Score tracking application

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Hi all,

I've been slowly developing a slightly different kind of scoring application which focuses on plotting and tracking practice scores.

My practice shoots can be any number of arrows over any kind of distance at any of the FITA target sizes, all depending on time available, location etc. In the evenings I might be shooting 50 arrows at a 40cm target over 13yds, while weekends might see me shooting a full Albion or plinking away at an 80cm face at 50m etc. I wanted to plot every one of my shots and analyse my progress (or lack thereof) over time.

So I made this web-based application (with a standalone mobile aspect) to enable just that. Here's a quick video of the mobile plotter which shows how I log my shots during a session on my iPhone:

[video]http://eljetico.co.uk/videos/XRingMobileBasicScoring.mov[/video]

The plotter operates offline so no connection is required until I want to upload my shoots to the main web app for viewing, comparison and analysis. Here is an overview of recent shoots:



I can go into the individual shoot and check out shot distribution, accuracy, precision for each End and for an individual arrow etc:



Similarly I can view my progress over time for a specific target size and range:



The small red triangles at the top of the graphs denote 'Milestones' - points on the timeline where I have made a change to bow setup, tuning, form etc worthy of a note.


I want to make this public soon but I have a little work to do first. Notably, the mobile plotter is formatted for iPhone at the moment but being an HTML5 page, I intend to make it screen-size responsive so suitable for any device with a browser. Also, I'm adding more comparison tools, visuals etc in an effort to make it more useful.

Of course, concentrating solely on scores isn't necessarily the best way to improve your archery but using this as a method of tracking (like you would in jogging, cycling, weight loss, beer consumption etc) has been of immense benefit to me over the past few months.

Anyway, I wanted to put this out for a bit of feedback/validation - thoughts/suggestions/questions are welcome - I'll keep posting with updates...

Cheers
Tim
 
M

Moose

Guest
Me likee

Zooming in further would be usefull as I shoot compound and so would want more detail around the gold

Otherwise good work, would also be good if it worked correctly on an iPad not just phone as in practice I may take the pad with me
 

Flying Whale

New member
Looks pretty good. Will be interested to watch it develop.

At the moment I don't have any form of smart phone (iPhone, Android etc). At some point I may go that route. If so I will maybe see if I can get hold of a copy.

Will give it some thought about suggestions.


A while back I wrote something for Palm devices, but with a slightly different goal. It allowed entry by arrow number and I use it to assess rogue arrows, and allow picking arrows that groups best to try and maximize chance of scoring well! It is interesting how many points you can drop if you pick an arrow which does not groups well, particularly when you drop down to shooting 3-arrow ends at 50m and 30m on a FITA. Just one point each end costs you 4 points a dozen or 24 points in the second half of a FITA. This would be enough to take you from mid MB level to GMB with a compound.

Best of luck with this
 

messyhead

Member
I like the look of it. I like the idea of being able to view all the stats in a web page, rather than on the phone. is it only going to be for iPhone?

I have an android app that allows your groups to be tracked by arrow. But it's not anywhere near as comprehensive as this. On the app I have, when you long press on the screen, you get a zoomed box to allow you to accurately place the shot. But it can be time consuming. The cross hairs on your one makes it look easier (and I take it the white circle was just to show where your finger was in the video?)

I like the idea of being able to view all the stats in a web page, rather than on the phone. Can you view score sheets as well? It might also be useful to show the classification achieved if your shooting a FITA/GNAS round so you could track that on the app as well, rather than have to go and look it up separately.
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Thanks for the comments!

Moose: the mobile app allows you to zoom x2, basically 6-ring to center (although no reason why couldn't go tighter)!

Flying Whale: when I presented this to a couple of more experienced guys, the real benefit for them was in arrow tuning - the application allows you to select your arrows and plot them sequentially on the target. Rogue arrows can then be identified in the 'desktop' view.

messyhead: yes the white circle was just for the demo video but there are a number of tools to help you place the shot accurately: the zoom function allows closer inspection of the inner rings, the crosshairs provide a method of tracking across the face and there are big numbers top right which identify the ring you are currently 'hovering' over.

