Project Overview

In the age of data-driven sports analytics, accurate tracking of player movements and ball trajectories is essential to analyze performance, strategize gameplay, and gain competitive insights. Our client, working in the sports tech industry, partnered with Intellisane AI to annotate high-intensity volleyball match videos for use in training AI models.

The raw data consisted of 50+ professional volleyball match recordings, each with complex motion patterns and dynamic interactions among players, referees, and the ball. The goal was to label every frame in each video with bounding boxes for players, ball, referees, and specific volleyball actions such as spike, block, set, bagher, and more.

Client Objective

The client aimed to build a computer vision system for:

• Real-time player tracking
• Ball trajectory mapping
• Tactical analysis based on volleyball-specific movements
• Automated video highlights based on in-game events

To do this effectively, they needed a richly annotated dataset covering all object types and movement patterns within each frame of every match.

Challenges Faced

Annotating sports footage at this level of detail required solving several complex problems:

1. Player Occlusion

During gameplay, players often occlude one another, especially during spikes, blocks, and dives. Maintaining individual identity and tracking consistency was a major challenge.

2. Fast Ball Movement

The volleyball moves at high speed—particularly during spikes and serves. In many frames, the ball appeared blurry, deformed, or partially hidden, making it ambiguous to detect accurately.

3. Complex Object Contexts

Apart from standard objects like players and the ball, the project required labeling volleyball-specific roles and events such as:

• Set
• Block
• Bagher (backcourt defense)
• Spike
  This involved semantic understanding of actions, not just visual detection.

4. Frame-by-Frame Consistency

Since every single frame in every video needed annotation, maintaining temporal consistency across thousands of frames was critical for downstream AI training.

Our Solution

To meet the client’s high standards, Intellisane AI deployed a structured and performance-driven annotation pipeline:

1. Expert Annotators in Sports Context

Our annotation team received targeted training in volleyball terminology, movement patterns, and action recognition, enabling them to identify and label fine-grained events accurately.

2. Multi-Layer Quality Assurance

We implemented a strict 3-level QA process:

• Frame-by-frame consistency checks
• Event validation by domain reviewers
• Random sampling cross-validation
  This process ensured high reliability and reduced error propagation across video sequences.

3. Version Control & Audit Trail

Each video’s annotation history was version-controlled for transparency. The client could view incremental progress, submit clarifications, or request revision seamlessly.

Project Scale

• 50+ volleyball match videos
• Thousands of frames per video
• Over 100,000 bounding box annotations
• 5 weeks total delivery time
• Achieved 98.7% annotation accuracy

Project Outcomes

• The client successfully trained a deep learning model for player and ball tracking.
• Tactical heatmaps, ball trajectories, and player movement stats were derived from our labeled dataset.
• Our annotation quality directly contributed to a reduction in model training errors and improved overall accuracy in real-world match scenarios.

Client Testimonial

“Intellisane AI team truly impressed me with their remarkable attention to detail and professionalism in data labeling and annotation. They handled one of the most complex annotation tasks we’ve ever outsourced. Their understanding of sports dynamics, ability to annotate at scale, and commitment to accuracy made this collaboration a real success.”