Archive Third Umpire

Load a clip of an LBW appeal from before DRS existed, mark the pitch and the ball by hand, and the ball-tracking geometry is solved from that single camera — pitching, impact, and whether it was going on to hit the stumps.

Footage Source clip Open ↗

Worked example · synthetic
frame 42 / 52
clip fps slow-mo ×

Decision

Awaiting marks

1Calibrate the pitch

Click a label, then click that exact spot in the frame. Mark everything you can see at both ends — the bowler's-end stumps are the most valuable marks on the screen, because without a height reference far down the pitch the lens is unconstrained.

2Track the ball

Step frame by frame and click the centre of the ball. Mark the flight before it pitches as well as after — that long arc is what fixes the ball's speed, and speed is what fixes its depth down the pitch.

for frames

3The appeal

Broadcast replay

Rendered from the solved trajectory on a fixed virtual camera, so every clip produces the same framing. Screenshot or copy this for the video.

Wickets — stumps plane

Ball centre inside the stump lines is hitting; centre outside but the ball still clipping is umpire’s call.

Pitching & impact — pitch map

The corridor is the width of the stumps extended down the pitch.