EpeeCam

❓ Setup & help

Camera setup

• Side view (best): put the phone/laptop 2.5–4 m to the side of your fencing line, lens at hip height (≈1 m), landscape. You move left/right across the picture. Your whole body, feet to raised hand and the blade, must stay in frame.
• Front view: camera 3–4 m straight ahead (where your opponent would stand). Advancing/retreating is estimated from how big you look, so it is less precise than side view.
• Good even light, plain background, fitted clothes. Avoid other people in the frame.
• Calibrate: stand in en garde and hold still for ~1.5 s until the bar fills. Recalibrate if you move the camera.
• Optional tip marker: wrap 3–5 cm of bright pink, lime or orange tape on the épée tip (or stick) and pick the colour in calibration. The app then follows your real blade angle.
• Use a stick, foil-length dowel or a rubber training blade indoors and clear the space around you. Never point a real blade at the screen or people.

What the camera reads

• Advance / retreat: your hips moving along the line (× the footwork scale, so a small room still covers the piste).
• Lunge: your feet spreading beyond the en-garde stance.
• Extension / thrust: weapon arm straightening.
• Parry: weapon hand moving quickly across the body (4, quarte) or outward (6, sixte) with a bent arm. Holding the hand clearly to one side keeps that line closed.
• Aim: hand high = mask, level = body / arm, low = thigh / foot. Aim assist then steers the point.

🧑‍🏫 Virtual coach

• With the camera (or a paired phone) on, every bout and drill is analysed: en garde (stance width, feet, knees over toes, weight, upright and profiled torso, weapon arm, back arm), advances / retreats (lead foot, width, crossing, bouncing, staying low), lunges (hand before foot, front knee over the ankle, straight back leg, back arm drop, torso, length, depth, speed, recovery, telegraphing), flèches, thrusts, parry economy and distance.
• Arm speed: weapon-hand speed in m/s, elbow opening rate (°/s), time to full extension and peak hand speed for every thrust / lunge, plotted over time in the report. Set your height in Settings for better m/s scaling.
• Tap 🧑‍🏫 Coach report on the result screen: overall score, top 3 priorities with a drill for each, timing, slow-motion skeleton replay with keyframes (en garde, extension, lunge peak, recovery) and joint angles, per-action stats and your trend. History is under 📈 Stats.
• Footwork & form mode calls actions one by one and grades each.
• Accuracy: these are single-camera estimates. Side view is best; angles can be off by 5–15°. At low frame rates (below ~20 fps) timings are coarse (±1 frame ≈ 33–66 ms) and peak speeds read low. Compare sessions with the same camera setup.

Keyboard / touch

→ / D advance · ← / A retreat · Space / L lunge (hold to stay down) · K / J extend arm · Q parry 4 · E parry 6 · W / ↑ aim high · S / ↓ aim low · C camera view · R restart · Esc menu. On a phone, use the on-screen buttons.

Épée rules used

Whole body is target, no right of way. The first touch lights its lamp; the other fencer has 45 ms (40–50, adjustable) to also hit: then both lamps light (double touch, a point each). Doubles are annulled in the priority minute and at the last touch (4–4 / 14–14). Both feet over your end line = touch against. Pool: 5 touches / 3 min. DE: 15 touches / three 3-min periods with 1-min breaks. A tie at time gives one extra minute with priority drawn by lot.

Two devices

Open 📺 Big-screen display on a laptop/TV and 📱 Phone as camera on the phone, then scan the QR or type the code. The phone tracks you; the big screen runs the bout. Both need internet for pairing.