Golf Swing Analysis Cameras

DIY 2-camera golf swing analysis

I decided to set up a portable 2-camera golf swing analysis system. Though my dream was a home golf simulator, I live in NYC, an no one has that much space. I will be making sure my suburbs home has 10’ ceilings in the garage or the basement.

This swing analysis setup has been done before, so I am only lending my voice to budget-friendliness and feasibility.

Ingredients

1 Windows laptop 1 download of Kinovea, open source sports video analysis software 2 PS3 Eye cameras - I paid $10.34 for both cameras 1 download of Code Laboratories single-camera driver for PS3 Eye - $2.99 2 USB extension cords - $10.98 2 Tripods with a smartphone “adapter” - $19.98

Setup

This post is exactly right – it does work to have two of the same cameras doing dual-capture, simultaneously. But the order you plug in the cameras is extremely important. Follow the directions in that post precisely. If it doesn’t work, the next time plug the first camera into a different USB port.

The tripods I bought are extremely flimsy. I guess that is why they are cheap. They can blow over in the wind. But so far the cameras have survived two falls.

You need the extension cords because you can’t get a good down-the-line and face-on view with the cord length of the PS3 Eye.

The cameras are really what makes this possible. You can spend thousands of dollars of cameras that have a high frame rate and can stream to a laptop. For some reason the PS3 Eye is super inexpensive. I do captures at 640x480 resolution and 60 frames per second. That is good enough to analyze a golf swing.

Kinovea isn’t designed for golf swings, but has all the functionality you need. Make sure to find the “sync videos at this frame” to make the playback on both videos match. I am still getting more advanced on the object tracking features. It would be nice to be able to time the movement of arms, shoulders, and hips in the downswing.

After all this, my takeaway is still too far inside.