ReTrack: 3D Animated Action Replays of Your Mountain Biking

springtide9

Anyone seen this?

ReTrack: 3D Animated Action Replays
http://retrack.me
https://www.facebook.com/ReTrack.Me
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/705 ... ur-mountai

Looks pretty cool and looks like it will be available early next year.

rockmonkeysc

Looks completely pointless.

davidsmee

8) for some, :roll: for others... But toggling through different camera views, seeing how high the jump looked from a side view or how the trail looked in 3D from a helicopter view just isn't something you can realistically do - other than with ReTrack.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts on the product as it stands, and what features you'd like to see included in the future, (hello@retrack.me) cheers - David

ilovedirt

Looks utterly pointless to me, not even slightly realistic.

rockmonkeysc

How will it help to see how high your jumping or the profile of the trail?
If your clearing jumps then it doesn't matter how high you get and I really can't see any use to view the trail in 3d

felix.london

def some cool tech, if you could see other riders on the trail or see a ghost rider of yourself it could be entertaining...for about 10 minutes

cooldad

Unless you can replace yourself with a hot anime chick. And your bike with another one.

mcnultycop

I don't get it. As felix.london says it'll last 10 minutes then the novelty will wear off. A 3D video of virtual me collapsed in a heap at the top of the first climb at Lee Quarry doesn't make for an entertaining watch. After 3 hours on the bike the last thing I want to do is watch 3 hours of me on the bike.

springtide9

Looks pretty cool to me .. and I can see where the tech is heading.

@davidsmee - Keep up the good work and looking forward to the release next year

rockmonkeysc

cooldad wrote:

Unless you can replace yourself with a hot anime chick. And your bike with another one.

Theres some useful feedback. I like where your heading with this.

reformedfatty

I fail to see how this could work without massively detailed terrain data for wherever you are riding, far far beyond anything that currently exists. Existing map countours arent fine enough to capture the detail, nothing has the data on surfaces to tell whether you are riding grass / rocks / road, nothing has fine enough detail to show the difference between woods and a narrow but cleared trail in a wood.. and so on. I think you'd also need a cadence sensor, to use the phones g-meter and well.. even 'weight on wheels' sensors. By which point you may as well have a film crew..

coulddobetter

Better off getting a court artist trail side with a packet of crayons ( after all the accuracy is simply stunning )

Maro

I think it's not a bad idea but at present it doesnt look great. There's nowhere near enough detail and as a result it's notexactly doing what has been described.

davidsmee

Cheers for the ideas! We'll have to see if the x-rated version gets a higher priority than having a ghost rider as a future s/w enhancement, no royalties though - sorry. It's not essential to your mountain biking enjoyment, it does add something new & different.

The aim is to give you no hassle highlights of your ride from invisible virtual cameras. It accurately maps the rider, and his movement, including whether he is airborne or not, and calculates the track you rode along much more accurately than a terrain map. You can quickly review a ride on the trail or perhaps look for a couple of stand out moments in your day when you had a near miss, a wipeout, an excellent bit of air etc. You can see it all in detail if you want, but people can take 5 minutes to click through the automatic highlight points on a smartphone - and share anything that helps tell a story with your mates.

Some say that the animation isn't realistic, but I look like this when I ride :-) OK, so the animation is never going to be photo realistic, and we can work on this - our aim is to get as close as possible - with options to customise the appearance of the rider and the bike coming soon.

We're going to be ReTracking some excellent riders doing some extreme stuff soon - so let's see how that looks for you guys! Also hope you get to see the app in the flesh sometime, we'll try to be around bike parks/trails as much as we can - it has impressed most people we've put it in front of... ok thanks again for the comments. DS

reformedfatty

How do you intend to deal with the issues I mentioned above? smartphone sensors alone aren't going to be able to give you that information.

davidsmee

In all honesty we'll never capture the terrain like video will in terms of how it looks and specific features. We can only approximate. You could envisage this system being used sync'd to video (a bit in the future) - where you'd be able to create a multi camera perspective of a ride, blurring between the real and the virtual. The system's algorithms already switch through to the best views automatically in highlight mode - be nice if you could automatically edit real video in the same way! (GoPro - get in touch if your interested!!) We do need to get going with this version of product first - do the animations here (from the MTB Adrenaline game) look better to you (& others) than what we're using currently?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzDcpJ_o50

The Northern Monkey

Couple of problems IMO..
1) whats the market here? if there is one it going to be small!

2) The sensor.
Its in the wrong place. Surely it needs to be frame mounted to be accurate... standing/sitting/head movement etc could affect the output.

3) The price.
I can't figure out if its £100 or £300 (its says you get 1/3rd off the price if you pre-order, but is the pre-order price £100 or is it £33?). Either way, £100 is quite a bit. You can pick up a full HD helmet camera for £150 and as you already need a smart phone to run this software, you may as well use a camera and strava or endomondo.

4) The software.
In an age of full HD, amazing graphics and smart GUI, the video and app look dated already. The big red/black/white ride stats page looks poor, look at the likes of the strava app or endomondo ap in comparison. The virtual video almost looks like its been stolen from the Steve Peat Downhill game!
Plus as above, how are you going to differentiate between riding through forests, on the edge of cliffs, open fields etc.
Also, it doesn't give me anything more than a virtual video and a few stats by the look of things that I can share to facebook... with a free strava account I get graphs, charts, trophies, power output, heart rate can compare against friends and the rest of the world.

Not sure if I'm missing something... but I don't get it...

davidsmee

Thanks for the post NM,

So we're looking to show more of what a ride was like than just a line on a map, but without any of the hassle of aligning cameras or editing video. This seems to have gone down well with a good chunk of MTBrs we've spoken to, and we're on Kickstarter to find out how many MTBrs who are also early tech adopters want to get behind us. We'll see!

With regards to sensor location, the helmet provides the best compromise from the testing we've done; it gives clearest data for our uses and keeps it out of the way of most of the mud and water. Sitting / standing does have a small affect on the accuracy, but turning your head doesn't affect it. The juddering movement of the bike frame is far more problematic for accurately tracking a ride, but we can still track much more accurately than just a GPS.

RRP is £150; the first sensors on Kickstarter are £99 - I've now made this more clear on the website. Retrack doesn't stop you using other systems as well, just gives a new alternative.

Software: The virtual video is our unique feature which we have been concentrating on (all developed ourselves). We wanted to have something that could be played directly on your Smartphone which means some compromises on the graphics at the moment, but the technology there is moving very fast. If we find a wide requirement for a different GUI on the app, or extra graphs and charts - then these things will be added to our list of extra features in the pipeline, including the potential to see your ride as a virtual race with your mates down the same track.

Its maybe not for everyone, and this is only the start really - if you have a genuine interest in the concept please let us know - happy to meet up and give you a demo / answer any other questions.

David

rockmonkeysc

A kickstarter project. That explains a lot. It seems to be where every hopeless engineering graduate heads to with their crap ideas.
I only found out about kickstarter through a graduate mech engineer I interviewed. I have never seen so many seriously flawed ideas and designs. He didn't get the job, I wasn't sure he even had the sense to be a tea boy.
Give up on this one, there are more flaws in your product than an average Dragons Den reject.
Did you do any market research before developing this to see if there is a worthwhile market for it? I guess not.