Browsing by Author "Lopes, Gustavo Castro"
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- SailShapePublication . Lopes, Gustavo Castro; Ferreira, Luís Miguel Moreira LinoCompetitive sailing is a long-standing sport that has evolved significantly over the centuries, encompassing a variety of formats and requiring a diverse set of skills and strategies. A crucial factor in achieving speed and maneuverability is the shape of the sail, as optimizing it can lead to a significant increase in performance. Traditionally, sailors have relied on their experience and visual assessments to adjust sails, but this manual method often results in inconsistencies and the lack of precision needed for high-level competitions. Despite recent technological advances that could revolutionize sail shape analysis, the sailing industry has struggled to adopt these innovations, leading to a shortage of affordable real-time sail shape measurement solutions. Many of the existing measurement tools require the manual insertion of points along the sail lines, making them time-consuming and prone to inaccuracies. In contrast, the few real-time measurement tools that are available tend to be complex and expensive, further limiting their accessibility for sailors. This work proposes an innovative application capable of autonomously detecting, calculating and evaluating sail shape characteristics in real-time, prioritizing accessibility, ease of use and minimal configuration requirements. The system consists of an action camera and a tablet, where the camera captures images of the sail which are then analyzed using a color-based detection algorithm developed specifically for this application. The system calculates the sail’s shape parameters from the processed images, allowing the sail’s data to be visualized in real-time. The system was subjected to practical tests to validate its effectiveness, reliability and computational efficiency in various weather conditions and lighting scenarios. Its accuracy was proven through comparisons with existing sail shape detection tools, including SailCloud, SailPack Vision and AccuMeasure.