PitchAura

A spatial analytics computation engine for football/soccer tracking data.

PitchAura transforms raw player tracking coordinates into spatial control matrices, Voronoi territories, tactical metrics, and cognitive vision models — built on NumPy/SciPy with no mandatory heavy dependencies.

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Features

Module	What it does
Space / Pitch Control	Kinematic control model (Spearman 2018) + Voronoi tessellation
Tactics	Space creation, passing lane lifespan, defensive line-breaking pockets
Cognitive	Player vision cones, blind-spot maps, VisionModel
Sync	Frame alignment across tracking streams + moving-average / Kalman filtering
I/O	kloppy adapter (from_tracking, from_events)
Viz	Plotly-based pitch control heatmaps, Voronoi plots, animations

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Installation

pip install pitch-aura

Optional extras

# kloppy I/O adapter
pip install "pitch-aura[kloppy]"

# Plotly visualisation
pip install "pitch-aura[viz]"

# Everything
pip install "pitch-aura[kloppy,viz]"

Runtime requirements: Python ≥ 3.12, NumPy ≥ 1.24, SciPy ≥ 1.10, pandas ≥ 2.0.

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Quick Start

Build a FrameRecord manually

import numpy as np
import pitch_aura as pa

frame = pa.FrameRecord(
    frame_id=1,
    timestamp=0.04,
    home_positions=np.array([[30.0, 0.0], [20.0, 10.0]]),   # (N, 2) metres
    away_positions=np.array([[-25.0, 5.0], [-15.0, -8.0]]),
    home_velocities=np.array([[2.0, 0.5], [1.0, -1.0]]),
    away_velocities=np.array([[-1.5, 0.0], [-2.0, 1.0]]),
    home_team_id="home",
    ball_position=np.array([5.0, 0.0]),
)

Kinematic pitch control

model = pa.KinematicControlModel()
grid = model.compute(frame)          # returns ProbabilityGrid
print(grid.values.shape)             # (68, 105) by default

Voronoi territories

voronoi = pa.VoronoiModel()
result = voronoi.compute(frame)      # returns VoronoiResult
# result.regions: list of (player_idx, team, polygon_vertices) tuples

Load from kloppy

# pip install "pitch-aura[kloppy]"
import kloppy
dataset = kloppy.tracab.load(...)

sequence = pa.from_tracking(dataset)   # FrameSequence
frame = sequence.frames[0]             # FrameRecord

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Tactics

from pitch_aura.tactics.space_creation import space_creation
from pitch_aura.tactics.passing_lanes import passing_lane_lifespan
from pitch_aura.tactics.line_breaking import line_breaking_pockets

# How much space each attacking player is creating
scores = space_creation(frame, model)

# How many frames a passing lane stays open
lifespan = passing_lane_lifespan(sequence, passer_idx=7, receiver_idx=9, model=model)

# Pockets in the defensive line
pockets = line_breaking_pockets(frame)
for p in pockets:
    print(f"Pocket at depth {p.line_depth:.1f}m, y={p.y_left:.1f}–{p.y_right:.1f}m")

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Cognitive Models

from pitch_aura.cognitive.vision_cone import player_heading, vision_cone_mask
from pitch_aura import VisionModel

# Per-frame vision cone mask for a single player
heading = player_heading(frame, player_idx=0, team="home")
mask = vision_cone_mask(frame, player_idx=0, team="home", grid=grid)

# Full VisionModel: blind-spot pressure surface
vision = VisionModel()
pressure = vision.blind_spot_pressure(frame, grid)

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Sync Utilities

from pitch_aura.sync.alignment import align
from pitch_aura.sync.filters import smooth

# Align two FrameSequences by timestamp
aligned_home, aligned_away = align(seq_home, seq_away)

# Smooth positions with a Kalman filter
smoothed = smooth(sequence, method="kalman")

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Visualisation

Requires pip install "pitch-aura[viz]". All functions return plotly.graph_objects.Figure and never call .show().

from pitch_aura.viz import plot_pitch_control, plot_voronoi_control

# Pitch control heatmap with player overlay
fig = plot_pitch_control(grid, frame, home_team_id="home")
fig.write_html("pitch_control.html")

# Voronoi territories
from pitch_aura.viz import plot_voronoi_control
fig = plot_voronoi_control(result, frame, home_team_id="home")
fig.show()

# Frame-by-frame animation
from pitch_aura.viz import animate_sequence
fig = animate_sequence(sequence, model)
fig.write_html("match_animation.html")

Composable low-level API

from pitch_aura.viz._pitch_draw import pitch_background
from pitch_aura.viz.heatmap import plot_heatmap
from pitch_aura.viz.players import plot_players
from pitch_aura.viz.tactics import plot_pockets, plot_passing_lane

fig = pitch_background()
fig = plot_heatmap(grid, fig=fig)
fig = plot_players(frame, fig=fig, show_pitch=False)
fig = plot_pockets(pockets, fig=fig)

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API Reference

Core types

Class	Description
FrameRecord	Single tracking frame: positions, velocities, team IDs, ball
FrameSequence	Ordered sequence of frames + PitchSpec
ProbabilityGrid	(H, W) control probability array with coordinate metadata
VoronoiResult	Clipped Voronoi regions per player
PitchSpec	Pitch dimensions and coordinate convention
EventRecord	Discrete event (pass, shot, etc.) aligned to a frame

Models

Class / function	Description
KinematicControlModel	Spearman (2018) time-to-intercept pitch control
VoronoiModel	Mirror-augmented Voronoi with Sutherland-Hodgman clipping
VisionModel	Sigmoid vision cone + blind-spot pressure surface

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Acknowledgements

The kinematic pitch control model is based on:

Spearman, W. (2018). Beyond Expected Goals. MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

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License

GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE.