Swing Vision AI line calls and Analysis

@PaulG unfortunately our early testing has shown that the vast majority of Android phones won’t be able to handle real-time analysis (Apple’s A.I. chips are just that far ahead). We’ll certainly get there eventually but if I had to be totally honest with you, it is becoming less of a priority given how much development effort it would take... only to bring our core experience to just a couple devices (if even that). At this point we are now doubling down on the accuracy and line calling. We’d rather build a rock solid product for iOS first and then come to Android once the hardware there has caught up.
 
In a ghetto way, I actually analyzed videos I took separately from the SwingVision. Just put the footage full screen on my computer, propped up the phone with a small tripod, and let it record the screen. I'm sure accuracy was lost, but it lets me get it somewhat analayzed.
 
Haha @SonRK we will actually add a dedicated import mode on the Mac app. We’ll probably add it to iPhone/iPad too, though you will have to surrender your iOS device to do it since analysis is too intensive to run in the background.
 
lets put this into all USTA matches and tournaments. NO more line call questioning and Cheating. NO MORE. and also all clubs must put this in, it is mandatory
 
swupnil said:
@Nostradamus yes we’re already speaking with USTA and that is the goal! The accuracy isn’t there yet, still have to optimize the A.I. quite a bit, but we will definitely get to that point :)
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LOL,,, Wouldn't it be wonderful if USTA national was decided by BAD linecall by this machine...... They will flip and sue USTA like this national really meant anything of any value or money........ :laughing:
 
@megamind if you replied to our newsletter I should’ve just sent you the link! Sorry got over 300 emails and had to respond to each one by one. Didn’t expect there to be so much interest o_O

@Nostradamus hah! Yep gotta be careful. We’ll only ship it when it’s ready and validated. It will definitely be way more accurate than both of the players on the court. Internally we already have the A.I. at that level; just gotta figure out how to run this on your phone without killing your battery :)
 
swupnil said:
@megamind if you replied to our newsletter I should’ve just sent you the link! Sorry got over 300 emails and had to respond to each one by one. Didn’t expect there to be so much interest o_O
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Mac App is only for Mac's with M1 chip? Disappoint... :cry:
Either way keep up the good work! One of these days I am going to make it work for me.

Edit: User error. This was not for the beta version but the mac store app.
 
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Papa Mango said:
Mac App is only for Mac's with M1 chip? Disappoint... :cry:
Either way keep up the good work! One of these days I am going to make it work for me.
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Never Mind.. User Error. Did not read full thread and tried to download from app store.
 
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So if Android is TBD and I don't really want to switch to a Apple phone, I'm thinking of my option is an iPad. Is there a min requirement for the iPad? The website just says iPad ios. Thinking the iPad mini would be the easiest to deal with, but not sure if there are disadvantages.
 
@gatorbait you’ll wanna get an iPad with A12 chip or newer to get real-time analysis. For optimal results and “future proofing”, I’d suggest an iPad with A13 chip. Hope that helps!
 
Would an Apple Watch combined with the iphone/ipad increase the accuracy of the readings? How else would an Apple Watch enhance the playing experience with SwingVision?
 
Pretty good looking tool.

Is there any way you can get rid of that stupid notch? WHAT was Apple thinking? And when is it going to get rid of the damn thing?

Seriously though, will the product work just as well if the iPhone / iPad is behind a transparent screen?
I can see a lot of expensive unprotected phones and tablets being destroyed by tennis balls.
 
Just hook it to the fence near the top. No ball with any pace really ever gets up that high. I bought an extendible selfie stick and then added 2 hercules hooks to the end of it. I start recording then lift my ipad up to the top of the fence and put the hooks through the chain link and then clipped a bungee coord to the other end to pull down on the hooks and make sure the whole thing stays straight and tensioned.
 
Yeah makes sense.

Tell you what might be really good though ... The ability to support an external camera using a wireless connection to the iPhone or iPad.
 
