University of Alabama senior Matt Bowen has created and released PA Software, an innovative pitch-analyzing protocol he hopes will bring big league K-Zone functionality to little league backyards.
Sports entertainment company Sportvision first introduced K-Zone in 2001. K-Zone is a sophisticated computer system that tracks the trajectory of a baseball relative to the strike zone as it is thrown by a pitcher. The final product is a three-dimensional graphic overlay in the shape of the strike zone that ESPN broadcasts live.
PA’s capabilities, meanwhile, rely entirely on computer vision-based technology that is already built into smartphone cameras and many other handheld cameras like GoPro.