Forsgren helps revolutionize golf on TV with Protracer

[nevets88]

This piece talks about the origins of the ball flight tracker that's used in NBC and ESPN. Not sure if CBS or Fox uses it. TBH, I thought Protracer was some extension of radar, I didn't know it was a camera system. I don't know enough about cameras to understand how it is possible for a camera, even a specialized one with a super lens, can track the golf ball. I mean, to me, it seams too far away. You could track it with a telephoto type lens or something if it's going in slow motion, but it's just too fast. I guess there's tech that's fast enough to keep a lock on it.

Quote

Forsgren quit his job in IT in 2003 and started building a prototype. In layman terms, his system uses a specialized camera that has a custom-built sensor. It is connected to a computer and looks for a white ball and identifies it through each frame of the shot. He says it differs from a radar system that would send out beams looking for a golf ball and get results from reflecting off it.

http://www.golfwrx.com/104648/forsgren-helps-revolutionize-golf-on-tv-with-protracer/

[iacas]

5 hours ago, nevets88 said:

This piece talks about the origins of the ball flight tracker that's used in NBC and ESPN. Not sure if CBS or Fox uses it. TBH, I thought Protracer was some extension of radar, I didn't know it was a camera system. I don't know enough about cameras to understand how it is possible for a camera, even a specialized one with a super lens, can track the golf ball. I mean, to me, it seams too far away. You could track it with a telephoto type lens or something if it's going in slow motion, but it's just too fast. I guess there's tech that's fast enough to keep a lock on it.

That appears to be how his works (which is interesting).

I think on other models the camera works in conjunction with radar. From what I understand, the radar tells the camera "where" to look and the camera (the computer on the camera, that is) can identify the ball from there and plot its location on the image it is recording.

http://flightscope.com/products/tracer/

That's the Flightscope model, of course.