Is that the Gold Crown IV that you are playing on? Doesnt look or sound like a GCIV.
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- Thread starter DrCue'sProtege
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Yes, GC4, my home table. It sounds normal in person. It’s the recording that makes it sound like a brick
idk why.
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Good for you for trying it. I don't have access to a table at the moment but it's one of those shots that you have to experiment with, particularly with speed. It's great if you can miss the 9 ball with softer speed. That's the best case scenario. Rolling the cb is a must in this setup.
JC
Coos Cues
I know you have posted your setup but rather than look for the thread may I ask what camera you are using?
Any DSLR will work. This one I got used on craigslist about one year ago for about 400 with the lens. Its an EOS Rebel T3i, and its about 10 years old now. The lens is the key. This is a "wide angle zoom lens" that goes from 10mm to 18mm. For my ceiling height (9feet) and table slate height (35" its raised), I have the zoom right about 12 mm. This is with a "crop sensor" DSLR. They are way, way, way cheaper than a "full sensor" DSLR.
The reason specifically I chose this model, is it has the screen that rotates and flips. Important if you want to see the video at the camera while setting it up, since its up against the ceiling. That may not be important with newer models, as I believe, but not certain, they can be controlled with phones and you can see their screen that way.
Also, before I got the camera, I tried a new at the time iPhone 11. It has a wide angle mode, and looked great as well, and got the whole table. Of course, setting up an iPhone permanently on the ceiling and getting video out of it is much harder than a dedicated traditional camera, IMO.
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JC
Coos Cues
Thank you
Real balls on a nine foot table present a different window than the chalkysticks layout where it appears possible to miss the nine with draw and no way miss it with soft follow.
Which is why on touchy shots chalkysticks is much like Saturday morning cartoons.
Good job.
That's a pet peeve about most of the table diagramming apps. They are not a true 9' table. So in this particular case, that comes into play a ton. If you go by the diamond grid to set up the balls and use the center of the balls per DCP's diagram, the spacing between the balls will be wrong on a real 9' table.
My camera is not perfect either though. None of them are, even the Matchroom overhead. On mine, the balls will appear slightly different in size when they are in the middle of the table compared to the ends of the table. That's what a wide angle lens does. I tried other lenses before, and the effect was severe. This lens, I thought was a great compromise and doesn't distort too bad. It is what it is.
Yes, if that Chalkysticks table is a 9-footer (50x100), then the balls are too big (about 2 1/2").
And if it's a big 7-footer (40x80), then the balls are too small (about 2").
A big 8-footer (46x92) is the Chalkysticks Goldilocks Table, where the balls are about right (about 2 1/4").
pj
chgo
JC
Coos Cues
My scheme is less than ideal with the distortion but it does have some advantages. I used an extra camera from my surveillance system and wired its power with the pool table light. So it's a passive system that never misses catching a shot with about a one week buffer in the DVR. No memory to worry about.
On the playback if you look at the time line on the bottom of the screen the black areas are when the light is off, green the light is on and yellow it is detecting motion. You can turn the light off for a second and back on for each rack and when you magnify the timeline there is a black spot between each rack in case you want to organize them like that. It's really easy to save to an MPEG file whatever you would like to.
This screenshot shows all the time the light was on yesterday from midnight to midnight and the yellow shows when I'm actually at the table.
I would rather have a crappy video of amazing stuff than just my word
On the playback if you look at the time line on the bottom of the screen the black areas are when the light is off, green the light is on and yellow it is detecting motion. You can turn the light off for a second and back on for each rack and when you magnify the timeline there is a black spot between each rack in case you want to organize them like that. It's really easy to save to an MPEG file whatever you would like to.
This screenshot shows all the time the light was on yesterday from midnight to midnight and the yellow shows when I'm actually at the table.
I would rather have a crappy video of amazing stuff than just my word
I would find it kind of hard to watch any kind of ball run on a table with such distortion. I'm surprised that this cannot be digitally factored out and corrected. The amount of distortion is known so it seems like an algorithm could be written that would correct for the distortion.My scheme is less than ideal with the distortion but it does have some advantages. I used an extra camera from my surveillance system and wired its power with the pool table light. So it's a passive system that never misses catching a shot with about a one week buffer in the DVR. No memory to worry about.
On the playback if you look at the time line on the bottom of the screen the black areas are when the light is off, green the light is on and yellow it is detecting motion. You can turn the light off for a second and back on for each rack and when you magnify the timeline there is a black spot between each rack in case you want to organize them like that. It's really easy to save to an MPEG file whatever you would like to.
This screenshot shows all the time the light was on yesterday from midnight to midnight and the yellow shows when I'm actually at the table.
I would rather have a crappy video of amazing stuff than just my word
View attachment 579481
Is there a different lens that would fix that?
Here's a visual version of the above.
If ChalkySticks balls are 2 1/4", how big is the table they're on? How much bigger/smaller are other size tables at the same scale? Who cares?
pj <- cares deeply
chgo
(The row of "ghost balls" across the table measures the table's width using ChalkySticks size balls. 20.4 balls x 2 1/4" = 46".)
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Nice diagram.
I wish more people would use Virtual Pool for diagrams. The balls are the right size for each of the different kinds of tables including the bar table which comes with beer stains. A ten-foot pool table is also available. And VP has the added benefit that people can actually try shots in it.
Couldn't agree more. It can also be viewed from any angle in hyper-realistic 3-dimensions and even draws ball paths for you.
Its physical realism is incredible - with the ability to separately "dial" aim, tip placement, speed and even butt elevation while seeing the ball paths change dynamically until you get the results you want. I've thought about using it to create challenge shots for practice.
pj
chgo
Bob, for older folks lIke me....how do I get Virtual Pool? Keep it simple, please.I like VP better since the balls aren't the size of grapefruits. Also, with tracking on I can play one pocket rotation and run out.
On this page you can either buy it or get the free (limited # of features) version.
The version that lives on your computer -- no cloud involved -- is $30.