereo pair creation is possible. Therefore, with known ball 2D image coordinates, the 3D real ball coordinates can be reconstructed and the ball trajectory can be estimated. The performance of the proposed method is tested on a synthetic data set, including 3Ds Max rendering and real data scenarios. The mean camera pose error calculated for data biased with keypoint detection errors is approximately equal to 0.013% of the measurement volume. For the real data experiment with a human hand phantom, it is possible to determine the presence of the human phantom on the basis of the ball reflection attitude.     

A novel method of camera pose estimation by parabolic motion

Camera pose estimation is a basic and crucial problem in computer vision, accordingly a novel method is proposed for pose estimation based on parabolic motion in our paper. Firstly, the intersection of lines which are the image plane projection of free-falling trajectories in different locations is computed. According to the properties of vanishing point, the intersection is defined as the vanishing point in gravity direction. Secondly, the image plane projected curve of parabolic trajectory is obtained by Sampson Approximation. Finally, the camera pose is estimated by employing the projective geometry properties of vanishing point and vanishing line implicated in the projected parabola, provided that the intrinsic parameters of camera are specified. The absolute Euclidean distance of translation is obtained innovatively with the known frame frequency. Numerical simulation as well as practical experiment in this paper demonstrates the correctness and feasibility of our method, with the known frame frequency, as the experiment show that compared with the traditional checkerboard method the mean errors of rotation axis, rotation angle and translation are respectively 0.017 rad, 0.007 rad and 11.650 mm by our method. It can generally satisfy the accuracy requirements of camera.     

Quantum phenomena in gravitational field

The subjects presented here are very different. Their common feature is that they all involve quantum phenomena in a gravitational field: gravitational quantum states of ultracold antihydrogen above a material surface and measuring a gravitational interaction of antihydrogen in AEGIS, a quantum trampoline for ultracold atoms, and a hypothesis on naturally occurring gravitational quantum states, an Eötvös-type experiment with cold neutrons and others. Considering them together, however, we could learn that they have many common points both in physics and in methodology.     

Estimation of the photon rest-mass from gravitational interaction

An estimation of the photon rest-mass is performed by considering a single photon under the action of a gravitational field. In fact, the wavelength dependence of this mass is expressed in analytical form in connection with the fact that the photon velocity depends upon wavelength.     

On the gravitational angular momentum of rotating sources

The gravitational energy–momentum and angular momentum satisfy the algebra of the Poincaré group in the full phase space of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity. The expression for the gravitational energy–momentum may be written as a surface integral in the three-dimensional spacelike hypersurface, whereas the definition for the angular momentum is given by a volume integral. It turns out that in practical calculations of the angular momentum of the gravitational field generated by localized sources like rotating neutron stars, the volume integral reduces to a surface integral, and the calculations can be easily carried out. Similar to previous investigations in the literature, we show that the total angular momentum is finite provided a certain asymptotic behaviour is verified. We discuss the dependence of the gravitational angular momentum on the frame, and argue that it is a measure of the dragging of inertial frames.     

The gravitational field of photons

The gravitational field of a photon on an infinite straight path is a single sheet of plane-fronted gravitational wave accompanying the photon and perpendicular to its track. This field cannot arise from a retarded potential generated by the photon, and I suggest that it arises in the process of emission. The near-field depends on the energy of the photon, but the far-field does not. The field of a steady beam of photons is compared with that of a static material rod, and the differences discussed.     

The condensation of ideal Bose gas in a gravitational field

Bose–Einstein condensation of two- and three-dimensional boson gases confined in the one-dimensional gravitational field is investigated. Using the semiclassical approximation method, the expressions for the BEC transition temperature, condensate fraction, heat capacity and the entropy of the system are obtained. The heat capacities of the systems with D  =1, 2, 3 (D$D$ is the dimension) at the critical temperature are discussed. We find that for the 1-D and 2-D boson systems, the heat capacities are continuous, but for the 3-D case there is a gap at the critical temperature T_c$T_c$. The entropies of the systems with D=1, 2, 3 are also studied in detail. It is found that the entropies increase with the increasing of the temperature T.     

