RANSAC-based automated Go record system and method thereof

Automated Go Record System Robust to Lighting and Camera Height Variations Using RANSAC-Based Circumcircle Detection

This technology is a system and method for automatically generating Go records by converting a full-board video captured by a camera into grayscale, removing board lines and edges, and using the RANSAC algorithm to fit circumcircle models to stone edges to determine stone positions and colors.

Professional Go matches still required manual record-keeping, and specialized Go boards using intersection buttons or electrical signals were difficult to popularize due to the need for extra equipment. Image processing methods relying on intersection color information were vulnerable to lighting changes, slight misalignments of stones, and variations in camera height.

This technology isolates newly placed stones using difference images and Canny edge detection, identifies circular stones based on inlier ratios, and automatically estimates stone size according to camera height. As a result, records are captured reliably even if lighting or camera angles change. It can be applied to offline match broadcasting, Go clubs, and educational settings, allowing for the digitization of match records using only a standard board and a single camera.

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Key Features:

• An automated Go record system comprising an image acquisition unit that captures the entire board and a grayscale conversion unit that generates a black-and-white image.
• A preprocessing unit that generates a difference image between previous and current stone positions, then stores filtered and binarized Canny edge information in a vector.
• An automated recording unit that constructs a circumcircle model from random pixels of stone edges, detects stone positions based on inlier ratios, and determines stone color to record the move.
• A size estimation unit that estimates stone size based on the number of pixels along one side of the board and the stone edges relative to camera height changes.

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