Automatic Shot Clock

[nataddrho]

I would rather see a product that uses a cheap commodity video device like a go-pro to monitor when balls stop moving. Use it with software that runs on a laptop or rasperry pi. Not sure if that would work with spinning balls though.

A ceiling mounted camera with a wide field of view running off of a single board computer like a Pi could probably detect total ball motion for long shots but might fail with tiny movements found in safeties and especially classical carom games like balkline and one cushion. The downside is you need to run power to the ceiling mounted location, and have a mounting point in the first place. I think clipping to a light with a battery won’t work well, beyond typical field of view. Not great options for the average player going to the pool hall for a few hours.

The DigiBall has the advantage that no external equipment is needed… the signal just comes from the ball itself. You just jump on a table and start playing right away.

 

[straightline]

Audio might do it.

 

[nataddrho]

Audio might do it.

For nurses you can barely hear the balls clicking against each other even if there is absolutely no noise.

For pool, Paul Nettle has created an audio-based break speed measuring device using this principle. It is a hardware extension of his famous predator break app. See www.breakdemon.com. His device uses the industrialized raspberry pi compute module.

 

[Badpenguin]

A ceiling mounted camera with a wide field of view running off of a single board computer like a Pi could probably detect total ball motion for long shots but might fail with tiny movements found in safeties and especially classical carom games like balkline and one cushion. The downside is you need to run power to the ceiling mounted location, and have a mounting point in the first place. I think clipping to a light with a battery won’t work well, beyond typical field of view. Not great options for the average player going to the pool hall for a few hours.

The DigiBall has the advantage that no external equipment is needed… the signal just comes from the ball itself. You just jump on a table and start playing right away.

The DigiBall is talking to _something_, right?

There are all sorts of cameras, home security for example, that operate on batteries for months. I would see this more useful for tournament tours and things like that, which wouldn't want a permanent mount. Motion detection in cameras is an extremely established technology.

 

[straightline]

For nurses you can barely hear the balls clicking against each other even if there is absolutely no noise.

For pool, Paul Nettle has created an audio-based break speed measuring device using this principle. It is a hardware extension of his famous predator break app. See www.breakdemon.com. His device uses the industrialized raspberry pi compute module.

Obviously contacts - piezos on the slate and maybe an IR field on the bed.

Why do nurses have to be heard?

 

[fastone371]

I would rather see a product that uses a cheap commodity video device like a go-pro to monitor when balls stop moving. Use it with software that runs on a laptop or rasperry pi. Not sure if that would work with spinning balls though.

Sounds much more complicated than Digiball and a timer. If the camera wont catch spinning balls its really of no use.

 

[nataddrho]

The DigiBall is talking to _something_, right?

The core concept of the DigiBall is that it connects to your smart phone, which almost everyone is assumed to already have on their person at all times.

Extra hardware breaks that model, so it needs to break it for a good reason.

There are all sorts of cameras, home security for example, that operate on batteries for months. I would see this more useful for tournament tours and things like that, which wouldn't want a permanent mount. Motion detection in cameras is an extremely established technology.

The home security cameras have very low power optical triggers built into the sensor, and they are essentially in sleep mode until a cell is activated. They then wake up and record video, stop recording when there is no more optical flow detected in the ISP, and transmit the video to a server. Then they go back to sleep. Most of the time they are sleeping and consuming very little power.

I think that for our application we need a constantly running camera, i.e. active ISP, that is always using optical flow to detect ball motion, with code smart enough to differentiate it from moving heads and cues. This will drain the battery quickly, so you just need a larger battery, or a constant power feed.

We won't be able to convince ASIC manufacturers to front us millions of dollars to modify their sensors to sleep on a different patterns. We are at the mercy of using the available hardware capabilities.

 

[Badpenguin]

The core concept of the DigiBall is that it connects to your smart phone, which almost everyone is assumed to already have on their person at all times.

Extra hardware breaks that model, so it needs to break it for a good reason.


The home security cameras have very low power optical triggers built into the sensor, and they are essentially in sleep mode until a cell is activated. They then wake up and record video, stop recording when there is no more optical flow detected in the ISP, and transmit the video to a server. Then they go back to sleep. Most of the time they are sleeping and consuming very little power.

I think that for our application we need a constantly running camera, i.e. active ISP, that is always using optical flow to detect ball motion, with code smart enough to differentiate it from moving heads and cues. This will drain the battery quickly, so you just need a larger battery, or a constant power feed.

We won't be able to convince ASIC manufacturers to front us millions of dollars to modify their sensors to sleep on a different patterns. We are at the mercy of using the available hardware capabilities.

The DigiBall is only the cue ball, there are up to 15 other balls that need to be monitored for movement. So unless I'm missing something, I don't see where this would help for a shot clock timer. Unless you are talking about an entire set of up to 15 digiballs.

 

[nataddrho]

The DigiBall is only the cue ball, there are up to 15 other balls that need to be monitored for movement. So unless I'm missing something, I don't see where this would help for a shot clock timer. Unless you are talking about an entire set of up to 15 digiballs.

One would just ignore the movement of the other 15 balls with the understanding of the technical limitation. From tests it seems to work fine for casual play.

Three cushion uses only three balls so they can all be DigiBalls.