Stanford Football Builds “Spherical Video Trainer” with Vizard

February 25, 2015

This last collegiate football season, Stanford researchers at the Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) used our Vizard Virtual Reality Software Toolkit to develop a “spherical video trainer” for the Stanford football team’s quarterbacks. The application was developed in collaboration with Stanford Football coach Derek Belch.Video footage of team’s opponent’s defensive plays are capturedfrom the point of view of the quarterback using a 360-degree camera, then stitched together, and imported into Vizard.

Stanford University Logo
Stanford Football

Vizard’s Python-based coding framework has made it simple for the Stanford researchers to shuffle the simulated plays. Vizard also allows the researchers to match head-tracking data from an Oculus Rift DK2 with temporal data from the videos. This enables the researchers to expose the quarterbacks to randomized sets of plays and then measure the spherical video trainer’s impact.

Initial findings suggest that the trainer increases defensive play recall and recognition speed in the Stanford quarterbacks, especially those that do not get regular playing time. The researchers are exploring ways in which this application can be translated for other Stanford sports teams like basketball or baseball.

Follow this link to see a video of ESPN broadcasters highlighting the VR application during a televised Stanford game.

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