Virtual Imaging Could Be Cheaper Goal

The Age

Thursday June 3, 2004

Peter Ker

The company offering to solve the AFL's goal umpiring problem with virtual reality imaging believes it can supply the most accurate solution at less than half the price of the other options being considered by the league.

AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson revealed yesterday that a virtual imaging option - now known to be a program called ``AFL Insight" - had been added to the list of possible solutions, which include raising the height of goal posts and doubling the number of goal umpires.

Peter Lamb, chief executive of Virtual Spectator International, said his company's ``AFL Insight" program - which uses digital technology to track the flight of the ball - could give definite answers to contentious decisions at significantly less cost than the $300,000-plus price tags associated with the two other main options.

``This would cost less than half the projected cost of doubling the goal umpires . . . this would cost less that $200,000 for a season," he said.

Raising the height of goal posts at all AFL venues by five metres would cost an estimated $324,000, while doubling the number of goal umpires would cost about $360,000 a year.

Lamb said the AFL Insight program, which was recommended to the AFL by broadcast rights partner Channel Nine, could be used to adjudicate more than contentious over-the-post decisions, such as the point awarded to Austinn Jones in St Kilda's narrow round-six win over the Brisbane Lions.

Lamb said touched-ball decisions on the goal line - such as Stephen Silvagni's famous claim to have touched a Michael Long kick at goal in the 1993 grand final - and a wide variety of goalkicking accuracy statistics could also be determined by the system.

``Basically we digitise two sets of video sequences coming off two cameras simultaneously and then we freeze the video at the moment the ball crosses the line," he said.

``We then convert that into a three-dimensional virtual reality scene and the computer can then calculate the distance to goal, or to the post, or even to the goal line if it's a touched goal.

``Then you can spin around the ball in 3D so you can look at it from all angles to obviously prove the point . . . we believe it would prove it every time."

The AFL has already shied away from using a video review system on the grounds that the delay needed to review footage harms the spectacle of the game.

Lamb said AFL Insight should be able to give a definitive answer in the time it took the goal umpire to signal and wave his flags. ``We believe that we can do that in about a 30-second turn-around," he said. ``Is 30 seconds a problem when it can make the difference winning and losing a game?"

Virtual Spectator hopes to have permission to trial the technology at an AFL game within the next month.

``Once we do that, we intend to get an appointment with the AFL and show it to them so we can show them on an actual game, rather than just talking about it in general terms with hypotheticals," Lamb said.

Virtual Spectator already provide 3D animation to Channel Nine's Friday Night Football, and has recently been involved in the coverage of the world track cycling championships and last year's Rugby World Cup.

As well as costing less than the other options now before the AFL, Lamb said AFL Insight removed the element of human error, which doubling the number of umpires and increasing the height of goal posts did not.

``I know the AFL are talking about adding five metres to the length of goal posts and so on, but obviously in the virtual reality environment we can make the goal lines and the posts as high as we want to be, and prove beyond a doubt that it was a goal or a point," he said.

``If the AFL say, `Yeah, this is good stuff', then I think everyone is going to be a winner."