Zitterbewegung and gravitational Berry phase

Berry phases mix states of positive and negative energy in the propagation of fermions and bosons in external gravitational and electromagnetic fields and generate Zitterbewegung oscillations. The results are valid in any reference frame and to any order of approximation in the metric deviation.     

Thomson scattering induced by gravitational waves

We investigate the effects of a weak gravitational wave, modelled as a gaussian wavepacket, on the polarization state of an electromagnetic field enclosed in a cavity. Our approach is semiclassical, in that the electromagnetic field is described as a quantum field, while the gravitational perturbation is treated classically, as a slightly curved background spacetime. Assuming that before the interaction the electromagnetic field has been prepared in a given polarization state, we show that – due to the gravitational scattering with the wave – some photons having different polarization states are found in the cavity at late times. Such polarization scattering has some resemblance with Thomson scattering, well-known in Quantum Electrodynamics: hence the motivation for the title. We give a numerical estimate of the resulting photon polarization spreading in the case of a typical gravitational burst from a final supernova rebound. We also briefly comment about the possible influence of such gravitational scattering on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization.     

Centrifugal deformations of the gravitational kink

The Kaluza-Klein reduction of 4d conformally flat spacetimes is reconsidered. The corresponding 3d equations are shown to be equivalent to 2d gravitational kink equations augmented by a centrifugal term. For space-like gauge fields and non-trivial values of the centrifugal term the gravitational kink solutions describe a spacetime that is divided in two disconnected regions.     

基于人脸姿态估计的虚拟眼镜试戴技术

为解决用户线上眼镜的最优选购,提出了一种基于人脸姿态估计的虚拟眼镜试戴技术。首先采用肤色模型与形状模型结合的算法对场景中的人脸区域进行检测,然后根据人眼在人脸中的几何位置关系实现人眼的精确定位;进一步利用人眼对称性先验知识来估计脸在三维空间中的姿态信息,即人脸与正面的偏移角度;最后,依据人眼位置和人脸姿态将眼镜图像融合到眼睛区域,即完成眼镜的虚拟试戴。该方法为3D环境下客户与商品之间虚拟视觉化的实现提供了一种可靠的技术支撑和应用思路。     

The Virgo interferometric gravitational antenna

The interferometric gravitational wave detectors represent the ultimate evolution of the classical Michelson interferometer. In order to measure the signal produced by the passage of a gravitational wave, they aim to reach unprecedent sensitivities in measuring the relative displacements of the mirrors. One of them, the 3-km-long Virgo gravitational wave antenna, which will be particularly sensitive in the low-frequency range (10–100 Hz), is presently in its commissioning phase. In this paper the various techniques developed in order to reach its target extreme performance are outlined.     

Long baseline gravitational wave detectors—Status and developments

Gravitational waves-a prediction of Einstein’s General Relativity-are among the most elusive signals incident on the Earth. These signals-ripples in the curvature of space-time-carry information about what is happening deep in the heart of some of the most violent events in the Universe. However, their observation remains one of the most challenging problems in experimental astrophysics, as the measurement sensitivity required by the detectors is equivalent to measuring a change in the separation of the Earth and Sun by the diameter of an atom. A global network of such detectors-LIGO, Virgo and GEO-is now in operation, with enhanced versions being developed and other detectors planned. Further a space-borne detector, LISA, is under development as a joint ESA/NASA mission. In this short review, the nature of gravitational waves, how the detectors work, and the preliminary results which are already showing promise, will be discussed.     

Nonadiabatic gravitational collapse in multidimensional spacetime

We extend to higher dimensions an earlier work of Santos regarding junction conditions for a spherical fluid distribution with heat flux and an electromagnetic field. It is observed that the pressure at the surface of distribution does not vanish when the heat flow is present.     

