Saw a surplus webcam at Princess Auto for $2.99. Being a big spender I bought it, removed the IR filter from the sensor and turned it into an IR camera. On a recent slow day I decided to play around with some pictures of hitting on the GC2. Decided to post since others might find it interesting.
This picture is with the ball sitting on the tee, ready to hit. Normal room lighting, looks black because very little IR light in the room. Also the GC2 LEDs and flash is so strong I have to turn the gain down to 5% otherwise the ball just blows out the picture.
The picture below is hitting with a mid iron. Some interesting things pop out here:
1) The sequence of balls shows the number of images the GC2 takes for each shot. Roughly 10 images per shot. The last few are darker and may not always be used.
2) The gap from the tee to the first image is the time it take the GC2 to realize the ball has been hit and start taking pictures.
3) The flash is extremely bright. The sensor in this cheap camera is totally overloaded from the flash.
4) Even though the ball is overexposed the logo on the ball still shows up well. Shows why having the logo facing camera can help with spin calculations since it is still visible when any ball dimples or imperfections could be washed out.
5) My pants in this photo are BLACK. Yet to IR they appear white. This shows how choice of pants can affect the unit's ability to read the shot. 2 or 3 of the images are completely washed out as the ball passes in front of my pant leg. This kind of background may make it hard for the unit to find the ball. The GC2 is fairly robust since it takes so many pictures but on a Skytrak which only takes a couple pictures this could result in misreads.
6) The club is visible even with no markings, with some reflecting tape it should be very visible. So maybe usable to observe the angle of attack! And maybe face angle if I aim the camera down from the top with a couple tracking dots.
7) The foreground is part of the hitting mat. The green mat and white ball look completely different to us but in reality the green mat has high IR reflectivity so appears white to the camera. In fact it produces a very strong reflection which could easily overload the unit. Maybe some mats are better than others in this regard, I don't know. Also it shows how having the unit below the mat height could really make it hard to see the ball given mats have such a strong IR reflection.
Just for fun I included this shot of a mishit. My 3 wood went under the ball and it rocketed off the top of the club face. Ooops. But again it shows how the ball gets lost in the pant leg reflection. Not good if the unit only took a couple pictures. Luckily the GC2 takes a several (in this case more than 10).
For this picture I rolled up my black pants which is much better as the bare leg has much lower IR reflection. However my black socks are still an issue...the first ball image is lost in the sock reflection.
Finally, this image is simply to highlight that what we see and what an IR sensor sees can be completely different. This matters when we are trying to minimize IR reflections and interference.
Both tape on the club face are black to the naked eye. Yet the black hockey tape on the right appears white to the IR sensor while the black electricians tape on the left remains black.
I took this years ago when setting up my Optishot...people often tape their clubs with varying results and this might be why...they used "black" tape to cover the bottom of the club thinking it would make their white tape strip standout but in fact they may have used the wrong tape and just make the club bottom all white!!
Anyway, for whatever it's worth, just thought these test pictures might be interesting to some. The powerful flash, high speed camera and multiple images that the GC2 takes shows why it is so robust. It would be interesting to see how the Skytrak compares. I understand it only takes a couple pictures and I suspect the flash is not nearly as strong. But I don't really know since I don't have one.
This picture is with the ball sitting on the tee, ready to hit. Normal room lighting, looks black because very little IR light in the room. Also the GC2 LEDs and flash is so strong I have to turn the gain down to 5% otherwise the ball just blows out the picture.
The picture below is hitting with a mid iron. Some interesting things pop out here:
1) The sequence of balls shows the number of images the GC2 takes for each shot. Roughly 10 images per shot. The last few are darker and may not always be used.
2) The gap from the tee to the first image is the time it take the GC2 to realize the ball has been hit and start taking pictures.
3) The flash is extremely bright. The sensor in this cheap camera is totally overloaded from the flash.
4) Even though the ball is overexposed the logo on the ball still shows up well. Shows why having the logo facing camera can help with spin calculations since it is still visible when any ball dimples or imperfections could be washed out.
5) My pants in this photo are BLACK. Yet to IR they appear white. This shows how choice of pants can affect the unit's ability to read the shot. 2 or 3 of the images are completely washed out as the ball passes in front of my pant leg. This kind of background may make it hard for the unit to find the ball. The GC2 is fairly robust since it takes so many pictures but on a Skytrak which only takes a couple pictures this could result in misreads.
6) The club is visible even with no markings, with some reflecting tape it should be very visible. So maybe usable to observe the angle of attack! And maybe face angle if I aim the camera down from the top with a couple tracking dots.
7) The foreground is part of the hitting mat. The green mat and white ball look completely different to us but in reality the green mat has high IR reflectivity so appears white to the camera. In fact it produces a very strong reflection which could easily overload the unit. Maybe some mats are better than others in this regard, I don't know. Also it shows how having the unit below the mat height could really make it hard to see the ball given mats have such a strong IR reflection.
Just for fun I included this shot of a mishit. My 3 wood went under the ball and it rocketed off the top of the club face. Ooops. But again it shows how the ball gets lost in the pant leg reflection. Not good if the unit only took a couple pictures. Luckily the GC2 takes a several (in this case more than 10).
For this picture I rolled up my black pants which is much better as the bare leg has much lower IR reflection. However my black socks are still an issue...the first ball image is lost in the sock reflection.
Finally, this image is simply to highlight that what we see and what an IR sensor sees can be completely different. This matters when we are trying to minimize IR reflections and interference.
Both tape on the club face are black to the naked eye. Yet the black hockey tape on the right appears white to the IR sensor while the black electricians tape on the left remains black.
I took this years ago when setting up my Optishot...people often tape their clubs with varying results and this might be why...they used "black" tape to cover the bottom of the club thinking it would make their white tape strip standout but in fact they may have used the wrong tape and just make the club bottom all white!!
Anyway, for whatever it's worth, just thought these test pictures might be interesting to some. The powerful flash, high speed camera and multiple images that the GC2 takes shows why it is so robust. It would be interesting to see how the Skytrak compares. I understand it only takes a couple pictures and I suspect the flash is not nearly as strong. But I don't really know since I don't have one.
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