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New Ideas for Snooker

Postby lhpirnie

The purpose of the website is to demonstrate some ideas for snooker. I've implemented a number of demos which hopefully illustrate what I have in mind. Yes, they are all pretty radical, but most of them are workable - in fact easy to implement.

The main website is:
http://www.snookerlewis.com

You can get in touch by e-mail, or of course post on this forum! I hope there will at least be some debate.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby lhpirnie

First, ball tracking:
Image

I implemented a Python script (a little over 200 lines), which gets an accuracy of 1mm with a cheap webcam. There's a video of it in action, and the code is available.
Last edited by lhpirnie on 19 Jan 2023, edited 1 time in total.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby Iranu

Mate you should patent that ball tracker and sell it to WST

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby Prop

Iranu wrote:Mate you should patent that ball tracker and sell it to WST


And patent it quick.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby McManusFan

I was having a look at your website earlier. Some really interesting stuff. I really liked the Elo ranking list.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby D4P

One comment regarding the ball tracking software: the high-pitched sound that is made as the ball gets closer to its original spot is extremely unpleasant and painful to the ears, so I wonder if a less painful sound could be used instead...

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby SnookerEd25

D4P wrote:One comment regarding the ball tracking software: the high-pitched sound that is made as the ball gets closer to its original spot is extremely unpleasant and painful to the ears, so I wonder if a less painful sound could be used instead...


Recorded voice (I suggest Phil Yates?) saying things like

“A little bit more”

“More”

“MORE”

“Ooooohhhhh yessssssssss…”

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby Prop

SnookerEd25 wrote:
D4P wrote:One comment regarding the ball tracking software: the high-pitched sound that is made as the ball gets closer to its original spot is extremely unpleasant and painful to the ears, so I wonder if a less painful sound could be used instead...


Recorded voice (I suggest Phil Yates?) saying things like

“A little bit more”

“More”

“MORE”

“Ooooohhhhh yessssssssss…”


rofl

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby Dan-cat

Had a proper look through. Some sterling work here. The ball tracking software - so simple and elegant. It’s ridiculous there is no system in place like this.

I seem to remember in China they had a kind of overlay system - not sure if they used it in all tournaments. It was still manual though.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby Scooper

Prop wrote:
Iranu wrote:Mate you should patent that ball tracker and sell it to WST


And patent it quick.


Nah I think he’s best leaving it a while - maybe try to tweak the design etc a bit more first.

Anyway I’ve gotta go and uh.. do something…

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby lhpirnie

Dan-cat wrote:Had a proper look through. Some sterling work here. The ball tracking software - so simple and elegant. It’s ridiculous there is no system in place like this.

I seem to remember in China they had a kind of overlay system - not sure if they used it in all tournaments. It was still manual though.

Yes, the trouble with projecting images onto the table is that it's very expensive, requires a lot of calibration (before the match) and really just introduces another inaccuracy. It's actually surprisingly difficult for a referee to replace a ball using images!

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby lhpirnie

D4P wrote:One comment regarding the ball tracking software: the high-pitched sound that is made as the ball gets closer to its original spot is extremely unpleasant and painful to the ears, so I wonder if a less painful sound could be used instead...

Yes, the high-pitched sound is unpleasant. I can easily modify the sounds - I was just concentrating on the imaging stuff. Strangely, the it sounds a little different on my video, probably because Zoom tends to modify audio anyway. The low-pitched sounds didn't come over at all. I think the best way is to have a different sound when the ball is very close, say within 2mm.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby SnookerEd25

Scooper wrote:
Prop wrote:
Iranu wrote:Mate you should patent that ball tracker and sell it to WST


And patent it quick.


Nah I think he’s best leaving it a while - maybe try to tweak the design etc a bit more first.

Anyway I’ve gotta go and uh.. do something…


pmsl :lol:

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby Iranu

lhpirnie wrote:
D4P wrote:One comment regarding the ball tracking software: the high-pitched sound that is made as the ball gets closer to its original spot is extremely unpleasant and painful to the ears, so I wonder if a less painful sound could be used instead...

Yes, the high-pitched sound is unpleasant. I can easily modify the sounds - I was just concentrating on the imaging stuff. Strangely, the it sounds a little different on my video, probably because Zoom tends to modify audio anyway. The low-pitched sounds didn't come over at all. I think the best way is to have a different sound when the ball is very close, say within 2mm.

You could have crowd noise.

As the ball’s getting closer to the right spot: “oooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH”

And then “WHEYYYYYYYYYY!!!” when it’s correct.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby McManusFan

Iranu wrote:
lhpirnie wrote:
D4P wrote:One comment regarding the ball tracking software: the high-pitched sound that is made as the ball gets closer to its original spot is extremely unpleasant and painful to the ears, so I wonder if a less painful sound could be used instead...

Yes, the high-pitched sound is unpleasant. I can easily modify the sounds - I was just concentrating on the imaging stuff. Strangely, the it sounds a little different on my video, probably because Zoom tends to modify audio anyway. The low-pitched sounds didn't come over at all. I think the best way is to have a different sound when the ball is very close, say within 2mm.

You could have crowd noise.

As the ball’s getting closer to the right spot: “oooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH”

And then “WHEYYYYYYYYYY!!!” when it’s correct.


I'd prefer clips of Denis going:

"No, that's not quite right", followed by "that looks pretty good".

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby taipafan

lhpirnie wrote:Next, a global ranking system. There are currently 7500 players on the list:



How about a forecast system, rating each player?
I have a model to forecast horse racing, using multiple regression.

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby D4P

Would it be possible to convert the sound that is associated with the ball tracking software into a number (e.g., that ranges from 0 to 100) that increases as the ball becomes closer to its original spot, and is maximized when the original spot is reached?

Re: New Ideas for Snooker

Postby lhpirnie

D4P wrote:Would it be possible to convert the sound that is associated with the ball tracking software into a number (e.g., that ranges from 0 to 100) that increases as the ball becomes closer to its original spot, and is maximized when the original spot is reached?

That's exactly what it does. Basically it measures the distance from the original position. The sound pitch is just calculated from that, so I could do anything with that number. They key is for the referee not to have to look at anything else when they are positioning the ball. But I accept the feedback about the horrible high-pitched sound.