Some New Goal work and some Horizon work.

First, I tried to debug and integrate Joho’s work on recognizing the new goals. I’ve narrowed down the buggy code, but couldn’t fix it. So hopefully more luck with that when Joho can take a closer look at it.

Second, I actually used the Horizon line calculation for some good. The purpose of the horizon line is basically twofold: it gives you an idea of where to look for things and it gives you an idea of where not to look for things. This seems simple but the GermanTeam‘s report helped me clarify this a bit.

Most important objects more frequently appear around the horizon: goals, posts, far-away balls, etc. Close objects included really close goals, close balls, dogs, and lines. The former are also by nature further away from you and are therefore take up less room in the image. The horizon line gives you a good idea of where to scan intently. Beneath the horizon line you can scan sparsely. Above the horizon line–heavens to betsy–you don’t really have to scan at all.

This last bit was clear to me from the beginning. Scan less above the horizon line and you’ll cut down on false positives and speed up the vision system simply because it has fewer pixels to process. But giving you a better idea of where to scan more fervently, however, now that’s an idea that deserves some good coding.