Case study

iChallenge

A mobile app that strives to eliminate bad judgment calls in tennis.

Client Racket Science Studios

What has been done UX/UI & Graphic design, Mobile app (iOS)

Technology we used Swift, C++, Objective-C

Date August 2018

About the project

To eliminate bad judgment calls in tennis, various systems, and tools that track the ball's trajectory and calculate when it hits the court surface have been developed. The only issue here is that such an advanced technology is available only at the highest level of competition. iChallenge is a mobile app which can easily change that, allowing everyone to have their virtual umpire.

The challenge

When developing the app, we actually had to face a number of challenges. The biggest issue was a low capacity of mobile devices - a smartphone has to allow the app to carry out some advanced calculations, in order to decide whether the ball was in or out. Although the field of image analysis is still widely researched by scientists, our team had to do their own research in a short amount of time. We faced some difficulties in UX design as well, since we had to make it obvious how to set it up and use the app in just a few steps.

The process

Our team was constantly brooding their knowledge of image processing and analysis, as we encountered some of the problems for the first time in our careers. We devoted a significant amount of time to the court calibration, detecting humans on the court, as well as identifying a tennis ball on every single video frame. In order to explore the best solutions, we turned to the university professors, who supported the project with their knowledge and expertise. A careful and in-depth analysis of all problems allowed us to use advanced algorithms, while avoiding unnecessary workload for the developers.

The result

This is how iChallenge was created. The app enables precise line calling on any tennis court, and thus decides whether the ball was really in or out. After a proper setup, iChallenge records and monitors your game. If the situation is unclear, you can stop the game and let the app be the judge. Based on image analysis and data gathered, it will make the right decision. It’s already available for iOS, and soon will ready for Android as well.

Being part of this project was surely a valuable experience. We continuously searched for better and more innovative solutions to problems we encountered for the first time in our careers. We learned a lot about image analysis, which made us willing to take on new challenges.

Piotr Bogunia / Project Manager

Case study

iChallenge

About the project

The challenge

The process

The result

Meet the team

Score points with Wedel

Mary Kay Clinical Solutions