Skytrak shot delay

[soccerdude]

Okay, so I have watched the recent SkyTrak/TGC videos from Hoosierdaddy, and they look awesome! Thanks Hoosierdaddy for taking the time to create and post those videos. The graphics look amazing.

The one thing, though, that bothers me is the 5 second wait. I know, I’ve posted about this before, but 5 seconds seems like an eternity. I thought for sure that once SkyTrak passed off the image processing/shot-rendering to a beefy PC that the shot to show time would improve, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I wonder if ProTee United (Dennis) can offer some details/insight as to what might be taking so long to render the shot. As I understand it, the SkyTrak unit just takes the pictures and passes the images to the PC via USB. I can’t imagine this takes very long. And then the PC does everything else. I would imagine it would be ProTee’s interface that analyzes the images to calculate the ball speed, launch angle, back spin, side spin, and side angle. Then I imagine ProTee’s interface passes this data to TGC which uses it to determine the shot shape and render it to the screen. ProTee United, can you comment on whether these assumptions are correct, and how long each step in the process takes?

I know some of you have indicated that you get used to the delay and that it’s not a big deal, but for me I think it will be. It’s the last thing that’s preventing me from pulling the trigger on a SkyTrak. I am currently using an optishot (which has no delay) and so to move to ST/TGC (which I understand will be significantly better in every other way) with a 5 second delay will be difficult to get used to. Please note that I am not trying to bash ST or TGC. From what I’ve read and seen from all the posts here, I think they both look great, but I just want to get a better understanding of what is currently consuming the time so that I can get a feel for whether or not any significant improvement is possible in the future. I am a software developer (have been for 24 years) and so have a little knowledge of how programming works. Admittedly though, I am not an expert on image processing or 3D graphics. Hence, the above questions. Thanks in advance.

Again, I really appreciate all of the contributors to this forum. I have read most of the posts on this forum and have learned an absolute ton! I think I’m a golf sim forum addict cuz I’m on here reading all new posts every few hours. Anyways, thanks again for all of the great posts. Keep them coming. One of these days I’ll pull the trigger (on something other than my opti) and can become a contributor instead of just a consumer.

[TurfWar]

Interesting thought Dax, I do hope the delay can be improved in time. On that thought does anyone know if using the iPad Air 2 has a shorter delay than and iPad Mini 2/3 given the superior cpu and increased ram? This.would inform my buying decision. Thanks.

[aja]

It speaks volumes that Skytrak has not chimed in about the delay issue. It does seem to be inherent in the system itself.

With regard to it being "acceptable" to wait 5 or 6 seconds before shot launch when playing on a "golf sim": Anyone who has played on a current golf sim, where the "delay" is at worst 1 second, and then plays on a system where the delay is 5 or 6 seconds is going to feel very disappointed. This is a big issue.

[soccerdude]

I agree aja, this is a big issue. I really hope SkyTrak_Seth will address this and answer the questions I have asked. Ultimately I hope they will be able to get the shot to show time down to a second or two, but until then it would be helpful and reassuring to have an explanation as to the cause of the delay, and their assurances that they recognize it as an important issue and are working to resolve it. It would be even better if they came back and said that a resolution is imminent and will accompany for the 1st general release of TGC with SkyTrak.

[Js1010]

I am interested in understanding about the delay as well. I have a GC2 (over 2 years now) and as most of you know the delay is about a second using bluetooth for TGC. I remeber speaking to Foresight early on about how it works. When using their software via USB it will send the shot almost immediately after impact (amazing actually). They are able to get all the launch params (except Spin) almost immeidately and launch the ball with a default spin rate of 3500 until they process the real spin number. As soon as they get the real spin number (.5 seconds later) they add the spin numbers into the flight equation and it will be implemented from there. My point is the GC2 does all the image processing onboard, and what's amamzing to me is the processor that is in the GC2 is 4 years old now and is able to process spin and carry in one second. I don't understand the skytrak delay even having to transfer the images and process shoudn't take that long. I would think the processor in an ipad air is more powerfull than what's in the gc2. Just guessing but seems reasonable.

[luv2golf]

Interesting thought Dax, I do hope the delay can be improved in time. On that thought does anyone know if using the iPad Air 2 has a shorter delay than and iPad Mini 2/3 given the superior cpu and increased ram? This.would inform my buying decision. Thanks.

Hey Turfwar, so I have both and ipad mini 2 w/retina and an iphone 6. The iphone 6 process's shots a bit quicker than the ipad min. I also have an ipad 2 (30 pin) and the app just crashes on it.

[Stiggity]

I found that when in network mode it takes a bit longer for the shot to display than when in direct mode from my experience. I have an iPad Air.

[TurfWar]

Thanks guys. Air 2 it is. ☺

[MrHogan]

I found that when in network mode it takes a bit longer for the shot to display than when in direct mode from my experience. I have an iPad Air.

