Welsh scientists team up to create a computerised coaching system for snooker – Snooker news
Welsh scientists have got together to set up a new revolution in snooker coaching system by creating a computerised coaching system for snooker with the help of former world snooker champion and now a snooker coach, Terry Griffiths. The Western Mail revealed
on Wednesday, April 6, that with the help of Griffiths’ coaching abilities, the system will not only coach players, but it will analyse the game too.
The computer science and sports science experts from Swansea University are spending hours at Terry’s Matchroom snooker hall, in Llanelli, to make the system and in order to achieve that, they use high speed 3D cameras to capture the player as they play
and pot the balls in different pockets through video visualisation technology.
The captured video of hours of snooker actions is converted into an understandable 3D computer animation. The project is being led by Dr. Iwan W Griffiths and he said that the system based on data visualisation will improve the analysis and coaching of a
variety of sports like snooker, rugby and football.
He added that they have assigned special teams of scientists in sports like snooker, rugby and football to input the relevant data into the software specially designed for sports analysis to scrutinise each detail like potting, cue angle, types of shots,
turnovers, scrums, tries, penalties, breaks and line-outs, etc. after the match.
The project will help the analysis team to show the data in a simple and easily comprehendible visual display of the players’ actions during the game, rather than producing them in daunting tasks like graph bar or pie chart which are difficult to understand.
The project is being tested on the game of snooker first as it is played in a comparatively controlled environment than rugby or football. A video of a player who tries to pot the ball in a particular pocket is distilled into a 3D visualization which shows
the variation the ball takes to right or left, when the player misses the shot. After looking at the visuals, coaches like Terry Griffiths can analyse the video and tell where the player is making a mistake.
The video visualisation technology is being presented in a seminar on Wednesday, April 6, with the title; A Revolution in Video: Advances in Analysis in Sports Science and Coaching. This research project is funded by European Structural Funds and supported
by Welsh Assembly Government’s Academic Expertise for business programme.
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