Calibrating GGS

[leroyvegas]

Hi everyone. I've been working on trying to get my GGS PX-5 system working for a few months - exchanging quite a few emails with Martin. Made some decent progress but with the weather starting to head towards winter here I'm scrambling to try and resolve a few issues. Thought some other expert opinions/ideas might be valuable. Everything is "working", but I'm dealing with two primary issues: accuracy and consistency.
1) Accuracy - I've been making a lot of camera configs/setting tweaks (per Martin) over the last several months to try and get more accurate and consistent carry distances. I've seen significant differences of same club, same conditions across multiple courses. i.e. a 9-iron that is 130 yds fairly consistently at one course drops to 100 yds consistently at other courses and/or one day the carry distance is X and another day the carry distance is Y at same course. Since I'm averaging out the carry distances and not making any config changes I'm baffled as to why I can't get to a more trusted and reliable numbers. Making things more confusing for a novice like me is it is not linear -- some clubs will be more extreme then others. Has anyone else run across this and is it just trial and error tweaking? Just desperate to get to the point where I can use the system and it is fairly reliable.
2) Consistency - In addition to carry distances on full shots not being consistent, I'm also seeing inconsistencies in other areas like chipping and putting. Some days they seem to work and other days I'm seeing a bunch of shots not register - especially putts. Chipping has recently become more erratic where a short chip travels 140 yds for some reason. Again, it doesn't always happen and I haven't found any pattern to it so just getting a lot of use out of the Mulligan feature for now.

I'm continuing to exchange emails with Martin regarding but if anyone had any ideas on things to consider/try that might not be top of mind for Martin that would be great. Not sure we've made a lot of progress over the last few tweaks. Thanks

[ZMax]

I'm heading out to golf now. Post screen shots of everything. I'll take a look when I get back home.

[leroyvegas]

Thanks ZMax. Attached are screenshots from a 7-iron shot. The last two tweaks made were changing the 'Speed decrease' in vCam to 1% from 18% AND turning the Side Hill Lie option in GSA Golf game off.

[mmlincon]

I see a few issues with the V and H cam setups. The images are a little difficult to see however.

First the V Cam: The set tee location looks off. There is a setting for sand, rough and fairway. You are supposed to match these to your simulated surfaces. If you have just one then set them all the same. Could some of the inconsistencies be the surface your hitting from? ( ie fairway vs rough ) This could throw off launch angle which to throw off the distance. The ball streak looks good and this is going to determine ball speed and have the most impact on distance. You might benefit from lowering this camera a bit but I think that is minor. Another thing to keep in mind is the software will use the H Cam direction and either increase or decrease the speed of the ball. This is to compensate for the lens curve. If you are not hitting shots rather straight you can see some rather large differences in distances. I think this is tunable percentage but don't recall for sure.

H Cam: Same issue with tee setting here. That tee location is used to determine the ball path angle. The tee is the starting point and the detected ball is the other. The angle is determines off the center line. There is a speed adjustment reported in the control panel based on this angle - at least there was in earlier versions. I haven't updated to the latest versions in quite a while. My simulator is currently buried, but I'll be digging it out soon.....I hope.

I suspect the big differences you are seeing is due to the ball path angles and calculated ball speed from it. I would also be careful tweaking the speed boosts either in GSA or the Control panel. I've had much better success with getting the correct distances with all the boosting set to zero. The boost setting don't appear to be linear and are inconsistent through a set of clubs.

[leroyvegas]

Thanks. I will adjust the ball launch start positions per your suggestion. I thought I had done that before but might have overwritten it during some of the other changes. Still need to play around from the rough/sand surfaces. I've avoided it for the time being while trying to get fairway and tee shots more accurate. One question I had is when hitting from fairway, I place the ball just in front of the tee peg hole so its not sitting down. I'm assuming that inch or so isn't cause for concern but thought I'd see what you guys think. Thanks again. Your time is greatly appreciated.

[ZMax]

That one inch won't matter for LA but club face angle accuracy might be a tad off since you've increased the distance from ball to club face angle sensors.

Aside from what mmlincon has already mentioned, the blue line on the V-cam appears to be too low? And floor seems very bright. Need to post bigger and better to see screen captures so we can see all your settings. Also post other GGS setup screens. i.e. ball carry adjust, etc...

