12/08/2010
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VSPARS recently had the opportunity of working with Team GBR, the British Olympic squad. Specifically with Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson in the Star class.
Andy and Iain were aware of the opportunities and possibilities offered by VSPARS, and how it could benefit their sail development and therefore their whole campaign.
Working alongside their technical team of Adam May and Simon Briscoe of the Royal Yachting Association, VSPARS captured sail shapes for Main and Jibs onboard two Stars during tuning runs. |
The team were able to use the sail shapes in a number of ways, including averaging images over specific tuning runs and reading the shape data into Pi (Cosworth) to cross reference against boat and weather data.
Iain Percy commented that "the autofind functionality of VSPARS allows a large number of images to be scanned resulting in a comprehensive database of results captured over a days sailing. This results in a level of fidelity of sailshape data that has never been seen before, allowing detailed analysis of sail shape variations with boat and weather data."
VSPARS generates shape data and full 3D coordinates for each image, which can be used or averaged at the touch of a button meaning specific or averaged shapes can easily be analysed or modelled in CAD/CFD.
The standalone VSPARS cameras, which are used for small boat applications such as this, were unaffected by a range of weather conditions and reliably captured the important images. |
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| Plots showing various sail shape parameters allow in depth analysis of shapes which without VSPARS would not be possible. |
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