GCQuad Screen Reader

[andygg1986]

On another post, Ports mentioned the idea of pointing a camera at the screen and using image recognition to read the ball parameters. If you can do that, I don't see why you couldn't fake a COM port to send them to, format the data to look like it comes from a GC2's bluetooth, and then use GSX to play TGC. To be fair, my programming skills are geared towards hacking something together for engineering purposes and not customer-facing products, but I thought I would at least mess around with this for fun. There are already open source image-to-text programs and virtual COM port creators, so I think it is more a matter of piecing stuff together and maybe tweaking a few things here and there.

To that end, can someone with a GCQuad take a video of the screen when they hit a shot, both with and without the backlight on and post it to youtube or some other hosting service? I don't actually know what order the data is displayed (ball in hitting zone, ball data, then club data?) or where on the screen each parameter is located. It is surprisingly hard to find even a still image of the ball data, and the ones that I found are not very good quality due to reflections, small size, and being taken at an angle. With a sample video, I can take screenshots of it and quickly see how difficult extracting the text would be.

[Photon]

Great work you are doing here Andy, there are definitely many hurdles to overcome with machine vision but it sounds like you are up for the challenge. Having worked developing automated optical alignment processes, I’ve had a front row seat to the challenges faced by software developers (not me) when implementing machine vision.

In the past I’ve owed a VectorPro LM and for those of you that are familiar with it, it used a mic to trigger the cameras. Given that you need to make a significate impact sound to trigger it, short game shots would not get captured. Eventually (for the fun of it) I decided to build an external optical trigger to register short game shots including putts. I built a trigger using an IR beam break sensor and an Arduino. The ball would be placed between the IR sensors in the hitting area and once the ball was hit the Arduino detects that the ball was gone and triggered the VectorPro through a hardwire that I connected to the internals of the VectorPro. The external trigger worked well enough and I was able to use it to play the E6 trial course that was available for the VectorPro at the time. Anyway I think that you could possibly use this optical trigger idea to trigger your camera to get the screen capture of the current shot. Let me know if you want more details on it.

I’m a GC2 (no HMT, maybe one day…) owner today, it’s obviously way better than my old hacked up VectorPro unit, not even close really. I too have been experimenting with ways to get ball launch data out that would benefit the GCQuad users looking for third party software alternatives. So far I’ve made good progress on this, more to come…

[WISCOGOLFNUT]

Photon, Thank you for also taking the time to help us Quad users stranded in Foresights software... I'm confident you guys will eventually be able to get this as there are way to many smart tech savy people on this forum.. maybe once you do, Foresight will realize people will find a solution one way or another and open up the bluetooth data and actually sell more Quads.. let me know if I can be of any assistance as well

[Duffer41]

I don’t get why Foresight cares. If they require you to purchase FSX with a quad as they do now, what difference does it make? They are getting what they want, selling over priced half baked buggy software. Why wouldn’t they open it up as long as you have an FSX license as well?

[andygg1986]

They could probably get away with charging their standard $500 fee to unencrypt the data. Not to mention sell more quads. I know several people who would have gotten a quad but went with a gc2 and HMT just to have other software options.

[WISCOGOLFNUT]

I think they realize people would then stop buying their overpriced courses

[Ports]

I inquired about the Hawk, it's the same price as two gc2 and one hmt CPO units and you are locked into fsx. I'm likely going the dual gc2 route so I can still use tgc for myself. Unfortunately still have to get fsx for seamless l/r play. If we could only port two gc2 data streams into tgc, I'd skip fsx.

[Duffer41]

Honestly they would be much better off focusing FSX on keeping the range, challenge and improve tiles with just 1 course to practice a variety of different scenarios and shots on. Make the functionally really awesome at just that, focus on true improvement only both PC and Mobile.

For simulation play they can outsource that to a variety of different options like: TGC, E6 Connect or JNPG.

They would make more money that way as well as they could monetize both improve and play.