As it stands, the application allows you to email iArcher scoresheets in and view them under the 'Competitions' tab - I'm still working on this and hope to enable the same kind of stats for competitions but for now I'm keeping it simple and disconnecting it from GNAS/FITA rounds etc.

Thanks again, useful stuff!

T
 

Flying Whale

New member
Flying Whale: when I presented this to a couple of more experienced guys, the real benefit for them was in arrow tuning - the application allows you to select your arrows and plot them sequentially on the target. Rogue arrows can then be identified in the 'desktop' view.
Just for you to think about... Putting the arrows in sequentially to allow you to track number is one way.... however it makes entry at the target a lot slower.

It means you have to look to work out which arrow is 1 so you can enter it, then go searching for number 2 etc. It is actually easier to plot the arrows all from one side (left to right or top to bottom) and have another way of attaching the number.

Why is speed an issue? If you are plotting 12 arrows at a time (which is what you really want to do when arrow tuning) and having to look for all numbers... and you are doing it as part of a club night.... the other members can get really frustrated when you take too long plotting the arrows. I speak from experience. Actually for arrow plotting it is best to have the field to yourself, but that is a luxury that can not always be had.
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Yes, searching out and plotting arrows sequentially is a bug-bear (the only benefit of doing it that way seems to be tracking performance across the End which is, I think, unnecessary).

So I've been toying with doing it similar to your suggestion. The screenshot below shows this mocked up - user can set the arrows they're shooting (assuming they're identified with numbers/letters, of course), and plot them in any order by selecting the arrow number and plotting its position before repeating for the next arrow...

Drawbacks are that you still have to identify the arrow, and its now a two-step process (select the arrow id and plot the arrow) rather than one (simply plot the arrows).

XRingMobileArrowDriven.jpg
 

Flying Whale

New member
Yes, searching out and plotting arrows sequentially is a bug-bear (the only benefit of doing it that way seems to be tracking performance across the End which is, I think, unnecessary).

So I've been toying with doing it similar to your suggestion. The screenshot below shows this mocked up - user can set the arrows they're shooting (assuming they're identified with numbers/letters, of course), and plot them in any order by selecting the arrow number and plotting its position before repeating for the next arrow...

Drawbacks are that you still have to identify the arrow, and its now a two-step process (select the arrow id and plot the arrow) rather than one (simply plot the arrows).
On mine when you first put the arrow in place it automatically picks the lowest number left to plot. That way if you do plot them in order it is a single step process. I then have a list down the right (or bottom or wherever) and clicking on the number will change the last arrow plotted to that value, returning the unused number to the "dock". It is pretty easy to get used to.

If there really is a performance change across the end, then it invalidates the plotting to pick rogue arrows (just picks rogue archer!). I would also suyggest that for that reason you should not always shoot the arrows in the same order...
 

Mufti

Member
I'm VERY interested in this, not so much for the arrow numbering (can this facility be turned off?), but find my big chunky fingers obscure exactly where I need to tap!

I have seen other options which have overcome this issue (both zooming and tapping) in an app called Artemis Lite archery scoring app.

Check it out, a combination of both would be superb and worth paying for!

Thanks

Mufti
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
I'm VERY interested in this, not so much for the arrow numbering (can this facility be turned off?), but find my big chunky fingers obscure exactly where I need to tap!
When I started looking at smartphone scoring apps, that was the first issue I noticed. surprisingly few of them seem to deal with it well. I played with interfaces a bit and found it was relatively easy to pop up a zoomed version of the area under your finger, and offset it so you could see where you were. So it's strangely inept that more apps don't cope...
 

Splashy

New member
Yes, searching out and plotting arrows sequentially is a bug-bear (the only benefit of doing it that way seems to be tracking performance across the End which is, I think, unnecessary).

So I've been toying with doing it similar to your suggestion. The screenshot below shows this mocked up - user can set the arrows they're shooting (assuming they're identified with numbers/letters, of course), and plot them in any order by selecting the arrow number and plotting its position before repeating for the next arrow...

Drawbacks are that you still have to identify the arrow, and its now a two-step process (select the arrow id and plot the arrow) rather than one (simply plot the arrows).

