High Speed Camera for Kinovea

[Joshua1745]

I'm hoping people can add to this list cameras that have produced decent results in Kinovea taken into account the dark environment of a simulator using a projector. I know everyone wants high FPS but my limiting factor has been exposure time. In order to get a decent picture the exposure has to be long and that creates motion blur instead of the preferred freeze action shots.
Also, Global shutter would be great but is usually very expensive. A Global shutter eliminates the distortion of a moving object (i.e. club bending).

So far this is what I've gone thru camera wise trying to set up automatic replay:

OV2710 (ELP camera): Rolling Shutter. Seems to be the most popular on this forum. I have 2. I have been unable to get a decent picture using my sim setup (Protee and projector). Sensitivity is rated at 3700mV with a 2.2um pixel size. To get a usable image I have to set the exposure high enough that the swing is very blurry.

PS3 Eye: Also popular. Rolling Shutter. I modded mine with a 2.8-12mm lens which is also found on the OV2710. Honestly I don't see much difference between the OV2710 and the PS3

PointGrey Flea3 (firewire): Great image and has a Global Shutter under low light but I've had trouble getting any point Grey camera to work with Kinovea. There are a lot of firewire global shutter cameras cheap on eBay but getting them to work with Kinovea may be difficult.


I've started looking at this camera: oCam-1CGN-U. It has a global shutter and has a higher sensitivity. USB 3 and ~$130.00

[cooke23]

http://www.kayetoncctv.com/product/n...mera-module-2/

ive not bought one yet but I did get an email from the company and they said they support DirectShow so it should work good with Kinovea. This basically gets you 120FPS in HD. $106 shipped

[Joshua1745]

I don't think its going to be better then the OV2710. It has a rolling shutter and low sensitivity.

I'm going to ask the support team if the oCam will support direct show. It's listed as UVC (plug and play) so it'l probably work with most things but I can post a message to Kinovea support as well. Take a look at the videos online with fan blades comparing this camera to a rolling shutter cam. I've seen the sensor used in that camera in a only a few different cameras but it should be more sensitive for low light use.

[Joshua1745]

I’m ordering the Ocam. I just got a response from Kinovea that being UVC it should work out of the box. The global shutter and higher sensitivity should make it a much better cam.

[cooke23]

Drop some videos once ya get it running

[Joshua1745]

Well instead of the Ocam I ordered a IDS 1220LE because it was a lot cheaper. There's a guy selling these on ebay for $49 with a nice lens. He had one without the packaging for $29 so it was no risk. It's a global shutter camera with a higher sensitivity then the OV2710 (although not as high as the O-cam I listed above). Its also not UVC unlike the O-cam meaning you can't just plug it in and expect it to work without messing around with drivers. I also saw that Kinovea put in specific support in for the IDS 1220LE in their newest release 8.26 (although anything above 8.15 is listed as experiemental). I could not get it to work with Kinovea 8.15 probably because the drivers are 64bit and Kinovea 8.15 is 32bit. Works fine with 8.26, although your limited to changing the FPS/Exposure/ Gain/ and image size; so there is less settings then via the IDS interface. At the full size of 752x480 your limited to 42fps (still looks OK because of the global shutter). You can reduce the image size to get higher frame rate; however, it crops the picture instead. So I made it 480x480 to get 70 fps (since I mainly care about the height of the picture). Furthermore, the exposure is the limiting factor not the FPS. You need a lot of light to have a shorter exposure. Increasing the FPS only makes it smoother frame to frame transition. The cameras at Golftec are only running at 30 or 60FPS but they have a lot of light.

So bottom line for the same price as the OV2710 its a better camera with better picture but its more of a hassle to get running and has more limited settings in Kinovea. The OV2710 is simply plug and play and I belivieve the O-cam is as well.

[cooke23]

Can you post some swing video of the slo mo? 70FPS is quite a bit lower than the 120FPS I’m using now.

[inorkuo]

2nd that. please post a video.

