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The Augmented Reality America's Cup
First time accepted submitter Tekla Perry writes "In 'The Augmented Reality America's Cup' Stan Honey and Ken Milnes describe the positioning, communications, graphics, and augmented reality technology they developed that will be used in the upcoming America's Cup races and, they hope, will change the way sailing is televised and watched forever after. Honey and Milnes pioneered car navigation with the startup Etak, and changed the way we watch football on TV with Sportvision's yellow line."
The metrics available for viewers have long been a hallmark of the America's Cup. They just keep getting better every time it comes around. I look at it as a hint to what other sports will eventually provide as well as what may trickle down into the consumer arena.
I for one welcome our robot yacht-enabled overlords as they race using green technology and relay doctored information back to us for bread and circuses.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I think you missed the point. The race will be run as usual. The presentation to the viewers on TV and online will be 'enhanced' so you can see features of the course not clearly visible. Or as in the case of wind direction, invisible. Its like the first down yellow line in football. Sure, you can see the sideline marker. But where the play is taking place on the field relative to some invisible line is made more clear by the graphics.
Have gnu, will travel.
Who cares? This is a race where Larry Ellison had to pay other teams to race against him. Turns out people don't want to watch some billionaire's ego trip just because it's presented in a sports format.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Animation Research Limited in New Zealand pioneered this way back in 1992 for the America's Cup in San Diego. It was revolutionary, what's in the article above is just evolutionary.
Some pix I could find of the original, seem to be not many around:
http://arl.co.nz/index.php/arl-news/131-what-does-it-take-to-be-world-class
http://arl.co.nz/index.php/arl-company/arl-history
Here is was Animation Research Limited are working to today:
http://virtualeye.tv/index.php/the-sports/virtual-eye-sailing
People actually watch sailing in any numbers? I thought it was mostly something TV stations showed to be able to sell advertising slots to Rolex, who value the eyeballs of the 0.1%.
--Joakim Ziegler
It gets better than that.
watching the Louis VItton cup the races themselves could be boring but I literally watched the race on Youtube and used my nexus tablet to watch the virtual race at that same time.
i was watching the race from two different points of view one of which i could control to get Virtual but better camera angles and the other from the TV broadcast. I could see positions of the competitors distance to marks, etc. I could also see the obvious tactical problems where the competitors could have done something different.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
These boats are truly incredible. 3-4 times wind speed, 55mph top speed, 7 tonnes and rigid wings the size of a 747 wing. They are racing at speeds that would have held the all-comers sailing speed records 20 years ago.
The americas cup is the oldest internationally contested sporting competition in world, and is a lot like F1 where winning means you need to have a combination of great drivers, great fund-raisers and great engineers - so there are a ton of elements to combine on and off the water that help to keep intrigue and speculation high. Many of the sailors are olympic medalists in smaller yacht classes.
Because these are the first generation in this catamaran class they do not have close racing - relative performance differences are large between the competitors, though bookies are picking the finals to be quite close. Also the San Fransisco venue is a bit compromised as large tidal currents and the narrow short course means that boats must generally sail a fairly prescribed route to maximise their speed, meaning less opportunity for overtaking (same issue as F1).
If they stick with this class for a second generation and move to a less tidally influenced venue then performance gaps will close and the racing will improve. But for the initiated this is a truly revolutionary event. Larry Ellison deserves a lot of credit for having the vision to go for something new like this sailing at 3-4x the speed of the old america's cup monohulls.
Next time I feel like pinning the blame for a bombing on some kid who likely committed suicide weeks before the event, I'll be sure to. Thanks!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The last meaningful America's Cup races were held in the late '80s. Somebody squinted hard enough at the 12-meter rules and entered a multi-hull. Now it's just a matter of who spends the most money on a carbon fiber boat with a wing sail. This is a sailing race of fundamentally unseaworthy vessels. It would be literally be safer to cross an ocean in a dinghy than in one of these monstrosities.
Come September, do yourself a favor. Watch Deep Water on Netflix. Read any book on Ernest Shackleton. Read any Lin and Larry Pardey book. You'll finish all three before the America's Cup race is over, and you'll know more about sailing than watching every second of the America's Cup races.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
The level of technology reached during this America's Cup is truly amazing. It is funny and scaring to watch those katamarans flying over the water at 30 to 40kts and the level of awareness and skill gained by the crew.
Thanks Bob. Now over to the weather. It sure is hot a sticky down here. Humidity increasing and that cold front remains elusive. Back to you in the studio.