1. Which settings work well for you without requiring modification from event to event?
2. Which settings do you have to tweak at each event? Are there particular ranges of values you use, or could they be all over the map?
3. Which settings are unimportant to green target tracking and what are they set to on your machine?
We just haven't diddled the settings enough to provide data on 1-3. We've used both the default #'s and some re-calibrations we made in our shop. In our gym, the defaults worked best. At UCF the hardware was working, but we edited Kevin's code a "bit much"
and spent the regional shooting manually. At Palmetto we used the default #'s and found out the camera had come way out of focus. In competition, the camera worked well from about 15ft., which is about the distance from which we were shooting, anyway.
4. Has each event provided a list of camera calibration values at pit admin? If so, are those values useful?
I didn't check at UCF, but did ask at Palmetto. The answer we got was "use the defaults"
5. Have other similar-colored and sized arena lights caused any vision light tracking problems at your events?
At Palmetto, the large flourescent arena lights were off on the field side, but on for the pits. The practice field was illuminated with flourescent lights, too. The camera quickly and consistently locked on these lights - with the default #s - any time they were in the camera's field of view. The lighting on the field was OK for competing. Once, while aiming the camera across the pit area (hooked up to a PC for focusing), it recognized an open doorway through which sunlight was entering, and on the pit video screen.
6. How do you think the brighter lighting conditions in the Georgia Dome will affect camera performance?
There'll be an effect, just how much I don't know. I've read suggestions about cutting way down on the saturation, so we'll be experimenting. I got a suggestion from 108, to use 2005's java based program for calibrating ... anybody got a link?
For ATL, we may rig up a portable camera/PC arrangement with our spare camera from last year, and send a crew around, "surveying" the fields from however close they can get. If we do, we'll gladly share anything we find out.
see ya there!
Eric