P3pro Launch Monitor and GSA!!!

I just heard that the P3pro launch monitor will not be integrated with the GSA courses at this time. To say that I am dissapointed would be an understatement. It sounds like they are busy with other projects and have put the launch integration on the back burner for now :grumpy:. I think they will eventually do it but the question is when. They did say that it is on their project plan. I for one bought the unit because it had the option for launch which works extremely well with the original software. I know they were busy getting the GSA software up and running but hopefully they will work on the launch integration soon. The Zelocity integration does not work with the GSA either. I know it is a simple programming issue which costs money. I have always said all along that they should hire rdh and this would all have been done long time ago. In any event I just thought that all who are interested in the p3pro and launch should know that it doesn't work with the GSA yet and who knows when they will release that update. All those who have launch angle or plan on getting one should email the p3pro folks. Maybe a little pressure will speed up the time to add this program change. Hey rdh are you available for hire :scratchch?

On a different note, I spent a few hrs today playing the Golf Town About golf simulators. They certainly are nice units but I wasn't "wowed" by them compared to my home unit. Of course it was just the driving range and not a course.

That is very disappointing bubba. I know you've been incredibly active with this forum and being a tester for P3Pro, etc., so I wanted to see you get the launch angle up and running. I know you already really like the GSA Golf software, but once you have the launch angle working with it, it will take it to the next level for you. This is frustrating.

I never understood why it took P3Pro so long to get integrated with GSA Golf in the first place. It revealed a bit when chasiv said they don't have programmers on staff and contract everything out...but still. I built my integration to GSA Golf as a hobbyist on the side, and it was done and working well in about a month. It confuses me....and just adding the launch angle is one simple additional parameter to feed in to GSA Golf. I don't get it.

Anyway, sorry to hear this. When I saw the thread name with the exclamation marks I expected it was out of excitement because they'd released the update. Sorry man.

Thanks rdh it is a bit of a drag. The GSA courses work well but I think the launch measurement is critical for me. I'll give it some time but if it doesn't happen I probably will switch to something else. Perhaps the pro7, as I have always said "the gold standard of indoor sims". We'll see.

what da FFF. i am terribly disappointed also. i may not even have gone for the course pack if i heard this before i ordered. im reaching the point of my game where the launch angle is becoming crucial.

I hear ya dvshx. The launch is critical for me. I hope they will reconsider adding the launch integration. I'll be calling them next week to see what is up. I heard via email by Chuck, their technical expert, who is awesome. I am being optimistic that they will get the launch working soon or at least give us the final yay or nay. I do think it is a great sim and the GSA courses are awesome. Its just that once you have the launch going you don't want to go back. I will keep you all posted.

Thanks bubba,

I was actually on P3Proswing's site tonight placing my order, with the GSA courses and launch angle package, planning for the promised integration when I flipped over here to review one more time before I pulled the trigger. I don't need launch angle yet, but I want to know it really will be available in the near future and I really want accuracy in the simulator; from your description, the launch angle really added ball flight accuracy to the P3Pro.

I don't want to buy everything and then have to just throw it out and but a whole new system to get accurate ball flight. I guess in the P3Pro, it doesn't matter if you skull the ball or hit it fat since the ball isn't tracked at all. Maybe you don't even need to use a ball since ball tracking cannot be used in the GSA courses; from what I have heard, those courses are the best ones for the P3Pro, so why bother?

Maybe I should just get the cheaper OptiShot for now. At least it won't be as painful to replace everything in a year when I want more accuracy and ball launch integration.

On a side note, how much is the Pro7 for a home setup?

Thanks!
BBevel

Well the Optishot is certainly cheaper than the P3pro. The addistion of launch is very useful for those who want to know how high they hit their shot. It is not just a number but really works to show you your shot height. A skulled ball will show as such. Yes a ball sensor that includes ball direction, azumuth and speed would be awesome. The Pro 7 is the perfect sim. RDH or Cory are the ones that can tell us the exact price and the details of the software used, subflooring build up etc. If Golftek would add a launch measurement to the st1 then I would pull the trigger and buy it.
I think if p3pro realize that enough people are not going to buy their sim based on them not including the launch for the GSA then they will quickly change their minds. Chasiv hopefully they are seeing it this way.

