Natural Sunlight can Interfere with Arming and Tracking

Natural sunlight contains significant NIR content, which can interfere with the NIR cameras.

Here is a series of images showing how the sunlight slowly encroaches on the ball at the tee area.

In the NIR spectrum, the ball can’t be identified due to the sunlight.

Floor covering too bright in NIR – Ball not found

If the ball is in the tee area, the system will not arm.  There may be too much noise in the material covering the floor.  In this example, the customer had a light-colored floor covering.   In the near-infrared spectrum (NIR), the ball couldn't be extracted from the surroundings.  Notice how the ball is just barely visible within the white cloud.

You can check your SIM by doing the following steps:

1. Launch LMonitor from the desktop icon
2. Press the ‘9’ key on your keyboard to turn on the live camera.
3. Press the ‘g’ key on your keyboard to display what the camera sees in the Near Infrared spectrum.

This is what the live view will look like with a standard hitting mat beneath the ball.

Untreated wood can interfere with ball tracking

Question: 

I am having difficulty with my sim arming and tracking the golf ball.

Answer: 

Wood or other surfaces that are not covered by turf or otherwise darkened will appear white in the NIR spectrum.  In the example below, this is an untreated plywood.   It can be painted with flat black paint