David W. Crain

David W. Crain is an American engineer who is known for conceiving and patenting the "1st and Ten" graphical overlay system used in sports television broadcasts.

Early life and education

Crain was born in 1946 in California. He graduated from Don Bosco Technical Institute in Rosemead, California. He earned a Bachelor of Science in physics, a Master of Science in materials science, and a Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Southern California. His doctoral dissertation, titled "Charge Motion in the Variable Threshold Memory Transistor," focused on the development of flash memory transistors. His 1976 paper, titled "Charge Centroid and Trapping Model for MNOS Structures" builds a physical model that explains how and where electrons get trapped inside metal nitride oxide silicon non‑volatile memory devices.

Career

Crain began his career by joining the United States Naval Oceans System Command in 1968 in San Diego, California, where he worked on the development of microelectronics for anti-submarine warfare systems. During his tenure, he patented the technology that later evolved into the "1st and Ten" system commonly referred to as the football "yellow first-down line". Crain was awarded US Patent 4084184 "TV Object Locator and Image Identifier" on April 11, 1978. The patent was conceived as a calibration method for two-dimensional depiction of three-dimensional space, inspired by well-established downrange targeting techniques like sonar and radar. The invention, described below, was not utilized in broadcasts until ESPN and SportVision implemented it years later.
Crain transitioned to Sempra in 1976 where he rose to Director of Corporate Strategy and later joined Fluor Corporation in 1996 as Director of Markets and Strategies. He was active in MESA, a California organization supporting underserved and underrepresented students pursuing calculus-based Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and served as Statewide Industry Advisory Board Chairman from 1987 to 1989. In 1999, he co-founded the Association for Strategic Planning and served as its president. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the reincorporated International Association for Strategic Professionals in 2009.
Crain has served as a professor at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, Cal Poly Pomona, and the University of Southern California.

"1st and Ten" Invention

Crain was awarded US Patent 4084184 "TV Object Locator and Image Identifier" on April 11, 1978. One use of the technology was to create on-field markings to allow TV viewers to identify the distance needed to achieve a first down in televised football games. It did so by inserting graphical elements on the field of play as if they were physically present. He presented the concept to Roone Arledge and Roger Goodman of ABC News and Sports and to Robert T. McKinley of the CBS Technology Center. At the time, the broadcast industry was not ready to use Crain's invention. ABC producers told Crain, “To superimpose graphics over a live play is taboo at ABC and probably in the broadcast industry. Have you ever been in an NFL sound truck during a live telecast? It is sheer chaos in there and we don’t need some computer brought in to add confusion. Too much cost, too much equipment, too many cameras, for something that may be only used 4 times a game." The invention was brought to market 20 years later and was introduced on ESPN football telecasts in 1998 when signal processing technology had the speed to keep up with insertion of dynamic objects in the field of view. It is now widely used in network sports broadcasts of all types and is considered the foundation technology for augmented reality video applications. Table 1 below lists the top 31 patents issued between 1978 and 2019 that reference Crain’s original invention.

Patent Number	Date Awarded	Patent Name	Inventor
US 4084184 A	4/11/1978	TV Object locator and image identifier	Crain; David W.
US 4490742 A	12/25/1984	Encoding apparatus for a closed-circuit television system	Wurtzinger; Richard E.
US 4855820 A	8/8/1989	Down hole video tool apparatus and method for visual well bore recording	Barbour; Joel
US 4928175 A	5/22/1990	Method for the three-dimensional surveillance of the object space	Haggren; Henrik
US 4963984 A	10/16/1990	Optical projection camera alignment system and method	Womack; Kenneth H.
US 4985779 A	1/15/1991	Improved method and apparatus for generating halftone images	Gall; Winrich
US 5892554 A	4/6/1999	System and method for inserting static and dynamic images into a live video broadcast	DiCicco; Darrell S. et al.
US 5808695 A	9/15/1998	Method of tracking scene motion for live video insertion systems	Rosser; Roy J. et al.
US 5912700 A	6/15/1999	System for enhancing the television presentation of an object at a sporting event	Honey; Stanley K. et al.
US 5672820 A	9/30/1997	Object location identification system for providing location data of an object being pointed at by a pointing device	Rossi; John H. et al.
US 5917553 A	6/29/1999	Method and apparatus for enhancing the broadcast of a live event	Honey; Stanley K. et al.
US 6252632 B1	6/26/2001	System for enhancing a video presentation	Cavallaro; Richard H.
US 5953077 A	9/14/1999	System for displaying an object that is not visible to a camera	Honey; Stanley K. et al.
US 6195122 B1	2/27/2001	Spatial referenced photography	Vincent; Robert
US 6266100 B1	7/24/2001	System for enhancing a video presentation of a live event	Gloudemans; James R. et al.
US 6229550 B1	5/8/2001	Blending a graphic	Gloudemans; James R. et al.
US 6100925 A	8/8/2000	Image insertion in video streams using a combination of physical sensors and pattern recognition	Rosser; Roy J. et al.
US 6466275 B1	10/15/2002	Enhancing a video of an event at a remote location using data acquired at the event	Honey; Stanley K. et al.
US 7075556 B1	7/11/2006	Telestrator system	Meier; Kevin R. et al.
US 6965397 B1	11/15/2005	Measuring camera attitude	Honey; Stanley K. et al.
US 7230653 B1	6/12/2007	Method and apparatus for real time insertion of images into video	Overton; Kenneth J. et al.
US 6909438 B1	6/21/2005	Video compositor	White; Marvin S. et al.
US 7206434 B2	4/17/2007	Method and system for measurement of the duration an area is included in an image stream	Overton; Kenneth J. et al.
US 7341530 B2	3/11/2008	Virtual strike zone	Cavallaro; Richard H. et al.
US 20050001852 A1	1/6/2005	System and method for inserting content into an image sequence	Dengler, John D. et al.
US 8335345 B2	12/18/2012	Tracking an object with multiple asynchronous cameras	White; Marvin S. et al.
US 8218002 B2	7/10/2012	Method and apparatus providing computer generated images over a network with a point of view corresponding to images acquired during navigation of an imaging device	Maguire, Jr.; Francis J.
US 8330812 B2	12/11/2012	Method and apparatus for producing and storing, on a resultant non-transitory storage medium, computer generated video in correspondence with images acquired by an image acquisition device tracked in motion with respect to a 3D reference frame	Maguire, Jr.; Francis J.
US 8786415 B2	7/22/2014	Tracking system using proximity and/or presence	Cavallaro; Richard H. et al.
US 9215383 B2	12/15/2015	System for enhancing video from a mobile camera	Milnes; Kenneth A. et al.
US RE45062 E	8/5/2014	Apparatus for inducing attitudinal head movements for passive virtual reality	Maguire, Jr.; Francis J.
US 10290119 B2	5/14/2019	Multi view camera registration	White; Marvin S. et al.