Bbevel you should send an email to p3pro sales explaining your situation. The more they see that the launch (and developing a ball cam) is important to end users the more likely it will happen. Certainly having the launch work with the GSA courses is the bare minumum.

Definitely let P3Pro know you're ready to buy but reconsidering based on the launch angle/GSA status. I'm sure it would only take losing the margin on a couple sales like that to cover the cost of adding the launch angle integration. It really baffles me...they already have all the code to READ the launch angle from the webcam (since they use it with their base software courses)...they just have to copy that over and then feed the value into GSA Golf. A lot has just never added up for me on the difficulty they've had getting the integration working. Very strange.

Unless the Pro7 pricing has changed since I bought about a year ago, it was in the $5,000 range for the device plus putting sensor. Then you still need to buy the software. As far as I know, Golftek doesn't promote GSA Golf for their devices and I'm not even sure if they offer it...they're closely tied to GPS Golf for their systems. Personally (from what I saw) I didn't like GPS Golf as much graphically, and performance-wise (it has to load each hole), plus it was much more expensive ($3,500 range for 20 courses I believe...maybe it has come down since then). But, that's only my opinion - Cory prefers the graphics of GPS Golf. :)

So rdh did you buy directly from GSA and make your own integration program? Did Golftek give you their interface for the pro7 then? If others want the pro7 and GSA what do you suggest? I really agree with you about the p3pro and their issues with the GSA software. Something strange is up that we do not know.

My structure was a bit strange. I bought GSA Golf through Golftek with their interface, but it was very basic and I wanted to build in a lot of tweaking to increase the realism. I then bought the DLL from Martin to integrate with GSA Golf, and Golftek provided me with their SDK (sample code) for the hardware. So, I wrote my own integration program with those tools.

I don't know if Golftek developed their GSA Golf interface any further or whether they decided to drop GSA as an option altogether. I was asked a couple times by other users here whether I would sell them my GSA integration program, and I declined. Not that I don't want to share it - I would love to see other people set up with what I have. BUT, I'm not really in a position to be able to properly support it and troubleshoot issues. I would be very concerned that it would end up taking a lot of my time (which I really don't have to spare right now) and if we had any big problems I couldn't overcome...then what? I'd hate to see someone left with an unusable copy of GSA Golf. Eeks.

That's fantastic. You really should be hired by p3pro. We would have had the launch angle and ball cam all done by now.

So just for my understanding, to work on for eg the p3pro system you need the sdk for the hardware and the dll for the interface. The reason I ask is that Martin sells systems that can be integrated to various hardware. I wonder how hard it would be to integrate their launch camera to the p3pro. What would a programmer like you need?

rdh definitely rocked the cas-ba on the integration!

Golftek really isn't promoting the GSA software integration because it really doesn't do as well without rdh's interface. This is why I will only sell the Pro7 with GSA software if rdh agrees to sell us his interface :) The price point is significant - basically the sensors & software cost is $7500 with the GSA and $9200 with the GPS.

Just as a side note the main Pro7 sensor pad is only $4k, but by the time you add up all that it is needed to run the simulation (putting sensor, cradle, cables, adjustable tee, software, courses, etc.) is amounts to the prices above.

Cheers,
Cory

Cory have you heard anything more about the P3pro GSA and the launch addition?

As far as I have heard, any integration with GSA hardware is not going to happen - but you never know!

Wow that is not great. I was really led to believe that the webcam launch option would work with the GSA courses.

I think Cory may have misunderstood...he referenced "GSA hardware" but I think you're just asking about any updates for the P3Pro webcam launch angle integration into the GSA Golf software...right bubba?

Hey Bubba,

I know that Chuck was really pushing for it (and so am I). We will continue to push to get that integration going, but I know that they were losing money from not having the courses available with the base system so they needed to get it available.

No excuses - but I am sure that is why they released it without the integration. Why they are yeilding on persuing it may be because of the problems they were having with the integration. Either way, we all want the LA (Launch Angle) data in there - maybe with their goal of third-party hardware integration, they will determine a way to integrate the LA data and get the cam data in there...

Positive thinking right? :)

Thanks rdh and Cory. Hopefully soon. I did hear they were trying to integrate with the vector launch monitors.

