After fully defining our project idea for detecting double hits in a game of 8-ball pool, we went ahead to film shots/fouls and get a better understanding of how these shots work. Our research, accompanied by feedback from a professor who has experience in detecting these types of fouls and other pool-based projects, concluded that it would be extremely challenging to detect double hits with only 240fps cameras. Given that our budget does not allow us to purchase cameras with greater shutter speeds, we have decided to shift our idea. Even though we had some contingency plans to assist our prediction system (accompanying the cameras), the accuracy we were hoping to achieve would simply not be possible.
Instead, we have decided to proceed with an earlier idea of a multi-camera system for tracking a car around a circuit. Given that we cannot test it on a real car, we will be using a slot car track. Cameras placed at various points on the track will pan as they detect and film the slot car. Our system will also stitch together the footage using the feed from the camera that is closest to the car at any given time to output a seamless live feed. The idea comes from trying to automize the filming of trackside cameras in circuit races eg. F1.
Due to the change in plans, we are significantly behind schedule. We have updated the Gantt chart to adapt to our new idea. We have ordered the track and redefined all the design presentation goals for our new idea. To get anywhere close to being on track, we are working on having some working model before Wednesday.
To do so we will be working primarily on the tracking algorithm and assessing the racetrack parameters to understand the speed and camera positions we would need to represent real-world scenarios the best we can.