Do you think this would work?

(bhileman) · (bhileman) **Join Date: Apr 2005** 12-09-2007, 1:39 PM

I have been thinking of this idea for awhile im just not sure if it would work. Im sure most of you have seen halfpipe competitions where behind the wall they have big measuring tapes that show how high the riders are airing out, well my idea is to put that on the water. I was thinking you would make a frame that rests on a large tube or maybe a couple tubes then tow the large measuring tape behind the rider to show how high they are going. I realize you would probably run into some problems with making it too top heavy, but maybe you could engineer some sort of cable system to solve that problem. Thought it would be cool for double up competitions. What do you think?

(wakerider111) · (wakerider111) **Join Date: Jul 2006** 12-09-2007, 2:01 PM

sounds like an interesting idea... but i think the fact that water moves and is wavy will mess up the measurements to a point that simply using a video camera, reply action, and some equations for estimation wouldn't give similar results

maybe a stationary pole that is set near the shore where double ups are typically done would work better (then replay on video could help capture it)... then the waves wont effect it... granted it will be further away, but i think a floating measurer would have too many issues effecting it

(dan_k) · (dan_k) **Join Date: Sep 2007** 12-09-2007, 2:46 PM

if it was directly behind the boat the rope could hit it..one on the shore would be good

(bhileman) · (bhileman) **Join Date: Apr 2005** 12-09-2007, 5:15 PM

Dan it would be behind the wakeboarder so you wouldnt have to worry about the wakeboarders rope hitting it. I see what your saying jeremy in terms of it having issues and using cameras and such to measure the height is easier, but I was thinking it would just look cool for videos and things having the height be right behind the rider rather then calculating it after the fact.

(watson_134_lf) · (watson_134_lf) **Join Date: Nov 2007** 12-09-2007, 5:38 PM

they did something like this on stunt junkies when the guy on that air chair like jumped over a boat........i think they brought out like legit surveyers and measured it from shore somehow. i think he jumped like 24 feet of the wake!

(mxflyer281) · (mxflyer281) **Join Date: Oct 2007** 12-09-2007, 7:24 PM

They had an article in the back of Alliance i think but they had i high jump contest with PVC pipes like a high jump bar.

(dlwsrider) · (dlwsrider) **Join Date: Apr 2007** 12-09-2007, 8:16 PM

Matt, they did, i have the video on my Ipod

trever hansen owned the PVC piping though,

(bhileman) · (bhileman) **Join Date: Apr 2005** 12-09-2007, 11:55 PM

Yeah I remember watching a video of that. Im assuming if they made that work, they could make what I have in mind. I just think it would be a cool feature to through into parts of a video or something along those lines.

(hal2814) · (hal2814) **Join Date: Feb 2006** 12-10-2007, 7:19 AM

If you know how long your rope is and how high your tow point is off the water, you should be able to measure height by the angle of the rope. Why build some massive towable contraption when you could just put something on the tower to measure the angle? It would be a bit more computational work but it would be far easier to implement. It wouldn't be perfect but it would be no worse than using line of sight against towable PVC pipes.

(helix_rider) · (helix_rider) **Join Date: Mar 2003** 12-10-2007, 9:11 AM

How accurate are altimeters? Make each rider strap it on in the same place...and simply retrieve 'highest elevation' after the run. This may be totally ridiculous, as I've never used an altimeter, and the 'error' inherent may be +/- 10 feet, hence worthless. Its just what popped into my head.

wakeridinrob 12-10-2007, 10:41 AM

What about taking the angle from the top of the tower to the bottom of the board?
Simple math and would be VERY accurate with the right camera set-up

(chas) · (chas) **Join Date: Feb 2002** 12-10-2007, 12:32 PM

Build it and they will come

(wakedoctor) · (wakedoctor) **Join Date: Dec 2004** 12-10-2007, 12:52 PM

Trigonometry works wonders.

(bmartin) · (bmartin) **Join Date: Jan 2007** 12-10-2007, 1:01 PM

Haven't seen the PVC thing, but is it easier to clear heights doing a straight jump, ralley, or invert? Yeah...hitting the high jump bar with your head while inverted may not feel too great, but going over it upside down may get you higher.

(wakerider111) · (wakerider111) **Join Date: Jul 2006** 12-10-2007, 1:03 PM

I think the idea about methods for estimating is obvious... it seems the topic of the post is LOOKS and APPEARANCE of a measuring device or obsticle that would make it INTERESTING... not solely for measuring but for ENTERTAINMENT too.

sorry for caps... it is easier than bolding things on here

(hal2814) · (hal2814) **Join Date: Feb 2006** 12-10-2007, 2:14 PM

If you want looks, appearence and entertainment, you could run a small, light straight bar from your wake cable to a potentometer on your tower (similar to the bars on camcorder mounts made to keep your camcorder tracking on you as you move around). The bar would turn the pot as the rope gets higher and lower. As the pot turns up, it would increase the value shown on a large scoreboard sized LED readout just above the tower. You could even store a max reading in a register so the rider could see their own height after the jump. You could also drive a second display and even do calibration for each rider. The downside to this is that you're really measuring how high the handle gets. The upside is that you can get all the parts for probably about $100 or so at Radio Shack (assuming you can find the right kind of IC) or less than that online.

(dlwsrider) · (dlwsrider) **Join Date: Apr 2007** 12-10-2007, 2:20 PM

I know that ski jumpers use camera's along the shore to measure distance and other aspects of the jump, im sure they could do height

(bhileman) · (bhileman) **Join Date: Apr 2005** 12-10-2007, 6:01 PM

Yeah i was thinking it would be for more entertainment and looks. Dante your idea seemed pretty cool. It would make your boat look pretty hardcore haha with a LED sign on the tower.

(watson_134_lf) · (watson_134_lf) **Join Date: Nov 2007** 12-11-2007, 7:27 PM

http://alliancewake.com/video_details_extreme.php?id=2769

browsing around on alliance and i found this

(wakemandan) · (wakemandan) **Join Date: Feb 2003** 12-11-2007, 7:39 PM

that was awsome.

(mxflyer281) · (mxflyer281) **Join Date: Oct 2007** 12-11-2007, 8:10 PM

Yah thats the thing i was talking about its sick

(greg2) · (greg2) **Join Date: May 2002** 12-11-2007, 9:06 PM

I saw on one of the hydrofoil sites where they used the number of frames from video to judge height....here is a link.

http://www.foilfreaks.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=008fe33b8022ebc6c83340619e34 a2e6

(ferral) · (ferral) **Join Date: Sep 2007** 12-11-2007, 11:34 PM

Dante, somehow i guessed you were a programmer even before i looked at your profile.

(wakerider111) · (wakerider111) **Join Date: Jul 2006** 12-12-2007, 1:27 PM

Pretty darn Awesome... now to make something like that more professional, durable/ long lasting, convenient, easy to measure, blah blah blah... etc. etc. especially for double ups. something like we all have been talkin about would be a great addition to the Parks double or nothin

(dnp33) · (dnp33) **Join Date: Jan 2007** 12-12-2007, 2:22 PM

you could just use the time that riders are in the air to measure it

(timmy) · (timmy) **Join Date: Jul 2001** 12-12-2007, 2:34 PM

you could have two cameras calibrated in the boat, and use triangulation software like they use to measure the distance for waterski jump competitions.