NOTES FROM THE EDITOR

After traveling the globe with Lynx in the last issue of the newsletter, we have shifted focus this time around to new products, new applications, new versions and new sales.

Though the community of Lynx owners and operators may become more far-flung with each subsequent sale, we all can benefit through communication. Our offices, website and newsletter can be the nexus for information passed and contacts established within this group.

If you are looking to find your Lynx neighbors, just ask. To share a trick or tip, get in touch. The Talkback section of our web site, as well as this newsletter, can be a bulletin board for users around the world.

Nora

Lynx is cool in the Alberta heat.

 Lynx continued their collaborative work with Nike during the World Championships in Athletics in Edmonton, Alberta. With the goal of giving children a chance to learn about track and field, Nike and Lynx worked together to produce Nike Interactive.

Just four blocks away from the heart of the city, Nike and Lynx created a mini Track and Field complex, featuring a high jump pit, long jump pit, shot put area and a 5 lane 25 meter track complete with ReacTime false start detection, FinishLynx photofinish, and ResulTV scoreboard software putting results on a giant television.

On the opening day over three hundred of the world’s press crowded into the complex to watch young children go through their paces under the watchful eyes and guidance of some of the world’s greatest athletes: Mo Greene was the ReacTime starter; Marion Jones the sprinting coach; Paula Radcliffe and Nils Schumann were the finishline officials.

Although many of the grade school athletes were oblivious to the world-leading technology they were experiencing, the star athletes were impressed.

At one point, Maurice Greene held the hand of a young boy and pointed as the child’s name, reactime, and finishing time came up on the video scoreboard just seconds after the end of his race and said: “Man, this is cool, isn’t it?”Over the course of the ten days that the facility was open it played host to hundreds of budding junior athletes. The youngsters were treated to guest appearances by Olympic athletes like Joan Benoit Samuelson from the USA and Georgie Clark from Australia, as well as the entire Namibian Marathon team.  Lynx is delighted to have been able to showcase our technology in such a good cause.

Lynx Legacy in Ottawa.

A nine year alliance between Lynx and the Ottawa Lions Track Club reached new heights when the Francophone Games came to the Terry Fox Stadium in Ottawa.

As reported in the last issue of FinishLines, Lynx was the Official Supplier of the Games. As well as providing state-of-the-art photofinish equipment that will stay as a legacy system at the Terry Fox Stadium Lynx also provided ResulTV, ReacTime, LaserLynx, and a team of experts to operate this technology.

All the Lynx products proved their worth day after day. The results feed from ResulTV was displayed on a giant video screen in the stadium, and the main Chyron graphics generator in the television production truck was fed data directly from FinishLynx using a customized scoreboard script.

As records tumbled in the long throws events, LaserLynx ensured speed and accuracy in the measurement of the new marks. On the track the accuracy of the instant analysis by ReacTime of hair-trigger reactions of some of the world’s finest sprinters was confirmed time and time again by slow motion television replays of starts – even those that came in close to the IAAF mandated 0.100 minimum reaction margin.

All in all it was another highly successful partnership between Lynx and one of the World’s premier sporting events.  

Regional Development Council hosts Lynx FAT seminar.

The team from Lynx, Frank Monsalve and Todd Chamoy, was very pleased with the results of the four-day training session conducted in Puerto Rico in June of this year. We are happy to receive word that the organizers were just as pleased with the session. An extract from the letter written by the Director of the IAAF RDC in San Juan, Lenford G. Levy follows:

“I wish to extend our sincere thanks to you and your organization for your co-operation in the conduct of our recent FAT Course here at the RDC San Juan and commend the facilitators Frank and Todd for a great job.

The participants left with high praises for the opportunity to be a part of the course and with high commendation for the facilitators, Frank and Todd, who gave all of themselves and worked very hard throughout. Their job was made even more difficult by the diversity of knowledge of the group and the fact that they had to cater to both Spanish and English nationalities simultaneously.