The gravitational wave symphony of the Universe

The new millennium will see the upcoming of several ground-based interferometric gravitational wave antennas. Within the next decade a space-based antenna may also begin to observe the distant Universe. These gravitational wave detectors will together operate as a network taking data continuously for several years, watching the transient and continuous phenomena occurring in the deep cores of astronomical objects and dense environs of the early Universe where gravity was extremely strong and highly nonlinear. The network will listen to the waves from rapidly spinning non-axisymmetric neutron stars, normal modes of black holes, binary black hole inspiral and merger, phase transitions in the early Universe, quantum fluctuations resulting in a characteristic background in the early Universe. The gravitational wave antennas will open a new window to observe the dark Universe unreachable via other channels of astronomical observations.     

Radiating gravitational collapse with shear viscosity revisited

A new model is proposed to a collapsing radiating star consisting of an isotropic fluid with shear viscosity undergoing radial heat flow with outgoing radiation. In a previous paper we have introduced a function time dependent into the g _rr , besides the time dependent metric functions and . The aim of this work is to generalize this previous model by introducing shear viscosity and compare it to the non-viscous collapse. The behavior of the density, pressure, mass, luminosity and the effective adiabatic index is analyzed. Our work is compared to the case of a collapsing shearing fluid of a previous model, for a star with 6 . The pressure of the star, at the beginning of the collapse, is isotropic but due to the presence of the shear the pressure becomes more and more anisotropic. The black hole is never formed because the apparent horizon formation condition is never satisfied. An observer at infinity sees a radial point source radiating exponentially until reaches the time of maximum luminosity and suddenly the star turns off. The effective adiabatic index has a very unusual behavior because we have a non-adiabatic regime in the fluid due to the heat flow.     

Probing the formalism through gravitational wave polarizations

The direct observation of gravitational waves (GW) in the near future, and the corresponding determination of the number of independent polarizations, is a powerful tool to test general relativity and alternative theories of gravity. In the present work we use the Newman–Penrose formalism to characterize GWs in quadratic gravity and in a particular class of f(R) Lagrangians. We find that both quadratic gravity and the f(R) theory belong to the most general invariant class of GWs, i.e., they can present up to six independent polarizations of GWs. For a particular combination of the parameters, we find that quadratic gravity can present up to five polarizations states. On the other hand, if we use the Palatini approach for f(R) theories, GWs present only the usual two transverse-traceless polarizations such as in general relativity. Thus, we conclude that the observation of GWs can strongly constrain the suitable formalism for these theories.     

Deflection in higher-order gravitational lensing

The deflection of light rays by rotating gravitational lens is considered in the framework of higher-order gravitational theory. The bending angle of light is derived. The effect of the massive scalar and tensor components of higher-order gravitational field as well as the gravito-magnetic on light deflection are discussed.     

A monocular pose measurement method of a translation-only one-dimensional object without scene information

A monocular method to measure the pose of a translation-only one-dimensional (1D) object containing at least two known characteristic points is presented. The position of any other point on the 1D object can be located after the pose measurement. Scene information is not needed to apply the method. If the distance between the characteristic points is unknown, there is a scale factor between the object's real positions and the measurement results. The method can also be used to measure the pose and shape parameters of a parallelogram, prism or cylinder object.     

Searching for gravitational waves from rotating neutron stars

Rotating neutron stars are one of the important sources of gravitational waves (GW) for the ground based as well as space based detectors. Since the waves are emitted continuously, the source is termed as a continuous gravitational wave (CGW) source. The expected weakness of the signal requires long integration times (∼year). The data analysis problem involves tracking the phase coherently over such large integration times, which makes it the most computationally intensive problem among all GW sources envisaged. In this article, the general problem of data analysis is discussed, and more so, in the context of searching for CGW sources orbiting another companion object. The problem is important because there are several pulsars, which could be deemed to be CGW sources orbiting another companion star. Differential geometric techniques for data analysis are described and used to obtain computational costs. These results are applied to known systems to assess whether such systems are detectable with current (or near future) computing resources.