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Advanced Camera Golf Simulator technology

 

Development progress

For those that would like to follow the VisTrack development progress, we've added this page

Note that VisTrack features are a culmination of all the existing GSA Golf developments that have already been completed

over many hundreds (if not thousands) of hours with the CX, CTS and LX systems

and as such, 90% of the Vistrack development is already complete including all hardware.

Official VisTrack launch : January 2016

Development schedule

1. Ability to detect both ball and club in the same frame (completed)

2. Ability to detect exact ball image size (completed)

3. Ability to measure ball path, ball speed, club face angle and club speed (completed)

4. Ability to detect club type (driver, woods or irons) and effective loft by measuring amount of face visible to the camera i.e. hitting on the down or up swing (requires calibration)

5. Ability to calculate launch angle from variation in ball image size and effective loft of club. (requires calibration, Not required for VisTracks 2 and 3)

6. Ability to calculate ball spin rate from either markings on the ball or from effective loft of club and club speed. (requires calibration)

7. Ability to automatically detect ball on tee or hitting position (completed)

9. New system circuit board test ( completed)

VisTrack Development News

by Martin Paul Gardiner

Electronics and software development engineer and founder of GSA Golf

March 3 2016

VisTrack Vcam

VisTrack's vertical launch and ball speed camera was tested today. As expected, results were excellent with a super bright ball trace.

January 25 2016

VisTrack production starts

Here the first 6 units are going out as club tracking systems for CX3 and KX orders.

January 10 2016

VisTrack stand

As not everyone will want to bother with mounting a VisTrack on the ceiling, we came up with a simple stand that makes the VisTrack portable

Stand price is $199

As both the light sources and cameras are below the players head, there is no problem with putting when using this option.

January 4 2016

VisTrack casings

A last minute update to the VisTrack casings allow the user to replace the standard definition lenses to HD definition lenses if required.

VisTrack LED light show

The LED light indicators on the VisTrack are quite a light show we noticed today. Especially the green LED - indicating that the system is ready - is almost laser intensity in it's brightness.

January 1 2016

Casing fabrication 3 week lead time

The specially designed casings for the VisTrack are being produced by a separate company. Lead time for these casings is 3 weeks so we won't able to ship the first products until the 4th week of January now. Just in time for the PGA show in Orlando though.

December 28 2015

Testing today revealed that the following mods were required.

1. The digital delay on the ball in flight frame was too short. Set at 1 millisecond ( 1 thousandths of a second) the ball would only travel a couple of inches before the frame captured it even at a speed of over 200 mph, and at 20 or 10 mph for putts and chips, would have hardly moved at all.

The trigger delay has now been set to 3.5 milliseconds so that the ball will have traveled over 12 inches within this time period at 200 mph and over an inch when putting.

2. Adjusting the camera with the overhead mount was found to be quite difficult to get the aim right as it would only allow for rotation around its own axis and either back and forth or left or right tilt movement.

It has thus been modified to allow for both back and forth tilt as well as left and right tilt movement and rotation around its own axis.

I know that the above last mod may seem trivial but if you are precariously standing on a ladder trying to get the aim just right of a camera mounted 10 feet high on the ceiling, this mod is a Godsend.

Measured ball spin

A free update to VisTrack's software later in the new year will be measured - in contrast to the current calculated - ball spin and spin axis.

December 27 2015

VisTrack 2 test image

The above screen shot shows Club face before and after impact together with club path and club speed plus all ball data. The image is a composite of frames 2 and 3. (Frame 1 is just of the ball on the tee or placement position on the mat

and has the Darken Image option on to accentuate the face angle cross hairs and path lines.

Note that there are two versions of VisTrack 2. The second camera for VisTrack2 can either be used to capture club face angle before impact to the ball (instead of after impact as in VisTrack 1) pluse club path or can be used as a Vcam to measure ball launch angle.

VisTrack 3 uses 3 cameras to capture both.

December 19 2015

VisTrack 3 production prototype completed

The above image shows an inside shot of the new VisTrack 3.

3 color cameras are used together with dual Xenon flash units.

December 18 2015

VisTrack testing issues and VisTrack 3

Testing today by our independent golf professionals has revealed a number of fundamental issues that can only be resolved by adding a 3rd camera

Issue 1:

The main issue is that the club face angle detected with VisTrack 1 and 2 is after impact to the ball and thus - due to the swing arc - has rotated to such an extent that it's value is of little use. i.e. an open club face at impact is shown as a closed face angle after impact

Issue 2:

VisTrack 1 and 2 only see the club face angle and not club path or speed.