[WISCOGOLFNUT]

That would be the rationale business sense thing to do.. but that doesn't seem to be Foresight's MO unfortunately for us and them.

[ChadGolf]

andygg1986 Since the screen reader doesn’t sound like the easy solution I had hoped because of the low font quality, you could consider a “screen reader” camera like the following to view the LCD panel on the units:

https://epson.com/For-Work/Projectors/Document-Cameras/DC-07-Document-Camera/p/V12H759020

It has built in LED illumination and will help get you consistent results, could be easier to auto threshold then run the OCR.

[andygg1986]

I actually have the screen reading portion working. I've taken several screenshots and it reliably reads them. Of course trying it while playing a round could reveal other issues.

At this point I'm trying to get the JSON over TCP working. I'm trying to use the "Requests" module which looks like a good fit. I also need to test the screen grabbing code that I have written. I have been doing the coding on my Macbook Pro because I can't stare at a huge impact screen while I'm coding. I think I have figured out how to compile an .exe for windows on my Mac, but that needs to be tested too.

[FaultyClubs]

Isn't it easier/better to keep it all on the computer or tablet? Just read the video buffer? It all ends up there eventually.

[andygg1986]

That is the plan. I'm hoping to just have a Windows executable running in the background that is grabbing a portion of the FSX window every second, check if it has new shot data, and if it does send it to TGC. I may be able to do it more frequently, but I don't want to bog down the processor doing full on video analysis. Template matching is a pretty brute force way to go about it. I have multiple templates for each digit based on the background of the image. Each of them is compared to a screen grab on a pixel-by-pixel basis and checked if it is close enough to be a match. Then the matches are stored, duplicates removed, and then formatted with either decimals or +/- value when necessary.

I don't have a good way to comfortably program on my sim computer though, hence the multiple computer approach. Plus, doing the programming on a totally separate computer makes it closer to the situation of distributing the program.

[ChadGolf]

Yes, that was the original idea I posted and it sounded like andy got it working. The issue could have been that their text and background don't have great contrast and don't have a lot of pixels. So instead of doing OCR and recognizing characters, you're pattern matching to what the digits "kind of" look like. It's the difference between trying to computer read a newpaper vs handwriting.

[Defyphysics]

I can't believe this thread is one of the most exciting thing in golf simulator for me. I'm local to where Foresight sports are and almost just want to go there and tell them to look at this thread. and be like, hey, see what happens when you price your hardware/software too high? people will hack your shit.

[WISCOGOLFNUT]

Lol, you would be legendary if you could manage to talk any sense into them.. I would just love to hear their business strategy from one of their more senior people.. what are we missing?

[gibbiesmalls]

I personally think it's what you mentioned Wisco.... their golf courses.

It's their software and golf courses where they're raking in much higher margins. In fact, it's probably magnitudes more profitable for them to sell FSX than it is to sell the actual hardware (GC2/GCQuad).

[Ports]

I haven't seen fsx up close with two gc2 running, but in theory could this work to push data from that screen to gsx and solve the l/r gc2 issue so we don't have to move the unit back and forth? Obviously paying for two gc2 isn't ideal, but neither is depriving yourself of tgc. The course costs in fsx add up to another gc2 eventually. L/r launch monitors that measure spin aren't cheap, this might be the best route for accuracy vs price. Or even skytrak for that matter

[andygg1986]

I will give it a shot. I actually have an extra gc2 right now for a couple of days. Hopefully it doesn’t switch signs for spin axis and direction. I would need left to always be negative as opposed to a hook always being negative.

[Ports]

Leftys draw is a rights fade. That's why hitting over the unit works, likely will switch it

[Ports]

Good man that andygg1986 is folks

[Ports]

My gc2 always says minimal info on the screen for putting and on fr1. I assume this is better with quad and fsx?

[Ronsc1985]

Lol, you would be legendary if you could manage to talk any sense into them.. I would just love to hear their business strategy from one of their more senior people.. what are we missing?