Good point rdh... yes bubba, I thought you had asked about P3ProSwing integrating with the GSA Hardware (like their ball cams)...

As for the GSA software and the Launch Angle, P3Pro has told me that they have never made any promises that they were going to integrate the Launch Angle option into that software...

***Note, we call it GSA software here in this forum, but it is really a different company who makes the software. GSA is one of the software distributors, so it I say GSA because it is referenced everywhere else so often ***

This forum has generated a lot of emails & calls to P3Pro, but they are slightly misdirecting...

P3ProSwing without the Launch Angle is still a much more accurate system than the Optishot. The new courses call all be played on and get be as accurate as the base software. P3Pro's Launch Angle option is great for getting additional accuracy but they have not integrated that with their new courses - this DOESN'T mean that the P3ProSwing without the Lauch Angle is useless - far from it!

There aren't that many customers who even purchase the Launch Angle option, but for great customers like Bubba who loves the Launch Angle option, they would really like to see it incorporated into the new course software.

Hopefully that clears things up, but feel free to ask me or correct me if I'm wrong :)

Cheers,
Cory

ouch this hurts to hear. in a whole, it does make sense because it is not popular demand. but there are those like us who based our decision to invest on this system due to this feature.

I don't think that they are saying they will never do the integration - just that it does not have it right now and they have a few other things that are pressing first.

dvshx and bubba - you are both great customers and your opinions are valued, so they do know about your request and I will continue to pass other feedback to P3Pro.

We'll be patient. Hopefully they will work on the launch addition soon. I do think they should promote it more as I am 100% certain that more customers will want that option, if not now then down the road.

.

Welcome readygolf. I think its a bad move to get rid of the launch angle. I have it and can tell you it is fantastic. It is a poor man's way to get launch but the alternative of integrating with the Vector or Zelocity at 3-4 grand is just not worth it for me. The benefit for those that want it is not just launch angle but spin and ball direction/azumuth as well. I do think the webcam option can sell well for those that do not want to break the bank. There are other sims that will probably develop something like that which will keep costs down but allow for more sim realism. At least the launch works with there original software including the range and the 2 courses. Too bad you couldn't try it because I know for sure you would like it.

Also bear in mind the Zelocity integration is not working with the new Virtual Courses as well. I just don't understand why they would not have the components offered from their core program and courses the same as their new courses. Just my 2 cents.

I don't mind not having the launch angle option, per se, for the P3Pro, what I was looking at it for was to increase accuracy of the sim and account for mis-hit shots. I guess a ball cam would be a better option for that. A launch monitor would also do that, but they are expensive. I guess since I learned about the P3Pro here, I just assumed that the integration on here was a promised option that everyone was waiting on.

Here is my latest questions: Is the P3Pro really much more accurate than Optishot? Is it accurate at all concerning the way it simulates the ball flight and direction or is every shot straight as an arrow?Is there any accuracy at all in the height of the ball after a hit or is it just based on club selection? If not, it seems that these are really just good for analyzing a swing (hence the name) and would be just so-so for input into a sim.

One more question for now: If I get the P3Pro, and later add a fancy launch monitor like the zelocity, can the launch monitor work with the sim software without the P3Pro? If so, we could hit sometimes off of other mats like the divot action mats or sand action mats like the camera based sims (right?).

I dunno. Just thinking out loud. I guess what I really want is one of those $60,000 custom installations for about $5000. And a pony.

Thanks,
BBevel

There is lots of debate about the accuracy of P3pro vs dd. I have both and in my opinion the p3pro is much more accurate. The Optishot is certainly good for the money. The height of the ball is purely based on the loft of the selected club, no matter how well or bad, the ball is hit. Only knowing the launch angle will influence the height of the shot. Their webcam works great for that. As of now the Zelocity integration is not working with the new courses. I think the integration route is very good and a great option for those who want true ball information including launch, direction and spin of the ball. The problem is that it will not be cheap at 3-5 grand.

Sorry to hear the bad news, Bubba. It is beginning to sound like deja vu. I am glad I did not jump on the p3pro too quickly. I do hope you get your launch angle one way or another. I would love launch angle and ball spin but can't justify the cost with 2 kids in college and one more on the way!