Issue 3:

The cameras are not working well with mats that don't feature grass fibers - as in our standard FiberBuilt mats - as they reflect too much light.

Issue 4:

The Line Scan camera is too finicky to setup for the average user. i.e. both it's aim and sensitivity require too much effort to get right

Solutions

Issues 1 & 2.

Using a 3rd camera and flash allows us to capture a frame of the club before impact. The 2nd camera will then detect the club after impact and thus we can measure both club path and speed.

Issues 3 & 4

Replacing the line scan camera with our standard FiberBuilt trigger mat solves both these issues. i.e. the grass fiber textures don't reflect light and the sensor triggers the cameras at a very precise time before club impact to the ball and doesn't require any setup.

VisTrack 3 price

VisTrack 3 price will be around $2,299

December 15 2015

VisTrack 2 software was completed today. Beta release will be online tomorrow.

VisTrack 2 is the standard VisTrack combined with a Vcam vertical launch camera for more accurate vertical launch angle detection.

Note that the VisTrack series is currently being tested by a renowned independent company

December 12 2015

Initial Software and hardware development completed

VisTrack's system board is now completed and goes into production on Monday.

Board features Line Scan camera, Xenon flash power supply, remote USB software controlled flash activation / deactivation logic, trigger delay timing, USB soft trigger logic, external trigger logic input, Trigger out for Vcam, 4 super bright status and trigger LEDs, Xenon flash trigger circuitry.

In addition, a remote line scan camera sensitivity control has been added. that saves the user from having to climb up a step ladder to adjust the LS sensitivity. This feature is also available with our standard CX camera systems now too.

All tests today showed that all aspects of the software are running well and as expected. VisTrack's Beta version software will be released on Monday.

Casing hole and cutout diagrams are being made on Monday so that he casing manufacturer can start production this coming week.

December 11 2015

First live VisTrack images capturing both club and ball

Above: a small chip shot showing ball location and size detected on mat before strike, ball location and size after impact and club position with club face angle

Image is shown in standard resolution (i.e. 1 to 1 as camera sees it)

Here, the same shot shown in half resolution but showing total FOV of the camera.

Work yet to be done this week:

1. Ball vertical launch angle calibration.

2. Club path calculations

First VisTrack software will be going live this weekend

VisTrack Production is well and truly on track for January 1st.

New ball spin detection methods for CX and VisTrack systems

The new VisTrack and CX ball spin detection methods are comimg up this weekend with the new CP release.

December 3 2015

Production prototype completed

Now the fun part starts; Testing. Results to be published later.

 

November 30 2015

Mulitiple frames

Frame 2 coding has been added today to the VisTrack software. The above image shows a composite of both frames 1 and 2

Here, frame 2 alone (i.e. after a ball strike).

When the "darken image" option has been selected, the cross hairs and angles are more clearly visiable.

 

November 29 2015

Basics

One of the first steps was to combine both the LX ball detection methods and CTS club detection methods together.

Note: We're using test images here so ignore the club speed.

The above image shows that the software is now able to detect both the ball, it's exact size and position and the club face angle

This is a darkened version of the previous image that highlights the cross hairs and ball size frames

In order to accomplish the ball detection, the image had to be first converted from color to monochrome. I used a rather interesting new method here to accomplish this that works really well without reducing the brightness of the ball.

The ball image - in fact - stays nearly exactly the same as before the conversion.

After ball detection, the scan zone area for the club is reduced to the area behind the ball - we're assuming after a few milliseconds that the ball will always be ahead of the club.

This allowed the club face software to function flawlessly

Coding for all this took a good 3 days but we're very pleased with the results.

Next up is to add test images to frames 2 and 3 so that the system measures correct club and ball speeds plus paths.

VisTrack's price inspiration

Probably one of the biggest aspects in deciding the VisTrack series price was this above shown product.

As many who know me, my roots are in music synthesizers from way back in the 70's so I'm always looking around in this field

This new product from Moog shows - to me at least - an astounding value for money with a recommended retail price of just $1,579.

There's just so much electronic hardware and software development in this product that it's hard to comprehend how they can do it for super this low price.

And it's all made here in the USA too !

and of course, this is just the reseller price. Not the price the resellers pay

Having studied this product and all the painstaking work that goes into producing it,

I decided that I should follow suit with the VisTrack and offer really super value for money too