3D Disc Golf Atlas

[DelightSquad]

Has anyone seen this new project that wants to map disc golf courses nationwide, similar to Gmaps street view? What are your thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj_h-pDLNfA

 

[rickles]

meh, i'm much more a fan of using drones for this sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, i'll probably use it to play courses mentally but maybe they'll be innovative and include BOTH views (landscape/earth views vs street, etc.). Then i'd maybe even pay a SMALL subscription if features abound.

 

[bobmcnelly]

Very interesting concept. I would love to see how it ends up working out.

 

[discallday]

I'm not really interested. I enjoy the discovery associated with playing a new [or infrequently played] course for the first time, and I expect that the virtual experience would take away from that fun. I'd much rather see the time and labor go towards upgrading/updating tee-signs and walk-out signs to make new courses more navigable.

For the tournament player, I suppose there is utility if a player is unable to actually play/walk the course before the round. But I'd worry that this virtual experience would just give me false confidence that I know how the course is going to play. I can think of two things they'd have to do to partially remove this concern:
1) have virtual lines in the 3D that denote 30 ft/10 m. intervals from the tee. But still, I'm doubtful whether the current technology gives a true sense of elevation gradations across a hole, which will also greatly effect how a hole plays.
2) carry 1 or more kind of mock basket during the imaging walk-throughs so that they can place them at the alternate pin positions. Otherwise the imaging of the course would be incomplete.

 

[ohtobediscing]

I like the idea, but I fail to see how they will ever catch up to the rate courses are installed in the US.

 

[Lewis]

This is going to cost them vastly more than $50,000. Just the road trips to even get to the courses are going to cost a fortune. They'd do better crowd-sourcing the recording rather than crowd-funding a project that they'll never have the time or resources to complete. If this guy is rich and looking for a philanthropic way to spend his time, I'd say go for it, but otherwise he's being unrealistically ambitious. Are people going to give away money to wait for their course to maybe be mapped four years from now, if the producers find a way to eat, sleep, and keep themselves clothed on a $50,000 budget? How many fundraisers are they going to develop outside of Kickstarter? I just can't imagine how this is feasible.

 

[DavidSauls]

Yeah, that's what hit me when I saw this on my local club's Facebook page. $50,000 comes to, what, about $10 per course, and they'd need to do 15 courses a day to get them all done in a year. That's before I even started wondering if anybody would really want such maps.

 

[discRabbit]

Classic disc golfer idea! Wonder how they came up with the 50k estimate

 

[HarkeyPuck]

Camera & travel costs?

 

[discRabbit]

Camera & travel costs?

Well yeah, but I guess I'm asking how the math looked (if there was any). It seems they've budgeted about $20 per course, which is just a *bit* of an underestimate IMO

 

[Binky Yutz]

This looks like a great tool in researching which courses I would like to play....I'm all for it.....the "math & money" angle is something I do not have to concern myself with as it is not my project.....but I will gladly donate some $$ to see if it will work.

I don't know how this idea will work for planning "shot placement"...to me, that is best left to when you actually play the course and see it for yourself.

It seems a lot of "drone" video footage of courses, that I've watched, doesn't give a "thrower's eye" view of the course. In that respect, I think this 3D approach will offer a better look at each hole and it's surroundings from the perspective of the thrower.