iTarget idea with tablet + IR sensor

[JJJJJJ]

Here is an openidea for an electronic target with a tablet as the target and an IR sensor attached to it.

Below is a link for IR tracking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awjPUkBXOU

If we can combine the IR tracking with an app on a tablet then we can use the tablet as the target and attach a small emitter or reflector to the gun and have a iTarget.

Anyone wants to give a shot? [/url]

[mdickinson]

That's quite fascinating. I wonder what kind of IR ray you would have to use to push enough light and power 10m away.

[JJJJJJ]

It's an open idea for discussion, not perfect but I hope it can lead somewhere. If you can help answering your own question regarding IR ray then it might give more people ideas to work off.

[BigAl]

I guess the best bet would for you to mount 4 IR LED's at the corners of the target. By having the LED's arrayed with a fair bit of separation you should be able to compute the angles reasonably well as the relative positions change. The sensor should be able to see the LED's from quite a distance.

Alan

[m1963]

We fear zombie threads. However, we could find no other reference to this device, or similar:

https://www.itargetpro.com

Has anyone tried this device? Is it worth the $89 stated for Bullseye practice?

[SteveT]

IR LEDs on the corners of the target would not have to be very bright at all to stand out from the background.

I've thought a lot about how to do an electronic target / trainer cheaply. All solutions have problems.

Mounting LED beacons on the target would make tracking very easy, but the camera would need to be mounted to the gun, which means adding weight in some location that is not in the sight line.

In addition, the small cheap cameras don't have high enough frame rate to capture movement induced by the trigger. I've tried using HD cameras up to 60 fps and they couldn't capture it. There are higher frame rate cameras available but the cheap ones (under $1,000) accomplish it by reduced resolution. Unfortunately there is not a high volume commercial product that can be adapted to this.

The inverse solution, mounting a Laser diode on the gun and using a camera to capture the dot on the target reduces the weight added to the gun, but still has the frame rate issue and introduces potential safety issues if an IR laser is used since the light is not visible. When I tried it I mostly shot with a red dot sight and "hid" the laser dot behind the red dot. I also tried it with open sights by putting 2 targets up vertically with the laser pointing at the bottom target, hidden by the gun/hand/arm, but sighting and calibration was a pain.

It's been a few years since I looked at this problem. Maybe it's time to try again and see if anything new is on the market.

[Finelld]

I am a retired broadcast engineer with a few other talents. The way I would approach this is to use a target sprayed or treated with glass microbeads for reflection. Use a TelePrompTer type of beam splitter arrangement to view the target with a digital camera. Many digital cameras are sensitive to ir light. Use a low power ir laser to illuminate the aim point on the target. Attach a transducer to trigger the camera when the trigger is pulled. Use software to score the image.

Alternatively you could attach electronic gyroscopes to measure gun position to determine the aim point and go from there.

Best of luck and good luck.

-Dave

[Rover]

Hey JJJJJJJ, come on down and shoot the AP and FP Sectional tomorrow. Easy couple of National Championships for you.

[SteveT]

I haven't been able to find an inexpensive solution, but every year or two I revisit it to see if something new has come out that would work for us.

If you put IR LEDs in the corners of the target then you need a camera on the gun which is heavy. You need a fairly high resolution camera, which is common, but you also need a high frame rate, which is much less common and more expensive.

If you put a laser on the gun it's easier and lighter. You still need a high frame rate camera, but the weight of the camera is no longer an issue. If shooting outdoors at more than 25m the brightness of a standard un-regulated laser may not be sufficient. If you have an IR laser there is additional safety concerns because we can't see it.

Putting LEDs or reflectors on the gun is another possibility, but then the camera is trying to see very tiny movements along with the same high frame rate issue.

I've tried using a camera to follow a laser attached to the gun to make a poor man's electronic trainer. Common HD cameras only get 30 fps, some can get 60fps but even that is not sufficient to capture the movement while the trigger is actuated. Some cameras can reduce resolution at higher frame rates. I used a PS3Eye camera that can go up to 500 or 1000 fps but at very low resolution. I didn't find a solution that was good enough.

[SlartyBartFast]

iTarget you say?

https://www.itargetpro.com/

[jenrick]

Hmm.

Well 6D head tracking is down using an IR reflectors or emitters mounted on the subject (for commercial at home purposes reflectors on a cap or something similar, and military applications for instance IR emitters on a helmet). When done correctly this gives you an accurate and repeatable knowledge of where in 3D space the subject is and what it's doing (rotating, moving forwards and backwards, etc). There are several freeware PC applications available (check out free-track.net) and payware (https://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/) options out there to do this.

You could use commercial reflectors on the pistol/rifle, and the tracking camera at the target. The question is one of having enough resolution to be accurate at the scale we shoot at.

-Jenrick

[Ricardo]

I notice the iTarget has no black bull. Maybe camera wouldn't detect the beam hitting black. Also, no .22?