Ball Data on the Protee

[JJI1981]

So I was looking through an older thread and now I am confused, so I'll ask this wonderful forum: Do the Protee cameras measure ball spin as opposed to calculating it? If they are not measuring ball spin, how are the cameras calculating the spin?

[inorkuo]

The cameras measure launch angles. Spin is calculated based on club face, club path and ball launch angles.

[JJI1981]

How does the protee perform in accurately simulating something like gear effect? I have used a skytrak and a gc2, and found that it did a good job in simulating my heel slices and toe hooks on the driver...

[gene438]

Well, I think you are asking the right questions and you are basically summing up the primary differences between the systems.

1)Launch Monitors (GC2& Skytrak) are measuring the spin of the ball. They don't know how you hit it, etc. they just know the ball and actual spin on it

2)ProTee - actual captures the club head and swing path (the sensor mat) and launch angles and horizontal angles, but does not capture spin so it must calculate that.

So basically, if you know your swing pretty well and you know why you fade or hook, etc. you can get by with just knowing the spin/speed numbers. If you want to know your club face angle (open/close), or your swing path (in/out) and where you are hitting on the club face (gear effect) you need to capture that.


PS. Oh sorry, forgot to add that I think that if you add hmt to gc2, then you would pick up the horizontal angles of the shot.

[ProTee United]

With all the data (club and ball) we measure we are able to calculate spin. Gear effect is implemented and will be applied based on measured sweet spot deviation.

[inorkuo]

skytrak and gc2 measure only the ball so if you put spin on the ball, whether it's from face to path or from gear effect, those launch monitors will see it. protee measures club path, club face, strike point (horizontally), ball path, ball speed, and launch angles. gear effect calculation can be turned on or off and you can tweak the amount of gear effect you want to see. there are a lot of settings you can adjust to dial in a protee system, so if you know your swing and ball flight, and your room is set up correctly, it will be very realistic.

the only weakness of the system is on very high launching shots where the club passes the the sensors before the ball does. protee has some logic in there that does a calculation where if you are within a certain yardage to the pin and launch is higher than x, it will take y percentage of the club head speed to use as the ball speed. most of the time it works pretty well, but this is where I got most of my misreads.

skytrak struggles to read short chips, but there is a software workaround you can turn on, where within a certain yardage to the pin (around 20yds) it will use speed and launch measurements and give you a pre-determined amount of back spin (zero side spin). skytrak also has the longest shot to show delay of around 3 seconds. gc2 will be the most accurate but it is also the most expensive. shot to show is pretty quick, at around 1 to 1.5 seconds. protee has the fastest response time with almost no delay. for righty/lefty use, protee is going to be the easiest to use. with gc2 and skytrak you would have to pick up and move or swing over the top of the unit.

[JJI1981]

Helpful information straight from Protee. The sweet spot deviation is interesting, don't know if I knew that before. That would certainly have an effect on ball flight due to gear effect if, however, the protee sensor mat is precisely aware of where the ball is being placed prior to the strike. I don't think the trugolf vista units (the other mat sensor I can think of) provides this.

Quite nice that I got a response from Protee on this. My club (who I'm doing the sim for) already has a skytrak, but the righty/lefty thing has me considering a protee. Certainly, tech support/service does not seem to be a weakness with the protee.

[simmb]

Certainly, tech support/service does not seem to be a weakness with the protee.

I don't have a ProTee setup but been on this forum long enough to know support from them is probably as good as it gets, they do look after their customers.

[Bubba22]

You will definitively get great support from Protee. The gear effect calculations are very good. Inorkuo has summed it up well.