Must be based on available bandwith, would depend on environmental factors such as wifi router placement.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Hey guys, sorry to be a stranger. Haven't logged on since this thread was posted. I can't really get into too many specifics, other than all of the processing is done on the client (iPad, PC, etc). davray666 is no dummy with his post though That's why you see shot-to-show times decreasing with each new iPad release. Our testing here with an iPhone 5s has the delay down to 3 seconds. It will only keep getting faster.

Keep in mind that all of these TCG videos are done using development builds, so delay is going to be longer than what the public will get. If I were to guess, it should probably be more in the 3 second range for initial release.

And yes, MrHogan is right...if you have a slow or low signal-strength network, then your shot-to-show delay will increase if in network mode.

[soccerdude]

Thanks SkyTrak_Seth for replying to this new thread. I am glad to hear that you think the first public release of SkyTrak/TGC will have a shot delay of only 3 seconds as opposed to 6.

Would you mind reading a previous post from above (which I've pasted below) and commenting on it? Thanks very much.

08-21-2015, 04:14 PM
Thank you ProTee United for the videos and SDK documentation. They were very insightful. JohnMeyer, I think you're on the right track, except when it comes to ST and TGC, I don't think there's any IOS App involved - because there is no IOS hardware, i.e. there is only the SkyTrak unit and the PC, so no need to anything IOS related. Based on ProTee United's input, I now believe the following happens:

1) SkyTrak unit takes 2 pictures and sends them via USB to PC
2) SkyTrak has software running on the PC which receives the images sent from the SkyTrak unit. The SkyTrak software (running on the PC) processes the images to calculate the ball speed, launch angle, back spin, side spin, and side angle, which it then passes to the ProTee SDK
3) the ProTee SDK then passes this data to TGC which then renders the shot.

SkyTrak_Seth, can you confirm that this is what happens?

If so, then it would appear based on the < 1 second delay it takes for the shot to render in TGC when passing the shot data into the ProTee SDK (actually looks like a couple of tenths of a second from the time that the user presses enter and the shot flies), and @davray666's comment that it takes less than 100 ms (1/10 of a second) to pass the images from the SkyTrak unit to the PC, that the vast majority of the 5 or 6 second delay that we're seeing in @Hoosierdaddy's video is the SkyTrak image processing software that I am assuming is running on the PC. SkyTrak_Seth, can you either confirm or deny this?

Also, SkyTrak_Seth, if this is the case i.e. that the SkyTrak image processing software running on the PC is the source of the 5 second delay, would you mind telling us what language it is written in. If I had to guess, you probably used the same unity source code that you use in your IOS app for this. Thanks for helping us understand exactly where the slow-down is and what is happening at this point.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

I'm not going to publicly post specific technical details like that. I will simply say that you can't compare us processing photometric images to a club sensor - it's a lot more complicated, hence the longer delay. But to confirm, yes - we take x number of images, send those images to the PC, process the images, then send that data to TGC where they then have to translate that into ball flight. The reason most simulators work so fast is because they are not analyzing actual ball images (thus not accurately measuring the ball's performance) to the level we are.

[soccerdude]

Okay, fair enough. Thanks SkyTrak_Seth for as much as you've said - that helps me understand what is happening. It certainly makes sense that processing ball images would take longer than collecting sensor data. Are you able to say what changed between the beta version and the first public release to reduce the shot to show time from 6 seconds to 3 seconds?

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Well I can't say for sure with TGC because it's still in beta, but with another simulation partner, we had an experience similar to what I described. It takes awhile for both sides to figure out how to best optimize the throughput when you have two systems working together.

[mhage]

Looks like the asian version has about a 3 second delay. Not sure if that was a released version or not. See 2:57

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG4fSfzSN34

[luv2golf]

That video was posted March 31st - 5 months ago.

Crazy how far behind US Skytrak is compared to Japan Skytrak

[doublebogey]

I don't live in Europe or Australia (like many on this forum) but live in Asia where back in early April I had choice between Japan SkyTrak and U.S. SkyTrak - I ended up choosing the U.S. version (hoping if would be better w more sim options than Japan) however have now spent the last 5 months getting frustrated by a lack of customer service and support from U.S. SkyTrak and just recently got sync to work (but still a little bit of mess) while waiting for sim options to come out (to at least make my $99 game improvement package option worth something instead of just feel like being ripped off) whereas this whole time I could have had the Japan version with zero problems/issues, good support and sim play + ability to order protector for my device.

U.S. SkyTrak - please make some huge progress rest of this year to make my decision to go w you guys worthwhile (instead of giving me more frustrations).

[doublebogey]

BTW one of my original reasons for going w U.S. SkyTrak was because I don't speak Japanese so thought U.S. SkyTrak would provide better customer service/support for me if needed due to the language - boy was I wrong...