It's actually quite simple. They don't choose to be much in the consumer market with the attendant amount of customer support required. Selling to golf professionals, sim studios etc. is much easier as people in those areas tend to know how to operate the equipment. With the consumer market they would have to provide continual hand holding.

If you don't believe this just look at the never ending questions asked over and over on this board about interfaces among the various sim programs and currently available LM's. The inclusion of Bluetooth in the GC2 was simply so that one could use the machine with a cell phone interface. It was not to enable various software companies to sell sim programs run with a GC2.

[WISCOGOLFNUT]

I hear your logic and get the point but where it falls apart for me is I feel the segment size of golf professionals and sim studios is too small to build a scalable profitable business...I would also believe the in-home user segment is growing significantly faster and will quickly, if not all ready surpass the golf professionals and sim studio segment.. I would think they would be in the business to make money.. they can easily build pricing plans for 3rd party integration that allows them to make money as well as sell more devises.. the key for companies like them is to get to scale.. they can just continue to provide hardware and fsx support and direct all other support to the 3rd parties

[Stingreye]

I would respectfully disagree. Sim studios and professionals expect a MUCH higher level of support and are not patient. If their LM is down, they are not making money and they expect it to be fixed ASAP. You will see that when places try to implement tgc in a commercial setting. They get frustrated with Bluetooth issues etc. foresight spends a lot of time hand holding these guys to fix their issues. I have called foresight support and they are really helpful and are very used to hand holding.

[jrz]

A potential easy option for them would be to lower their price points to a reasonable level which significantly increases their market size and offer a pro level support option for commercial shops.

[Trickle007]

Interesting thread. I was looking into a GCQuad but immediately stopped once I realized You were locked into one software. I would have considered GCQuad if I could have played TGC. Hope you guys figure this out. Good luck.

[Ronsc1985]

I hear your logic and get the point but where it falls apart for me is I feel the segment size of golf professionals and sim studios is too small to build a scalable profitable business...I would also believe the in-home user segment is growing significantly faster and will quickly, if not all ready surpass the golf professionals and sim studio segment.. I would think they would be in the business to make money.. they can easily build pricing plans for 3rd party integration that allows them to make money as well as sell more devises.. the key for companies like them is to get to scale.. they can just continue to provide hardware and fsx support and direct all other support to the 3rd parties

Trackman essentially has the same plan., Once the price gets into the 15-25 K region I doubt the Harry homeowner market is all that big. That segment of the market is covered by companies like Skytrak and a variety of other low end LM's. How many threads are there on this board about building a whole system for a price that is considerably less then a GC Quad or Trackman unit costs? .

Neither you or I have any idea what the goals are of the Foresight owners. They may be quite satisfied with their current level of profit and have no desire to increase their workload.

[Ronsc1985]

I would respectfully disagree. Sim studios and professionals expect a MUCH higher level of support and are not patient. If their LM is down, they are not making money and they expect it to be fixed ASAP. You will see that when places try to implement tgc in a commercial setting. They get frustrated with Bluetooth issues etc. foresight spends a lot of time hand holding these guys to fix their issues. I have called foresight support and they are really helpful and are very used to hand holding.

The point is there are not all that many and their level of expertise has to be a lot higher then the casual user since their livelihood depends on that knowledge

Every time I have had to contact Foresight (seldom, probably three times over the last 10 or so years) they were very helpful but it was always the same person unless they switched jobs which happens every now and then. Don't delude yourself that Harry homeowner doesn't expect instant support and resolution of his problems. When he doesn't get that he goes on social media and.or boards like this and bashes the company. People who don't even own a Foresight product continually come on this board complaining about this or that,

[Ports]

andygg1986 have you made any progress on this or were you issued a cease and desist lol? My thoughts are it might be used to port two gc2s into tgc. Just curious I assume you are as busy as the rest of us, no pressure haha

[htdumps]

PM me I can maybe help

[WISCOGOLFNUT]

I sent you a PM