Racing Bib Numbers Recognition

Running races, such as marathons, are broadly covered by professional as well as amateur photographers. This leads to a constantly growing number of photos covering a race, making the process of identifying a particular runner in such datasets difficult. Today, such identification is often done manually. In running races, each competitor has an identification number, called the Racing Bib Number (RBN), used to identify that competitor during the race. RBNs are usually printed on a paper or cardboard tag and pined onto the competitor’s T-shirt during the race. We introduce an automatic system that receives a set of natural images taken in running sports events and outputs the participants’ RBN.