General information and objectives of research

I am starting this blog to keep up with my PhD research. This is going to be my way of keeping up with what I do and learn throughout my years at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. For my research, I am going to work on determining the physiological effects of low mowing, rolling, and foot traffic on creeping bentgrass putting greens in the transition zone.

We are going to look at the basics for turf research to differentiate treatments. We will also be measuring photosynthesis and respiration of plots experiencing the various treatment combinations. To go along with photosynthesis and respiration, we are planning on extracting, identifying, and quantifying individual carbohydrate fractions within the putting green. One of the parts that is really exciting, is the ball mark resistance and recovery. Those are the objectives I will be trying to figure out and measure throughout the next few years.

I am planning on just keeping up with what I am doing on a regular basis, so I can use this as a tool to remember things in the future when I need them. If this looks like an enjoyable topic to you, feel free to read posts in the future.

Ball mark volume study

I was trying to quantify ball mark volume by using our digital imaging analysis setup. SigmaScan software is used to pick out red pixels of a golf ball to determine golf ball lie, green color, or establishment of various grasses. A small side study was performed recently to correlate digital imaging analysis and the volume or size of a ball mark. A golf ball was slowly depressed deeper and deeper into a clay block so measurements and photographs could be obtained at various depths. The clay was a brown/red color, so the macro normally used for ball lie measurements was counting the clay as red pixels.

In order to not count the clay, we had to adjust the hue and saturation description within the software. To adjust numbers and determine the correct settings for different pictures:

1. Open an image in SigmaScan.

2. Under the image menu button, click on...

3. When the color range appears, you can move the rectangle to various portions of the box to change the hue (actual color in spectrum) and saturation (brightness/dullness of color) setting.

4. Run those settings with the image to see what all the program is picking out with the given values.

5. When you get a setting that works well, write it down, and alter the settings in the macro.

6. Run the batch analysis and work with the data in the Excel file.

This was information I learned today while trying to analyze the photographs.