Practice Table.
Try a shot. Learn from the result.
Arrange the balls. Point the cue. Choose the contact and strength. See where they go.
Get your hands on it ↓Your table. Your experiment.
Change the cue line, tip contact, elevation, and stroke strength. The motion is recalculated.
A straight-in cue ball and one object ball. Compare low, center, and high contact while holding the line.
Still setup. The 3D study adds the cue, alignment lines, spin, contacts, and playback.
3D is unavailable here. The setup, lesson, and text explanations remain available.
Dashed white: cue aim. Muted dashed: base cue direction. Solid white: cue-ball track; gold/red: object balls. Wire sphere: cue-ball position at modeled ball contact. Contact angles are measured from the line of centers or cushion normal.
Ready. Playback starts only when requested.
Contact sequence & results
Position balls. Aim the cue.
Select a ball, then tap the cloth or drag it. Switch to Aim cue and tap where you want to point. The gold line shows the cue direction.
Keyboard: focus the table and use arrows to move the selected ball; in Aim cue mode, left/right turns the cue. Shift makes larger adjustments. The fields below work too.
0° right · 90° far rail · 180° left · 270° near rail.
Choose a starting layout, or make your own.
Cue speed changes impulse, spin, and travel. Playback speed only changes how fast you watch. The rendered fore-end shows the cue’s alignment and contact height.
Model & cue-specific calibration
Positive is counterclockwise in the overhead table view. Start at 0° unless you have a measured value for this cue and contact. Squirt is cue-specific; no universal degrees-per-tip value is assumed.
Nominal 2.54 × 1.27 m cloth, 57.15 mm balls; cue/ball masses 0.54/0.17 kg. Sliding/rolling friction 0.20/0.01, ball restitution 0.95, cushion restitution 0.78. Cushion friction 0.18 is a provisional model setting. Cloth, ball cleanliness, cushion rubber, and pockets vary.
Solid-sphere impulse, cloth slip/roll, ball friction, and a raised cushion nose are modeled. Balls stay on the cloth; jump, full massé, pocket jaws, cushion compression, and cue-shaft flexibility are not simulated. Strength is not a measured force in newtons.
Watch the cue ball after contact and the object ball toward the middle pocket. The cue ball may draw, stop near contact, or follow.
A little feedback helps.
Change one thing at a time. Hold the line and compare low, center, and high contact. Then try left and right. Watch the object ball, the cue ball after contact, and the next cushion separately.
This is the same grounded teaching model used in the spin classroom. It uses nominal cloth and cushion settings; your actual cue and table need calibration. Full massé, jump, and pocket-jaw behavior are outside the model.