US 11,792,441 B2
Methods and systems for scoreboard text region detection
Jeffrey Scott, Oakland, CA (US); Markus Kurt Peter Cremer, Orinda, CA (US); Nishit Umesh Parekh, Woodland Hills, CA (US); and Dewey Ho Lee, Berkeley, CA (US)
Assigned to Gracenote, Inc., New York, NY (US)
Filed by Gracenote, Inc., Emeryville, CA (US)
Filed on Apr. 6, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/301,543.
Application 17/301,543 is a continuation of application No. 16/257,400, filed on Jan. 25, 2019, granted, now 11,010,627.
Prior Publication US 2021/0224569 A1, Jul. 22, 2021
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06K 9/32 (2006.01); H04N 21/2187 (2011.01); G06T 7/13 (2017.01); G06V 20/62 (2022.01); G06V 20/40 (2022.01); G06V 10/44 (2022.01)
CPC H04N 21/2187 (2013.01) [G06T 7/13 (2017.01); G06V 10/44 (2022.01); G06V 20/42 (2022.01); G06V 20/635 (2022.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for automatically detecting, within a digital video frame, a video frame region that depicts a textual expression of a scoreboard, the method comprising:
receiving, by a computing system, the digital video frame, wherein the digital video frame depicts scoreboard image elements, wherein the depicted scoreboard image elements include the textual expression and other image elements, and wherein the computing system comprises a processing unit;
engaging, by the computing system, in an edge-detection process to detect edges of at least the depicted scoreboard image elements in the received digital video frame, wherein at least some of the detected edges (i) are of the textual expression and (ii) define alphanumeric shapes;
applying pattern-recognition, by the computing system, to identify the alphanumeric shapes, wherein applying the pattern-recognition to identify a given one of the alphanumeric shapes comprises (i) identifying one or more edges, of the detected edges, based on the one or more identified edges enclosing an area within the digital video frame and (ii) determining that the enclosed area has an alphanumeric characteristic and responsively deeming the one or more identified edges as defining the given alphanumeric shape;
establishing, by the computing system, a plurality of minimum bounding rectangles each bounding a respective one of the identified alphanumeric shapes in the digital video frame;
establishing in the digital video frame, by the computing system, based on at least two of the minimum bounding rectangles, a composite shape that encompasses the identified alphanumeric shapes that were bounded by the at least two minimum bounding rectangles; and
based on the established composite shape occupying a particular region of the digital video frame, deeming, by the computing system, the particular region to be the video frame region that depicts the textual expression of the scoreboard.