[Joshua1745]

Haven’t forgotten. I had trouble with the updated kinovea and the automatic swing recording script. The file naming is different but looks like it can be figured out. In the meantime I did a low light video that I needed to edit with my Mac bc it was way too long. I’m out of town and will post a video when I get back in a week. The low light performance suitable for my projector is only slightly better when I compared the 2 closely. I cannot get the shutter speed fast enough to not blur the golf club when face on. I’m going to keep using it but it’s not worth the hassle against something that’s more plug and play.

[FaultyClubs]

Low light performance is mainly about capturing photons and converting them into electrons with little added noise. Meaning sensor size, quantum efficiency and low noise electronics. QE and noise levels tend to be similar for same vintage so it boils down to sensor size with current generation technology. These two are both 1/3 format sensors so would perform roughly the same given the same lens. That is, not well in terms of low light performance. Look for bigger sensors.

Sensitivity isn't a fundamental parameter, it's just an "after the fact" brightness knob that doesn't change the underlying performance of the sensor.

The global shutter is nice but without enough light it's hard to take advantage of since one can't get the shutter speed high enough and still capture enough photons. Small format sensors are best used outside.

[Joshua1745]

I agree with the sensor size; however, for USB cameras its hard to find anything above 1/3". (note the PS eye is only 1/4"). Also some sensors pack a lot more pixels in reducing the available light per pixel; therefore, pixel size is important. I don't need anything more then 640x480. Also, I believe the OV2710 sensor and IDS 1220 (with MTV0932 sensor) have been out for a good amount of time, and I'm sure technology has made improvements in low light performance. Can you explain what you mean about the lack of significance of the sensitivity parameter and by taking a look at the sensor specs on the O-cam (I believe is a AR0134 which is newer then the MTV0932) if that should be improvement. Another challenge is finding something that will work with Kinovea. I do have a Flea 3 with larger 1/2" sensor and larger pixel diameter; however, I've have minimal success getting it to work with kinovea.

[FaultyClubs]

...Also some sensors pack a lot more pixels in reducing the available light per pixel; therefore, pixel size is important...

Actually no. Given 100% fill factor the photon flux density is the same per unit area. Yes there are less photons per pixel but there are more pixels. Assuming your camera integrates rather than decimates to produce your 640x480 pixels it will be the same.

The ocam has better specs than the ids 1220 but is a 1/3 size sensor so still in the same low end class. You really need a larger sensor. Otherwise photon noise dominates at the light levels we want to use. Personally I just use more light.

The experimental version of Kinovea works for golf again and has been rewritten with the intent to support IDS cameras. People should be using it and providing feedback to the author if we want the option to use Kinovea with better cameras for golf.

[Joshua1745]

There’s only so many sensors available to these USB cameras. Point Grey does publish some articles comparing almost all the sensors out there and there is a good deal of difference between some of the sensors. Again unfortunately most of the sensors are going to be in the 1/3 range for these USB cameras. Also, it’s important to note that some of these sensors are over 10 years old that are still being sold in currebt cameras. This they are not keeping up with consumer cameras. Sensor size is important but not the only thing. The cameras at Golftec are no better but they have a ton of light. I’ve seen them use very old CCD cameras or newer global shutter cameras. FaultyClubs what USB camera are you using and how is its ability indoors. Any suggestions for spot lights that won’t destroy a projector image let alone Protee sensor.

[Supraracer]

Just an update since no one ever posted about the oCam. I could never get it working in Kinovea. I emailed the author but no response. I can get the ocam to work with their own viewer. I may send the cam to creator of kinovea to test.

[dborden0]

I'd be interested in seeing if that camera works with an application I wrote. If it does, I might but one and write my own golf swing software. Would you be willing to try it?

[Joshua1745]

How did the oCam do as far as picking up the club. The IDS model I mentioned was a little better then the ov2710 mainly bc of the global shutter but required updating Kinovea to newer version which didn’t work with the latest script. Eventually, I got a Kinect to use with myswinguru and surprisingly it has a better picture despite lower specs.

[Supraracer]

I never used the oCam. They have a viewer but it does not record. I didn't spend too much time on it.