Hawk-Eye is a multi-camera system which electronically tracks the flight of a moving ball and has become part of the umpiring process on Centre Court and No.1 Court at Wimbledon. The 2007 tournament was the first time this technology was used at Wimbledon by players to challenge an umpire's decision. from http://aeltc.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/guide/faq.html
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also check http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/01/28/1106850112048.html
"It is a vision processing system that uses the images from five or six cameras placed around and high above the court to triangulate the ball's flight and build up a 3D (picture) of its position through the rally," he said.
The cameras record the action at 60 frames a second, about double the speed of standard commercial TV.
It is "four-dimensional" technology, adding time to the triangulation that places the ball in space, much as a satellite-based global positioning system locates a car on the road, but with a precision in millimetres rather than metres. In Hawkeye a computer captured the image from each camera and worked out where the ball was in 3D space.
It then combined all that information and traced the trajectory of the ball in each rally, Dr Hawkins said.
"Once you have got the trajectory . . . you can interrogate it for the position of the ball at any specific time" - on, inside or outside the line, he said.
Data calculated at the rate of 1billion equations per rally is turned into a graphic by virtual reality software similar to that used in computer games and it is these images that viewers see on their TV screens.
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