Any experienced golfer can hit balls in a simulator and ‘just know’ if what’s happening on screen is realistic. Creating a realistic sense of playability is key to everything that we do at Urban Golf – and that sense, informed by 20 years’ of experience, is what lies behind the three pillars of indoor golf:
Ball tracking Tracking the speed, direction and spin rate of the ball after impact is key to all indoor golf experiences. The only way to track a ball accurately indoors is with high-speed cameras, and only a camera-based launch monitor can capture the data required to accurately project shot shots – the chips, pitches and putts that make up at least half the shots you hit in a round of golf. Systems that use radar or infra-red ball tracking simply capture less robust data, meaning they have to extrapolate to ‘fill in the blanks’ – a process that inevitably creates inconsistency and randomness.
Ball physics Being able to hit shots and look up to see an instantaneous visualisation of the ball in flight is key to creating a realistic indoor golf experience. Latency or lag between hitting the shot and seeing the ball on screen removes the feedback that’s essential to the satisfaction of hitting a good shot, while seeing how the ball behaves from a bad shot is equally important, if less rewarding. The ball physics model determines how the ball behaves on the screen, with a ball flight that looks natural and feels ‘right’.
Graphics
The on-screen graphics are perhaps the most subjective component of your indoor golf experience, but the satisfaction of watching your shot into the seventh at Pebble Beach or the Road Hole at St Andrews is universal. The decoupling of hardware and software and adoption of powerful gaming engines is driving lots of innovation – creating different options for users focused on practice, course simulations or even completely new immersive experiences.
Finding the right golf simulator for a client involves optimizing the experience across all three pillars, and working within the constraints of budget, space and other environmental factors.
But every solution that we create has to meet the threshold for an experienced golfer – if it’s not accurate, you just know…
How It Works – breaking down a golf simulator
Any experienced golfer can hit balls in a simulator and ‘just know’ if what’s happening on screen is realistic. Creating a realistic sense of playability is key to everything that we do at Urban Golf – and that sense, informed by 20 years’ of experience, is what lies behind the three pillars of indoor golf:
Ball tracking Tracking the speed, direction and spin rate of the ball after impact is key to all indoor golf experiences. The only way to track a ball accurately indoors is with high-speed cameras, and only a camera-based launch monitor can capture the data required to accurately project shot shots – the chips, pitches and putts that make up at least half the shots you hit in a round of golf. Systems that use radar or infra-red ball tracking simply capture less robust data, meaning they have to extrapolate to ‘fill in the blanks’ – a process that inevitably creates inconsistency and randomness.
Ball physics Being able to hit shots and look up to see an instantaneous visualisation of the ball in flight is key to creating a realistic indoor golf experience. Latency or lag between hitting the shot and seeing the ball on screen removes the feedback that’s essential to the satisfaction of hitting a good shot, while seeing how the ball behaves from a bad shot is equally important, if less rewarding. The ball physics model determines how the ball behaves on the screen, with a ball flight that looks natural and feels ‘right’.
Graphics
The on-screen graphics are perhaps the most subjective component of your indoor golf experience, but the satisfaction of watching your shot into the seventh at Pebble Beach or the Road Hole at St Andrews is universal. The decoupling of hardware and software and adoption of powerful gaming engines is driving lots of innovation – creating different options for users focused on practice, course simulations or even completely new immersive experiences.
Finding the right golf simulator for a client involves optimizing the experience across all three pillars, and working within the constraints of budget, space and other environmental factors.
But every solution that we create has to meet the threshold for an experienced golfer – if it’s not accurate, you just know…