You have to know exactly how fast the ball is moving to determine RPM using a back calculation. I don't think the velocity measurement is accurate enough to do that right now.
 
swupnil said:
@PaulG unfortunately our early testing has shown that the vast majority of Android phones won’t be able to handle real-time analysis (Apple’s A.I. chips are just that far ahead). We’ll certainly get there eventually but if I had to be totally honest with you, it is becoming less of a priority given how much development effort it would take... only to bring our core experience to just a couple devices (if even that). At this point we are now doubling down on the accuracy and line calling. We’d rather build a rock solid product for iOS first and then come to Android once the hardware there has caught up.
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Hi, I really think you should reconsider this decision. First, Android is a huge market, and to ignore it, is a business mistake. With android support you would have more customeres, therefore, more money to keep going. Second, as for "real-time analysis", it´s a cool feature, but it´s something we (android users) can live without for some time. The remaining features are still amazing. Just my 2 cents.

Best regards,

Eduardo
 
They need to continue working on making the stats accurate before working on another platform. The video clipping functions and the ball placement detection is pretty good but the accuracy of the impact frames and speed of the ball is so far off at the moment that you can't possibly start working on new stuff until those are addressed. I'd rather see them allow full processing(60 fps/all frames analyzed) in after-the-fact mode than try to port to android(an I'm a die hard android user).
 
edutsilva said:
Hi, I really think you should reconsider this decision. First, Android is a huge market, and to ignore it, is a business mistake. With android support you would have more customeres, therefore, more money to keep going. Second, as for "real-time analysis", it´s a cool feature, but it´s something we (android users) can live without for some time. The remaining features are still amazing. Just my 2 cents.

Best regards,

Eduardo
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I'm an Android user, but it's the age old problem of android using non standardize parts across companies.

Only certain phones could be guaranteed to work with any given rev of the app. Hard to make anything this complex work broadly unfortunately.
 
Apple's standardization vs Android's non-standardization aside, Apple's a12 - a14 chips are no joke either. These are optimized really well for running ML. Still miles ahead of any chipset in any android. Even the a12 is ahead of most current android processors.
 
Yeah it's pretty straight forward, get one of those bendy phone tripods, hit singles practice or match and then next and then record. Stick the mount on the fence and roll. I bought a selfie stick and then added a hook to it. I put my ipad on the stick, hook it to the top of the fence and then clip a bungie cord down below to keep the whole thing straight and tensioned.
 
Sorry for not replying earlier, everyone! I was swamped with our Mac launch. I'll try to answer your questions as succinctly as possible:

@stealthfighter69 using SwingVision on Apple Watch allows you to get scoreboard overlays on your video, additional highlights (e.g. "show me only the break points") and additional stats (e.g. break point conversion, 1st/2nd serves won). It also enhances the rally trimming and removes additional unwanted footage like practice swings, giving the ball back to your opponent between rallies, etc. You can learn more in our how-to guide here.

@Karma Tennis you could put your phone behind a screen if you like, but I just mount it on top of the fence (check out the 2 fence mount options in our how-to guide here, CC @Nostradamus). I've recorded probably 100+ times and never had any damage done to my phone :) You can also now use a GoPro and import the footage into our Mac app, which we just launched!

@tanventure the app is now live on the Mac App Store! Make sure you're on macOS 10.15 or 10.16 and just click this link on your Mac :)

@paulorenzo @megamind I think we will be able to do RPM eventually. It is hard because you need to see the ball at a super high frame rate to estimate it accurately, but we can at the very least create our own metric that approximates RPM better than any other option on the market. Can't share too much about this yet ;)

@edutsilva I totally get you but the lack of real-time analysis isn't going to work well on a smartphone. We already offer this today for the older iPhones (e.g. iPhone 8/X) and the experience is pretty bad (we get nonstop complaints & virtually no one on these devices wants to pay for our product). It doesn't make sense for us to spend all that effort if we already know it is guaranteed to be a subpar experience. Once we have a way to automatically upload and process in the cloud without forcing you to surrender your phone... perhaps then it becomes interesting.

@markch There is light at the end of the tunnel. According to these benchmarks, the 2021 Qualcomm chips are almost as fast as the 2019 A13... so we'll get to Android eventually but as @Demented aptly notes, it's really important that we focus on one thing at a time and get the accuracy rock solid before expanding to an additional platform. (For those who are wondering, the Mac app was less than a week of dev effort for us thanks to Apple's amazing transferability of iOS and macOS code; an Android/Windows app would take many many months)
 
@Nostradamus we do not have a replacement/insurance policy. Maybe some day. But if you secure the phone in the mount tightly, it’s extremely unlikely for the phone to get damaged.