View attachment 1699
Are you going to be giving access to the web version? I would like to have a play with it, it certainly looks very impressive.
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Yes, I'll be making this public soon.

Its all web-based: the mobile plotter is an offline HTML page (basically cached on your device, so will work with all platforms/browsers, no AppStore/MarketPlace shenanigans). On the iPhone, you can pin the page to the homescreen so it effectively operates as an app. I'm not sure if there is a correlation on other devices but just using a bookmark would be fine.

Also, based on a snippet from an article I read by Alistair Whittingham regarding timing (can't reach it now - the site is down), I'm just experimenting with a feature which tracks the duration of each end's shooting, on the assumption that as performance improves, there should be little variation in the length of time it takes to complete an end. The result is a small sparkline graph (at the bottom of the image below) plotting the time taken for each end and a standard deviation value which would ideally be 0.0. This is also tracked over time.

XRingDesktopEndTiming.jpg

This timer works like a stopwatch on the shooting line and adds two small steps to the shoot plotting, however: 1. Start timer, [ shoot the end ], 2. Stop timer, 3. Plot arrows...

Not sure if this is valuable at the moment: would be great to get some feedback on this and other metrics you think might be worth capturing, although I want to keep things fairly simple for now.

Thanks for your interest!
Tim
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Hi Mufti: other commitments are slowing me down - I'm hoping to have something public by end of October.

thanks again for your interest - I'll post here as and when anything happens.

Tim
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Quick update/call for guinea pigs! And a request for scoresheets....

My XRingScoring application is nearing beta test - I'm asking for anyone interested in using it to submit an email address so I can send out invitations when I have it in a ready state. Please visit XRingScoring for more information. Would be great to get some idea of the level of interest.

Also, its currently configured to allow upload of iArcher scoresheets (via email or direct upload) from my iPhone - this is what I use during competitions - but was hoping to accomodate more 'digital' scoresheets from other scoring software (mobile or otherwise) to make it more useful.

If anyone has sample scoresheets they wouldn't mind 'donating' (as fully completed as possible) and would be willing to help, I'd be really grateful. As a start is would be great to get hold of exports from the Android apps Mufti listed elsewhere in this Software forum...

Thanks for your continued interest - its much appreciated.
 

Big

New member
Tim

This willing guinea pig will have some free time over the Christmas hols to try this very interesting app out.....

(if it's available)

Big
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Thanks Big!

I've been meaning to post an apology here regarding delays in getting xringscoring out.

Other commitments have hampered development, but when I have had time, I've been working on making it a one-stop shop for all scoring: practice, full GNAS/FITA rounds as well as simple blank boss shot counts...

I'm planning on getting it into the hands of all the registered beta testers very early in the New Year.

Again, thanks to everyone for their ongoing interest - I'll continue to post updates here.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Tim
 

Big

New member
Thanks Tim.....

the changes sound good.

i really look forward to see the app in the flesh.

Big
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
A quick update: I've been working on the mobile scoring application which will incorporate three different 'modes': a simple blank boss shot counter, a 'free practice' mode which provides plotting for arbitrary distances and unlimited shot counts, and a full GNAS/FITA round scoring mode (again with plotting). Along with a simple sightmarks record, this makes it the self-contained scoring/plotting tool I originally wanted.

This therefore makes a change to the desktop application which was to allow for upload of scoresheets from other applications. In the end, it was more work to accomodate very disparate scoring formats from those applications. So I'd like to thank all those who sent me sample scoresheets from many applications but this feature will not now be included in the initial release. If demand is sufficient later I will consider re-enabling the upload of 'non-native' scoresheets.

Also in the spirit of full disclosure, it should be noted that the mobile application is being developed for 'WebKit' browsers (ie, mobile Safari, Chrome etc).

I use an iPhone and am really pleased with the performance of the graphics rendering which is super fast and smooth.

Testing on Android devices, however, the performance when plotting shots is dreadful (at least when swiping across the 'target face' - tapping on a spot is better but still not ideal). There are a number of reasons for the difference but I'm working hard on trying to improve performance on Android machines.

I hope you're still interested in xringscoring after such a long gestation - again I apologise for the protracted development: its nearly there!
 
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