A owner of a TOMI system requested a responds from Pure Motion, the makers of the TOMI.

This is what he received:

The author makes a critical error in” assuming” (his word) that the TOMI measures the starting point of the putt as an average of various positions during the 10 second calibration countdown. This is not the case. The TOMI even allows an instantaneous calibration method of zero seconds! Using this false assumption as a basis going forward to analyze the TOMI’s accuracy puts all of his results in question. That being said however, one must realize that neither the TOMI nor any other current system available, even those costing 10 times as much, can make all of its measurements accurately down to the millimeter. I would refer those who have questions regarding this topic to the independent McKenzie study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences 2010. Linked here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20509092. 


Regards,

Rick Gorbell
Director of Operations
Pure Motion, Inc.
Cell: 512 289-4085
rick@tomi.com

It can be found here : http://forum.ottawagolf.com/showthread.php?74195-Trackman-vs-foresight-gc2-with-hmt&p=496828#post496828

As I said in that forum I must thank him for the reply as it provides a link to a research paper with some more insight into the TOMI system. But his reply holds no ground and doesn't address at all any of the reported issues! He tries to claim that the assumption is wrong and therefor all is wrong. However I think he has to read the study himself. Because I just did and guess what ....it confirms all my assumption!

A small quote from the study

...The system captures the coordinates of the LEDS in the calibrated position...

However reading that paper in more detail it's clear that they did not use the values reported by the TOMI software in this report. They made an adjustment in the TomiPCPro.ini allowing them to get the raw data from the TOMI.

This is a part from the .ini file

;Turn on or off capture video during a set 0= nocapture 1=capture video
 CaptureVideo=0
 ;Turn on or off writing CSV files 0= no file created 1= files created
 WriteCSV=0

When setting the CSV flag the TOMI software will generate a CSV file for each recorded stroke. This is a copy from a CSV file that I generated.

Frame,time,time2,dtime,px1,py1,px2,py2,px3,py3,px4,py4,x1,y1,z1,x2,y2,z2,x3,y3,z3,x4,y4,z4,gx,gy,gz,a1,a2,a3,da1,da2,da3
-1,,, , ,, ,, ,, ,,  -0.114373,6.24025,2.03827, -0.188196,10.2681,3.35389, 2.21283,8.36562,4.19439, -2.40952,8.22516,4.34292, -0.538337,0.712824,31.6788,  -1.58325,-0.952291,17.9052
0,,, , ,, ,, ,, ,,  -0.0414328,6.23576,2.05476, -0.0682496,10.2718,3.38467, 2.31798,8.35873,4.20283, -2.28448,8.21643,4.42285, -0.0788204,-0.0139887,-0.218871,  -1.47711,-0.282207,19.0152
.
.
.
30, 333.14501,333.16786, 0.03613,  -38.1869,-50.5, -38.0065,31.4725, 14.3937,-11.5, -80.8201,-12.5, -0.373691,6.34273,1.9672, -0.269456,10.3369,3.2686, 2.10078,8.4227,3.96498, -2.49171,8.33695,4.33034, -0.536554,0.10196,0.0245209,  -5.11606,1.49129,18.0318,  -2.0557,1.7735,-0.983453
.
.
39, 333.49647,333.49302, 0.03613,  138.5,-37.5, 113.5,40.5, 164.133,7.5, 75.5,-11.5, 7.22171,6.92283,2.19972, 6.46002,10.8678,3.48074, 9.05709,9.44811,4.49454, 4.5907,8.43018,4.50394, 8.40759,0.780812,0.373935,  -0.690968,-10.9259,17.6921,  2.3694,-10.6437,-1.32314
Impact,dx,dy,dz,x,y,z,vel,angV,angH,dxAddr,dyAddr,dzAddr,da1addr,da2addr,da3addr,d1g,tstart,timpact,tback,tbstrk,tfwstrk
30,  1.13247,-0.00959,0.00506,  0.00000,-0.01265,0.06730,  31.35,0.19,1.24,  -0.08,-0.01,-0.22,  -1.48,0.67,1.11,  6.56570,  332.120,333.185,332.770,0.650,0.415

The content of this file confirms that the frame rate is indeed 30fps. It also confirms that it uses the calibrated point to "find" the impact moment. In this CSV file you can see from the last line that the impact is around frame 30.

The researcher then used that raw data from the CSV file (or better the position data from the four leds) and then used THEIR OWN software to calculate the results!! So the results and conclusion you read in the paper are only a report how good the leds position in the software where translated to points! It doesn't make any comments about how the values that the researchers calculated compares to the values the TOMI software reports.

The good thing about this research paper is however that it explains that the design of the marker unit (or clip) is good enough to be used for a putter swing!

For those that want to read the research paper themselves : http://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/15763669/validity-and-reliability-of-a-new-method-for-measuring-putting-stroke-

PS Forgot to mention one other find in the ini file

;
; Number of non-moving frames required to be at address
AT_ADDRESS_FRAMES=10

; Number of non-moving frames required to calibrate.
AT_CALIBRATE_FRAMES=10

; Number of frames to examine for swing start motion.
SWING_MOVE_FRAMES=10

So that "instantaneous calibration" claimed by Mr. Corbell must be at least 10 frames long......