Again, I wish to thank you for the opportunity and trust that, as recommended by the participants, it might become necessary for us to work together on similar educational projects in the near future. I will proceed to recommend this format to the IAAF Development Department and our other Centres, which should be conducting similar courses in the future…”

Lynx would like to extend our thanks to the organizers and all the participants. We certainly hope that another such session can be arranged in the future to benefit operators and interested parties in the field.

We think you will really like them.

Lynx has recently partnered with Microgate of Italy to share product lines. We believe the intersection of the two companies’ technologies will be beneficial to our customers for both informing and entertaining spectators.

Shown on the left are the MicroGraph and MicroTab boards in different configurations: a) MicroGraph as a FieldLynx display; b) MicroTab showing running time; c) MicroGraph showing three line results; and d) MicroGraph with a paging FinishLynx result display.

The MicroTab is an alphanumeric display board capable of displaying nine digits and measuring 34x4x8 inches.  Your first MicroTab board would be “intelligent” and all others would be of the “auxillary” type.  Cascade a number of boards to create an array, controlled by a single “intelligent” board. 

The MicroGraph is a graphic display board measuring 53.5x6.25x15 inches. It is capable of generating 90X24 pixel dimension. You can use this board to display one, two or three lines of alphanumeric text.

The MicroGraph and the MicroTab can be arranged in modules to create a larger scoreboard. What’s more, they can be used as standalone clocks using their built in timers, which makes them perfect for use at road races, cross-country races or even as game time clocks for team sports like soccer, field hockey, basketball, etc..

 “The fact that these things can be carried by a single person and are battery operated make them big winners in my book.” These words came from Doug DeAngelis upon seeing the new boards in action.

Scoreboard scripts are now available on the Lynx web site for the MicroTab and MicroGraph boards. We have tested them in-house and in the field, at the Jeux de la Francophonie, to work with FinishLynx and FieldLynx.

As promised…

We teased you with news of the impending release of 4.0 in the last newsletter and now it is here. Go to http://www.finishlynx.com/download/finishlynx/index.htm to find the latest version of the Windows-based FinishLynx software. You will also find a new version of the manual that will explain in detail the functionality found in 4.0.

You will find new options, drop lists, and menu screens in 4.0. Some of the new features you will see immediately when you open the software, while others wait for you to discover what they can do to enhance your use of the Lynx system.

As in the past, a number of innovations come in part from the wants and needs of Lynx operators in the field. We were able to supply that demand in many areas with 4.0. In turn, we must give credit where credit is due for the impetus behind some of the new functionality you will see in this latest version of the software.

• The new choice for "LapTime Module" allows you to read split times from the image, thus eliminating an external lap timing/counting device. The Lap Time options, new and old, require the purchase of the Lap Time Software Plug in. [Federico Gori at Microgate]

• In case you forget to uncheck Show Time of Day in your Scoreboard options, by choosing the new option Override Time of Day, the running time will automatically be sent to the scoreboard upon Lynx receiving a start signal. [Roger Smith at HS Sports]

• Lynx will calculate and show the operator speed and pace information after the finish, or during the race if you are using Multi Split or Lap Timing. By supplying information to the FinishLynx software regarding race distance and split distance, Lynx will make calculations that will show the operator expected finish time. [Gerald Chalamet at Matsport]

• An addition to the System Info screen under Help will show your Hard Disk Status. Lynx will also show a warning message if your disk capacity is low when launching the FinishLynx software.

• Shortcut your way to image enhancement with MRE by right clicking on the E on the left and/or right hand side of the image area. [Graeme Brook at House of Brook]

• Using the Esc key allows you to shortcut past mouse clicking on the Cancel button. [Doug Lynch of Venue Sports]

• When you set up lane markers for image evaluation, you can show them on the left and/or right of the image area. As you move the crosshair into a lane area, the lane marker will go red. Upon entering a result for the athlete in a lane, the lane marker will show yellow indicating the lane has been read.

