CueTable Billiard Software - Aiming Calculator

Illustrations

Object Ball (OB)	Ghost Object Ball (GOB)	Object Ball Travel Line
The ball you are aiming at.	The imaginary ball position you want the object ball to go to	The imaginary line that goes through the center of OB and GOB
Cue Ball (CB)	Cue Line	Cue Ball Path
The ball you are using to hit the target	An estimated line showing where the pool cue is pointing.	The imaginary line that goes through the center of CB and GCB
Ghost Cue Ball (GCB)	CB Path After Contact	Tangent Line
The imaginary ball position that is 1 ball width away from the OB and at the exact opposite direction of GOB.	Estimated cue ball path after CB has contacted OB. The curve varies based on the cut angle and english used.	The imaginary line drawn from the contact point that's perpendicular to the line connecting the centers of GCB and OB
Symbol On/Off	Grid Line	Cue Ball English
You can toggle on/off any balls and lines for better display.	Lines conneting each diamonds along the rails of the table. There are also markings along the rail for 1/10 diamonds measurements	Drag the blue dot around the big cue ball to see a simulated effect on the CB Path and Cue Line.
Cut-Angle	GCB/OB Overlap Percentage	CB/GCB Distance
The angle formed by the Aiming Line and OB Travel Line. Please note we didn't set a limit for angles greater than 90 degrees.	The percentage of overlap on OB from the frontal parallel projection of GCB.	The distance between the center of CB to GCB in inches based on a 9 foot regulation pool table.

Calculation

Projected Ghost Cue Ball

Frontal isometric projected view of the imaginary cue ball based on the Cut-Angle. For measuring purpose, each ring inside marks 1/8 ball and each notch along the top edge marks 30 degrees. The red cross shows the exact contact point between CB and OB. Please note there is no vanishing point in this parallel perspective view and it does not exist in real life.

Introduction

This is a simple simulation software which teaches how to aim at a ball when playing pool.

You can drag either the cue ball, the object ball or the ghost object ball around to get an instant calculation of the cut angle, the parallel projected ghost ball overlap percentage and the extended aiming line/tangent line markings on the rail. You can also use arrow keys to have finer movements.

If you find this helpful, please forward the link to your friend by click on the "Bookmark This" button located on the top right of this page.

Discuss About This Software

Your feedbacks are greatly appreciated! please kindly add them after this thread in our forum:

http://pool.pz/showthread.php?p=7908

Consult with an Instrutor about Aiming

Please post your questions at Ask Pro Instructors section. You will be helped by one or more professional billiard instructors.

Special Thanks

While developing prototypes for future versions of CueTable, we have gathered some really a few great ideas from advanced instructors including:

Tom Simpson - PoolClinics
Jerry Briesath - ThePoolSchool
Joe Tucker - The Third Eye Trainer
Ira Lee - HighRock Production
Tony Robles - Tony Robles Pool School

We feel some of the prototype modules can be greatly helpful to people so we are going to provide them to the public.

Helping Billiard Education

Fellow billiard instructors and players are welcome to use this free tool to visualize shots and to encourage further aiming studies.

Bring Billiards into Education

High school students can use this fun teaching aid when they are learning trigonometry. We would like to invite high school teachers and associated educators to work on lesson plan ideas. Together we can bring pool back to school and get more younger minds interested in our sport.

Join us

This is our small token to help to the public education of pool and billiard. Please feel free to contact us if you have any good ideas in making this applet even more useful for people.