Virtual Eye - Monsoon Cup on 3D Graphics

by Audrey Lakai - Rurrum Communications on 1 Dec 2008
Monsoon Cup is the only yachting event in the world to use Virtual Eye outside the America’s Cup. It was first used in 2006.

Virtual Eye, a world leader in real time 3D sports graphics for television and the big screen, is coming again to this year's Monsoon Cup to broadcast real time position of the boats in the match race circuit.

During the races, it will track the boats live by installing custom-built trackers in each yacht. The self-contained robust units incorporate Global Positioning System (GPS) unit, a UHF radio to transmit the data and a battery system that is recharged overnight.

Virtual Eye main propose is that it helps the 'un-skilled eye' to see the position of the yachts during the racing, with that the spectators will be able to keep track of the on-going race.

The Virtual Eye team has already established a temporary UHF radio network covering the race area to ensure real time data transmission to the operations centre.

The operations centre will process the data to display the yacht's location in the race circuit.

Supporting features such as grid lines showing the yacht’s position and circles indicating changes in speed allowed viewers to understand the subtleties of the match racing and to experience the excitement of each on-the water duel.

The real time data relayed ashore from boats is graphically represented over animations. The data includes boat position, heading pitch and roll enabling the graphics to display speeds, estimated time to markers, wind direction and speed, elapsed times and delta times around markers.

The system also enables information from other sources such as the weather buoys to be integrated into the graphics. There is an endless range of camera angles with fast-forward and rewind functions available for post race analysis, Virtual Eye said.

Virtual Eye is beamed simultaneously with the television broadcast to 137 countries.

To sample the Virtual Eye action please visit http://sail.tv