Improving Skeletal Annotation for Sports and Fitness AI

Computer vision-based AI models are changing the worlds of sports and fitness. AI can help professional athletes perform better and avoid serious injury. In addition, computer vision applications can transform at-home workouts for ordinary people, keeping us healthy whilst avoiding injury.

These exciting applications are made possible by computer vision annotation tool: image and video annotation. Annotation projects use the process of annotation and data labeling tools to add information to images and videos and create training datasets that help sports and fitness AIs to learn. One particular object detection technique is particularly important for this industry: skeletal annotation.

Firstly, this blog will define skeletal annotation as highly important image annotation tool and show why it is widely used. Secondly, we will look at the promising use cases that skeletal AI is helping make possible. And finally, we will show how developers can maximize skeletal annotation with the help of smart AI project management tools and annotation tools.

Why do we need skeletal annotation?

Skeletal annotation is used in machine learning algorithms to capture the human body's movements in digital images and films. The technique uses annotation tools to label images: add lines to images and videos of humans doing sport and fitness. Workers use annotation platforms to attach lines to the limbs of athletes and exercisers.

These lines are joined at important points of articulation, like knees, elbows, shoulders etc. This process represents the position of a human body in a way that machine learning models can easily understand. Because skeletal annotation is used to highlight motion, it is often used to annotate videos of sport and fitness.

How does the industry use skeletal data annotation?

Many interesting uses cases rely on skeletal annotation:

• Professional sport coaching: AI systems now have the ability to follow player movements in close detail. The information AI models gather from training and games is used by coaches to instruct athletes and teach them better technique. It can also support tactical analysis by identifying patterns in play.
• Stopping injuries from happening: AI powered cameras can identify normal movements and help athletes get better. However, they can also detect when movement is inhibited or strange.
  
  With this information AI systems can give coaches and medical staff early warning of potential injuries. These systems can also stop athletes that are already injured from playing on and causing more damage.
• Home fitness mobile apps: As more people choose to exercise at home fitness apps are becoming increasingly sophisticated. AI enabled apps are trained with skeletal annotation.
  
  This allows them to instruct users on correct form and warn them when they are exercising incorrectly. This will help to improve fitness and prevent injuries.
• Home fitness mirrors: These in home devices guarantee a fully personalized workout. This is achieved in part by smart AI systems that can tailor instruction and plans to the needs of specific individuals.

The right annotation platform for skeletal annotation

Skeletal annotation is being used by AI pioneers in sports and fitness to create responsive models that can adapt to and guide the movement of the human body. Keylabs is an image and video annotation tool that can support these efforts with unique and powerful features:

• Fast outlining: Augmented annotation automatically creates polygon shapes that snap around objects. This makes annotation faster and more accurate.
• Video annotation: Keylabs allows multiple annotators to work on one piece of video footage at the same time. When work is completed these separate annotations can be merged together seamlessly.
• Easier labeling: Keylabs features a range of options for accelerating annotation. This includes efficient keyboard shortcuts that streamline demanding labeling tasks.

Keylabs unlocks annotation

The right annotation platform can ensure that techniques like skeletal annotation are applied accurately and efficiently. Keylabs is designed by annotation professionals for leaders in sport and and fitness AI.