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So I've seen videos where it takes ST 10 seconds to render a shot on the ipad after you hit the ball. I recently asked Bubba22 (who is testing ST with TGC) how long it took to render a shot on his PC (I assume it was on a PC) and he said 3 seconds. This surprised me... I thought for sure that once connected to a PC, the shot would be rendered much more quickly. According to ProTee, ST just passes the raw data (ball speed, launch angle, direction, backspin and spin axis) and then TGC calculates/renders the ball flight. So does this mean that the slowness is in the ST unit itself (as opposed to in the ipad or PC)? I am thinking there must by a cpu or microprocessor in the ST unit that analyzes the photos and then calculates the raw data so it can pass it on to the ipad or PC. If so, is its slowness due to a hardware limitation in the ST unit itself? If it is, then it would seem to me that no firmware or software upgrade would resolve this issue - and that nothing short of installing a faster cpu in the ST unit would speed things up. SkyTrak/ProTee/Others, thoughts/comments? Thanks in advance.
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I tried hitting drivers off a tee on grass today and it would take almost 30 seconds to show up. I was using it with a pro to fit different shafts in a driver and it was quite frustrating. We couldn't figure out why it was taking so long. When I hit off a mat back at my place outside, it's no more than 3-4 seconds. Why is hitting with a regular tee or on grass take it so long (if at all to show it)? -
Originally posted by Csarran View Post
Were you using a white tee? I think I read somewhere that the Skytrak can mistake the flying tee for a ball. I Don't know if this is true but just trying to narrow down the possibilities. Hopefully Seth can share some of his knowledge as to why this may have happened. Did you try quitting the app and re opening it? A couple times I was getting very slow and Skippy rendering and closing the app fixed it.Comment
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I used a brown and green tee. I didn't try to restart the app. I will do that next time. It seems when I hit off a mat, I have no issues at all, but once it is on the ground it takes forever if at all. The numbers were pretty accurate, but dang it was slow.Comment
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I think it's the grass. You can hit driver off very shortly mowed grass (like putting green short), but anything taller makes it really hard for the software to pick out the ball. It takes so long because the software is constantly combing through image, ruling out blades of grass to make sure the perimeter of the ball is not affected.Comment
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Look, I used to work for a major pharmaceutical company as a software engineer (we also had embedded systems/programmers). At that time we had 'kids' coming out of college with BSEE degrees that could not program their way out of paper bag - something that someone with a BSCS can handle quite easily. I suggest the SkyTrak people look to their engineering departments for answers as to why their delay is soooo slowwww?
It's likely down to poor coding in the embedded processor code, because I can't see it has anything to do with the hardware of the device, or the PC, which can easily handle huge amounts of data coming down over a USB line, especially if it's the newer USB standard.
When someone from SkyTrak that has engineering knowledge can reply to that, I would like to hear that answer? I'm all ears!Comment
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Brett, I think you are spot on and the main reason that anytime a resume with BSCS comes across my desk I recycle it in the round bin. BSCS majors don't know how to read data sheets. Let me give you 2 examples; 1 - Sky Trak doesn't transfer any data over USB, 2 - The prices for SkyTrak is right on their website.
I think SkyTrak has done a pretty good job with their product. Could it be faster, maybe, but you would probably have to haul around a car battery to use it. Embedded systems are a compromise, nothing is perfect. It's a portable, modern design with a low price point that overall works really well.
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Mhage maybe you should recycle your own resume. 1.) clearly Sky Trak will be transmitting data over USB when it sends that data to a computer for the simulator to process, this is discussed openly here that it would do that over a 30-35 foot USB cable maximum. 2.) I never asked about pricing in this post.
Anyone willing to put up with 3-5 seconds typical, and some estimate up to 30 seconds to view ball tracking data should re-think their own views of simulators. That's not going to fly in a real-time simulator, those numbers are lagging too long. Real-time simulator responses should be very, very fast as they are in other sim hardware/software integrations.
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Please quote anything that says anything about data being transmitted over USB. It connects via WIFI. USB is for charging.
True, you didn't ask in this post, but you did in another.
IPAD AIR2's currently display ball fight data in less than 5 seconds. Where are you getting 30 seconds?
Have you ever used Trackman, Flightscope or even GC2? They take up to 5 seconds also.
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Honestly people 3 second delay really isn't that bad you get use to it, and fairly quickly. Especially when paired with an amazingly accurate and beautiful software like TGC. I recently purchased TGC for Xbox one and wow it totally exceeded my expectations. 50,000 courses and constantly growing because of user uploads. You can also rate the courses which is a very neat feature as well as see how many times the course has been played.
There are kids starving all over the world and dying of cancer and some are over here complaining that their golf simulator didn't display the shot quick enough for their liking. Get a grip or buy a GC2 for the second and a half difference over skytrak.Comment
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I'm sorry your right that was a little extreme but I have been reading countless comments lately where people have been talking about the 3 second delay like it is the end of the world. If people (not you) have a problem with the delay I wish they would just spend more money on a higher u end launch monitor then complain about the skytrak. As far as I'm concerned the skytrak is an absolute home run for the price. Especially the preorder or discounted units. -
Lol if you look back on my posts before I purchased a launch monitor you can see that I too struggled with the same exact dilemma. I literally almost bought a GC2 because I THOUGHT the 3 second delay was gonna bug the crap out of me and ruin the whole "simulation" experience. I couldn't be more wrong the 3 seconds is totally acceptable in my opinion and I don't think anything could ruin simulation because let's face it is practically playing a round of golf in an hour without leaving the house. I am so happy I bought the skytrak especially after talking to my local fitter with 25 year experience and doing loads of research. He was a gc2 owner for years until he upgraded to a trackman. There is absolutely nothing negative about the gc2 in my opinion other then the price tag but he told me after owning both he thinks the GC2 is a little generous on total distance. If you think about it though they both give you the exact same thing when it comes to ball data with the GC2 being a tiny bit more accurate, horizontal angle being its greatest advantage. They both assume a perfect 1.50 smash factor which is crazy on the GC2 side because the thing
cost 6 grand new. If you haven't bought a launch monitor yet go with the skytrak you won't be disappointed.
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Can you use gc2 with an iPad? And if so is there a delay? I've been to golfsmith and hit on there gc2 and it does show the flight instantly but sometimes it is a very slow flight. Ball was moving very slowly thru the air. Almost like it was still calculating the data as the ball was flying. Mine registers pretty fast. I hit the ball, pick it up and when I stand up the ball is in flight on the screen.Comment
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From a vision processing point of view it's easy (fast) to calculate the ball position and thereby derive speed and direction. Extracting spin is more complicated and therefore takes longer time. What I think GC2 does for simulator play is calculates speed and direction first so the simulator can start the ball. Then mid air it presents the spin and ball path can be adjusted to include spin. If the sim software is smart enough it can interpolate between the 2 trajectories in real time so that the player will not notice any difference.
Theoretically the Skytrak guys could do the same. For practice I would not bother but for simulator play it would be nice to have it as an option.Comment
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