[leroyvegas]

Thanks. I tested the launch angles from GSA Control Panel and they look to be in line with path. Not sure if I inadvertently attached outdated screen shots. Anyways, attached are screenshots I just took which hopefully are a little more legible.

[mmlincon]

Yeah, your Vcam is a little too high for putting/chipping. You really need that near ground level. You need the ground to look pretty close to flat. That way the roll will be within a small watch window.

So on the Vcam. I created a rather long stick with a inclineometer that I could place on the tee location and set to say 10 degrees. I could then adjust the launch angle to 10 degrees( by moving the ball launch location ). This worked pretty well. Due to lens curvature this never exactly matched the tee location in the camera window. It wasn't way off but I think it helped with accuracy. As I tried higher degrees, 20, 30, 40 it stayed within a few degrees. One thing to note if you create something like this is how the stick appears to the camera as you move it near and far from the lens. This is why the software increases or decreases ball speed when you hit the ball left or right of center.

The launch angle line in the pic looks pretty good. Is it pretty close with other clubs as well? If I remember correctly the ball speed is calculated from the start line to the end of the ball line and not between the two green pluses like it should be. martin may have changed that though.

[ZMax]

"De-activate Carry Factor" should be deselected. Then adjust ball speeds for each club in the "Club distance" screen to match a radar ball speed meter or until the carry distances match what you normally get on the course. Actually, one global adjustment to ball speed should be good enough for all clubs unless you use limited flight balls for certain clubs.

The blue line(putting)in the Vcam needs to be above the bright floor. Your curtains don't go all the way down to the floor?

[leroyvegas]

Thanks Guys. I can move the vcam from secured to the floor to the wall and bring it down 3" or so, and will do that today. I may have misinterpreted, but it seems like mmlincon is weary of adjusting ball speeds but ZMax recommends this approach. Just want to confirm that this is an area to tweak.

mmlincon, if I can figure out your inclineometer approach (geometry was never my cup of tea), I'm assuming I would have to repeat the process from all 3 locations (tee, rough, and sand panels), correct?

Thanks again guys. Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[Frans@france]

don't know the system but to mee it seems that the ball speeds are wrong. in the 7 iron shot the smash is 1.572(!) impossible high and in the 1 iron (?) screen shot the smash is 1.125 which is to low.

[leroyvegas]

Guys. Was about to try and move the vCam lower but it looks like I would only gain an inch. Right now I have it mounted directed to the turf/subfloor. I can move it to the wall and tilt 90 degrees but the elbow will still have me 2" above the turf (currently was at 3"). Wondering if mounting upside down to bring it all the way to the turf is best option (would this even work or would all the images be upside down) or if perhaps I just need to adjust the tilt of the camera as currently mounted on the floor? Thanks

[mmlincon]

Thanks Guys. I can move the vcam from secured to the floor to the wall and bring it down 3" or so, and will do that today. I may have misinterpreted, but it seems like mmlincon is weary of adjusting ball speeds but ZMax recommends this approach. Just want to confirm that this is an area to tweak.

mmlincon, if I can figure out your inclineometer approach (geometry was never my cup of tea), I'm assuming I would have to repeat the process from all 3 locations (tee, rough, and sand panels), correct?

Thanks again guys. Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

You can get a inclineometer and either tape or glue it to a some pvc. You'll want some stiffer stuff as it bends at the length you need. Otherwise get something to make it ridged. And yes you'll need to do it for each surface location. You really just want to get it pretty close, don't drive yourself crazy getting it perfect.

I don't like adjusting the clubs individually and that setting is more for setups with just the PX2. When you can measure the ball speed the distances should be really close. In fact the only club I notices wrong distances was with my driver. They were consistently short. I think this is why martin created the driver boost. I was more concerned with having my other clubs correct and can deal with the driver going too short.

Regarding the camera location for the vCam. You really need to get this as close to ground level as possible. I've found that there is a sort of sweet spot and it doesn't take much to get out of it. I place a ball on both ends of the sensor slot and try to line them up so I can get the line touching the back of both balls in the view. If the camera isn't in the sweet spot this is very difficult to do. You also want them to be at near the same level in the camera view. You maybe able to mount the camera upside down, I think you can flop the views around with the software.