The standard kit
Take your phone into the arena and work through this. It turns each camera on in turn, measures what that camera is actually giving us — light, focus, steadiness, and how much of the court it can see — and tells you what to change. When a post goes green, that camera is producing footage we can measure from. When it doesn't, you'll know exactly why.
Nothing you point the camera at leaves your phone during setup. The only thing saved is the geometry: where the corners of the court land in the frame, and the numbers below.
No control points yet.
Measured off the live frame, four times a second.
| Post | State | Residual | Court in frame | What is still wrong |
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A camera that pans and zooms destroys the very things a dressage judge marks: straightness, the size and shape of a figure, whether you were on the letter. A locked-off camera on a tripod is worth more than a better camera in someone's hand. This is the single biggest thing you control.
Once we know where at least six known points on the court land in the frame, every pixel becomes a position on the ground. That is what turns "looked a bit crooked" into a centerline deviation in centimetres. The residual below is how far, on average, our model misses those known points.
Blown-out sand loses the hoof against the ground and the footfall timing goes with it. Crushed shadow under a covered arena loses the legs entirely. We would rather have a flatter, duller picture that holds detail at both ends than a pretty one that clips.
Phones hunt for focus on a moving horse and often settle on the rail or the far fence. Locking focus on the far end of the court before the test starts keeps the whole working area sharp, which is what the measurement needs.
Centerline · Henry Equestrian Centers, LLC. Arena letter positions follow the standard 20 × 40 and 20 × 60 courts.