Re: RC: Re: Re: The Impression Pad

["Truman Prevatt, PhD" <truman.prevatt@netsrq.com>]

Thanks Michelle,

That is exactly what I am saying and yes I know the impression pas is
worn while
the horse is riding. Any material or device that receives and responds
to a signal or stimulus is a sensor. The nerve ending in your skin are
sensors, as are your ears, eyes, 
etc. The impression pad is resonding to and measuring the pressure by
moving around a
material and leaving an impression. It gives you one reading when you
are
finished that you visually analyze.

This is an average over some time interval - most likely the last
several
seconds it was used - but this time probably depends on a lot of
factors, temp, age of the pad, total weight of the rider and saddle,
etc., and
would need to be calibrated. And yes for $200.00 it is a wonderful tool.

What it doesn't do is give you calibrated measurements of the actual
pressure
over the surface of the pad 10 to 100 times a second in a data array
which is aquired by a computer or external memory buffer, so that the
actually
dynamics of the saddle pressure distribution can be analyzed. You can't
do a true dynamic fit by
one data point. But I would say if the impression pad shows that it
doesn't fit,
the computerized sensor pads are going to show that it doesn't fit and
give a much more precise picture of why.

The computerized pads will, however, because of the volume of data and
the
continuous measurement find fitting problems that may be averaged out by
the
impression pad. But for $10,000 to $20,000 (not including the laptop )
it
should.

The interesting thing I found when I started to research these pads is
they are
off shoots large industry. Most of the technology was developed for
the medical community. The pads have been  used for a long time to
develop better
beds for bed ridden people, better wheel chair seats, etc. The shoe
industry -
particularly athletic shoes - uses them to design better shoes. From
what I
found out the top runners have custom built shoes based on analysis or
there
foot pressure on data taken while they are actually running.

Golf swings are being analyzed by use of these pads to determine the
timing and
amount of weight transfer during the swing. I would assume that the same
is true
for baseball players and maybe tennis players.

So this is a huge industry which is producing technology which we can
take
advantage of to get a better horse/saddle interface. Hopefully more will
become
available at a lower price.

Truman

Michelle Fink wrote:

> > Truman, I don't know what pad you think is the impression pad,
> > but the impression pad does not have sensors?
> >Dolores Arste
>
> Hi Dolores -
>
> I don't think Truman is saying there are actual sensors on the pad.  He's
> saying it's a sensor system in terms of detecting pressure points.  He's
> saying the pad only senses the average pressure over a larger time interval,
> but that you sometimes also need to use computerized sensors to pick up
> pressure points that happen at particular moments in time, for example, your
> saddle may only have a pressure point at that exact moment where the horse
> is at the utmost extension of his trot and he's saying an impression pad may
> not be able to tell you about that problem *if* the saddle fits perfectly
> the rest of the time.   Is that right (, Truman)??
>
> He's not saying the pad's information is worthless, but that for $200 it's a
> good starting point for checking basic saddle fit.  (Can't wait to try my
> friends impression pad next month!)  So, for example, if the saddle fit
> checks out with an impression pad and you still are having sore backs or
> other problems, it might merit using a computerized system to analyse the
> finer points of the fit with a computer.
>
> Happy trails -
>
> m
>
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