With a fence mount on top of the fence it is almost impossible. Even if the phone were hit hard, the phone mount would tip over but the mount will still sit atop the fence so your phone won’t fall on the ground.

With a tripod or fence grip it is more likely for the phone to hit the ground, but still pretty rare. If you’re using those, a basic case should suffice since the phone is only a few feet off the ground.
 
swupnil said:
@Nostradamus we do not have a replacement/insurance policy. Maybe some day. But if you secure the phone in the mount tightly, it’s extremely unlikely for the phone to get damaged.

With a fence mount on top of the fence it is almost impossible. Even if the phone were hit hard, the phone mount would tip over but the mount will still sit atop the fence so your phone won’t fall on the ground.

With a tripod or fence grip it is more likely for the phone to hit the ground, but still pretty rare. If you’re using those, a basic case should suffice since the phone is only a few feet off the ground.
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Can this be used to make accurate line calls on all sides of the court ?? there is just too much cheating going on in our leagues
 
swupnil said:
You can also now use a GoPro and import the footage into our Mac app,
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That's a great option. A few years ago, there was a company here in Australia that was recording various junior Tournament matches and offering them to players for a small fee. The company used GoPro cameras hung on the fences at the back of the courts. They produced fantastic footage. The cameras stood up to the elements and punishment very well.

I would certainly be looking at that option in preference to hanging my expensive phone on the fence :)
 
swupnil said:
awesome! Yea we have some guys who do it here in California even today. They charge like $30 a match it’s crazy. With our app it’s effectively less than $2 a match :)
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@swupnil, the company here was charging about the same for a single match. However, if you purchased three or more matches, you would get them at about $7 USD per match which was a reasonable deal. For a couple of dollars more, you would also receive a Full Analytical Breakdown of the match itself.

But $3 AUD for a match with all the extras would be awesome value. The only issue I can see here in Australia is that most Tennis Australia sanctioned Tournaments at all levels do not permit video recording of matches without prior authorisation. You simply can't just hang a camera up on a fence and video a match even if you have the permission of all the players involved in the match. Some Tournament organisers are amenable, others no way.
 
@Karma Tennis interesting, thanks for sharing that! We’re working really closely with Tennis Australia so I’m confident we’ll have no problem getting that resolved in the future. We have some really massive partnership stuff planned with TA next year, stay tuned ;)
 
@swupnil, Sounds great. Keep at it. Would be great to see your products being used at the Tournaments here. Imho, focus on making the video offerings great value for money. Obviously, videos can be used for coaching and development purposes but also provide great memories especially for junior players.
 
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@swupnil Hi! I just learned about this app and it's super cool! I was wondering what are the differences between recording and importing. When using the app, I am not able to use my wide angle (.5x) and can only use up to .7x on the camera. Also when using the app, it only records in 720p. If I use the import function and use the wide angle, will I be able to use my .5x and record in higher resolution and SwingVision be able to handle it?
 
Hi @GrilledBurgers ! Record and import use the exact same A.I. processing algorithms. For recording mode, the A.I. needs to be able to run fast enough in real-time along with all of the other processing that the phone is doing. Cranking up the resolution to 1080p can sometimes exceed processing limits, which is why we only allow 720p for now to maintain real-time analysis. We also don't allow 0.5x right now since it's typically zoomed too far out to get accurate shot tracking on the opposite side of the net, but this could vary by court and depends on how far the back fence is from the baseline.

You're more than welcome to record in the Camera app at 1080p using the 0.5x setting and then import for processing :)

Next year we plan to optimize things further so that you can use 1080p and 0.5x right from the get-go in recording mode.
 
swupnil said:
Hi @GrilledBurgers ! Record and import use the exact same A.I. processing algorithms. For recording mode, the A.I. needs to be able to run fast enough in real-time along with all of the other processing that the phone is doing. Cranking up the resolution to 1080p can sometimes exceed processing limits, which is why we only allow 720p for now to maintain real-time analysis. We also don't allow 0.5x right now since it's typically zoomed too far out to get accurate results, but this could vary by court and how far the back fence is from the baseline.

You're more than welcome to record in the Camera app at 1080p using the 0.5x setting and then import for analysis :)

Next year we plan to optimize things further so that you can use 1080p and 0.5x right from the get-go in recording mode.
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Awesome! Thank you for the prompt response! Looking forward to it
 
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