Practice Overview
- David Avgikos
There will be times when you will want to practice shooting without the rules and requirements of a structured course. Practice allows you to load target objects (flat targets, reactive targets, video targets, and TruTargets) and quickly configure a practice session with one or more lanes.
Selecting Practice from the toolbar will display the practice options in the control panel and automatically open the Practice Setup menu in the side panel.
On the laptop, the viewport will show six “lanes”, each of which can be assigned a target object.
In practice mode, the position of the viewpoint/camera is controlled in the following manner.
The distance from the targets is controlled with the Distance slider in the command panel.
The left/right position of the view is set with the Align Viewpoint option in the Practice Setup side panel.
The height is controlled by the Viewpoint Height slider in the Practice Setup side panel. The Viewpoint Angle option works with Viewpoint Height to allow you to control the horizon line. For example, a Viewpoint Height of 2 feet with a Viewpoint Angle of 15° can be used to simulate the view from a prone position.
See the Practice Setup and Practice After Action Review sections for more information about the various practice options.
Selecting and Removing Targets
The practice environment is divided into six sections (also known as lanes). Each lane can have its own target which can be loaded either by clicking the + icon at the top right of the lane or opening the Library in the side panel and dragging a target object into the lane.
Clicking the + icon opens the object library in the side panel (showing only target object folders). Clicking a target object in the library will load the target in the selected lane. Optionally, you can drag and drop any target object into a lane. If the lane already has a target in it, the old target will be replaced with the new target.
Once a lane is assigned a target, the + icon will change to an X icon. Clicking the X icon will remove the target from the lane and the icon will change back to a +.
The Practice Control Panel
Weapon Selection
The Practice Control Panel shows the weapon name, ID number, icon for the weapon type (pistol, rifle, shotgun, taser, and other), shot marker color, and shot data for up to 6 weapons as defined by Weapon Setup. Shot information is updated in real-time as the practice session progresses.
By default, the first weapon slot is set to “Any Weapon”. This will allow any training weapon to be used in a practice session. This can be replaced by clicking the icon and selecting any other pre-defined weapon.
Any Weapon cannot exist with other weapons. If “Any Weapon” is visible and another weapon with a defined ID is assigned, the generic weapon will be removed from the Control Panel.
Likewise, if one or more weapons with specific IDs are assigned, and Any Weapon is selected, all other weapons will be removed from the Control Panel.
Distance
Sets the distance of the shooter from the targets during a practice session. The unit of measure is defined by the Measurement setting in the Practice Setup menu. For example, if Measurement is set to meters, moving the slider to 10 will move the shooter’s view 10 meters from the target(s).
Start/Stop
This control will either start a practice session if one is not running or stop a session if one is in progress.
The Start/Stop control includes a session timer that will either count UP in seconds if the Time Allowed option is set to unlimited (Running Time), or count DOWN in seconds if the Time Allowed option is set to a fixed amount of time (Remaining Time).
The Practice Side Panel
See the Practice Setup side panel page for more information.
