NEED
Brunswick Bowling & Billiards Corporation was developing a new concept in
bowling systems called Bowlervision. A part of this new system concept was to be
a computerized color display of the trajectory, velocity, and position of the
bowling ball during the game. All of the past attempts using lasers, ultrasonics,
sonar, and infra-red beams had failed to meet the accuracy, precision, and cost
goals of the system.
SOLUTION
Mitsi developed in Phase I a 4-bit, black & white proof of concept
system. This design showed that orange colored bowling balls would become a
detection problem, as they trended to blend into the wood background. Lighting
and reflections had to be carefully controlled.
A new color system was then developed using the results from Phase I. The
system used 6-bit resolution when tracking the moving objects.
Software algorithms were designed to detect the orange balls, and switch to a
different tracking mechanism when they were located. Automatic calibration
routines were developed to periodically adjust the system to the current lane
lighting.
RESULTS
Mitsi produced hundreds of bowling ball tracker systems while Brunswick set
up production lines and test facilities. A key portion of the new Bowlervision
system is a reality.
