MEASUREMENT OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL TRAJECTORIES OF BUBBLES AROUND A SWIMMER USING STEREO HIGH-SPEED CAMERA

This paper proposes a method for measurement three-dimensional trajectories of bubbles generated around a swimmer's arms from stereo high-speed camera videos. This method is based on two techniques: two-dimensional trajectory estimation in single-camera images and trajectory pair matching in stereo-camera images. The two-dimensional trajectory is estimated by block matching using similarity of bubble shape and probability of bubble displacement. The trajectory matching is achieved by a consistensy test using epipolar constraint in multiple frames. The experimental results in two-dimensional trajectory estimation showed the estimation accuracy of 47% solely by the general optical flow estimation, whereas 71% taking the bubble displacement into consideration. This concludes bubble displacement is an efficient aspect in this estimation. In three-dimensional trajectory estimation, bubbles were visually captured moving along the flow generated by an arm; which means an efficient material for swimmers to swim faster.