• Camera link status can now be seen at the Information Zone level, and not just in the Hardware Control window. [Graeme Brook and Roger Jennings]

• Lynx will be more flexible with scoreboard scripts. Scripts can now be written to send different information using different layouts to a scoreboard. You may want to show Lane, I.D., Name, and Affiliation before and during a race, then show Place, Lane, Name, and Time upon evaluation of the image. Customize your script and broadcast results with varied layouts

Download the manual and read on to learn more about the new software features. For those who like to start playing with the software when a new version comes out, do so and refer to the manual as needed to maximize the new features.

Operators are always thinking ahead.

Before we could even announce one of the new capabilities found in FinishLynx 4.0, someone in the field asked for that exact same feature.

Henrik M. Kristensen of the Danmarks Cykle Union Distrikt Jylland-Fyn emailed technical support last month with his particular situation.  “Normally we get the names of the competitors from a database updated by the federation. But riders from Sweden or Germany are attending meets in Denmark and we then have a problem if the operator entering the names and teams enters a comma in the team name ("team name, from this city").” 

 “We are aware of this issue and it has been dealt with in Version 4.0 of FinishLynx”, was the immediate response from the Lynx Technical Support team.

While Henrik offered two suggestions to solve this issue, Lynx took another tack to work within the CST format. “The solution we used was to enclose the field in quotes, which is the comma-separated-value industry standard. A sample .lif file recently tested: 1,999,10," Smith, Jr.", John ," Los Angeles, CA",12:34.56,,12:34.56,,”. 

  

FieldLynx gets updates this summer: New Graphic interface and Network or Serial interaction with Scoreboards, Windgauges, LaserLynx.

You will find new functionality and options in the latest version of FieldLynx, along with a new look to the software user interface. The update includes improvements to Version 1.3 and additions not yet seen.

One such addition is FieldLynx 2.0 will support other languages. We will add French and Spanish to the existing English. We expect the number of options to grow as demands for different languages are brought to our attention.

Another addition is the ability to load the schedule of events much like you would see in FinishLynx. Instead of having to know an event number in order to call information, you will now choose an event or flight from a drop-down list.

Once you have loaded your event or events, you will see a change in the display of event and flight list from single line format to a tree structure that you can expand or contract as needed.

While we have added some new functions, the software designers have also improved on the previous version in many ways. You now have the option to automatically convert from Metric to English or English to Metric and display those marks.

With version 2.0, you can set a time frame for the display of a mark in English and FieldLynx will automatically convert and display that same mark in Metric at the end of that time frame.

Another option that has been added will allow you to display only those athletes who are still “alive” in a given competition. FieldLynx will now handle jump-offs with ease. Previously the software would not allow you to lower a bar height in the event of a tie and jump-off. Where it would tie the athletes for first, now the software will follow the competition to its true end where only one is declared winner.

You can advance competitors by qualifying marks. Type the mark in your event setup and athletes will automatically advance upon achieving the mark. Compensating for this, FieldLynx will also advance competitors who have not made the qualifying mark in order to create a final as indicate in the event setup. You will also be able to advance an athlete into the next round or final, allowing for a judge’s decision to be accepted into the program.

As effective on the sidelines.

Officials are getting used to the varied technology that has grown around the sport of Track and Field. While some technical components have become essential to the sport, others possess as much usefulness as a voyeur at an event.

FieldLynx is just such a piece of technology. If an official wants to use a pen and paper to run the event, fine. Put FieldLynx into the hands of a student or volunteer who will enter everything that is happening into the software.

While some may believe that in order to make the maximum use of FieldLynx, they have to be using it to run the event. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Place this powerful tool in the hands of someone standing on the sidelines and your event will benefit.

The operator of the unit can entertain and inform the spectators by immediately posting marks and standing on a scoreboard. They will also help your timing and results team by eliminating a multitude of data entry.