Bowhunting.net

Keith Dunlap
Field Evaluation - Trophy Score
By Keith Dunlap
Dec 18, 2006, 05:00

TrophyScore Software

SJI is a family owned business located in Texas that manufactures and sells field-proven deer and livestock feeders called BlockChute, and now they have developed the new innovative TrophyScore software. TrophyScore enables you to score your trophy before you harvest it. This software is designed to provide scoring for whitetail deer antlers that you capture with your digital camera or trail camera. Simply import the .jpg format image into TrophyScore and begin scoring. SJI claims that you can accurately score a deer in less than 10 minutes within 4 inches of the deer’s actual score, and so I was looking forward to trying this software and determining how well it works. Here is what I found…

Product Evaluation

My process of evaluating the TrophyScore software was twofold…first, to determine how “user-friendly” it is and second, to determine how accurately it scores the deer. You can purchase either a CD version or a download version of TrophyScore software. The CD version provides you with 50 scores. If you buy the download version, you simply purchase score licenses depending on how many scores you want to do. Trophy Score is also included as a bonus in all CamTrakker Trail Cameras.

The first phase of my evaluation was accomplished by downloading the TrophyScore software from SJI’s website and installing it on my laptop PC. Next, I entered the score license and I was ready to use the software. The installation and license entry were very easy and took only a few minutes to complete. I found the software layout and user interface easy on the eye and on the brain! Easy to follow instructions and examples are provided throughout the process while scoring a deer.

I don’t want to provide a “how to” for TrophyScore…I’ll leave that up to SJI, but I will provide an overview of using the software. Upon boot up of TrophyScore, the first variable you must enter is whether you are scoring a Whitetail Deer or Northern Whitetail Deer. What’s the difference or where is the boundary you ask? Well…according to SJI, most whitetail deer in the mid-west including Kansas and north would fall into the Northern Whitetail category. All others would fall into the regular Whitetail Deer category. After you determine the geographic type of whitetail you are scoring, you then import your .jpg photo of the deer you want to score. You may use one or two photos of the same deer for purposes of scoring it. Two photos, one from the side and one from the front, will improve the accuracy of the scoring that the software will provide. The next several steps you follow will determine the score of the whitetail you imported into TrophyScore.

The next step is to provide TrophyScore with a calibration of the size of the image by measuring either the width of the nose from nostril to nostril, or the width of the eyeball from front to rear. This gives the software the ability to calibrate the size of the animal based upon the size of the image. Next step…enter several points on each antler using your PC mouse. In essence, you are providing TrophyScore with measurement coordinates for each antler…the main beam length, tine lengths, base and beam circumferences, and inside width.

Once you have entered all of the coordinates, TrophyScore provides you with a nice HTML page that displays the photo and the score of the whitetail (see my example at the bottom of this evaluation). A file that you name is saved as an HTML format file for each score you complete for later reference.

The second phase of my evaluation was to determine the accuracy with which TrophyScore scored a whitetail buck’s antlers. To do this, I enlisted the help of a friend from Illinois that arrowed a monster this year in his home state. Mad Dog (as he is respectfully referred to) took a good digital photo of his harvested Illinois giant, and sent it to me to score the deer on the software. My buddy gross-scored his deer at 161.375”. I was very anxious to put TrophyScore to the test for accuracy. I imported his .jpg photo of the whitetail and began the scoring. Click on the following link to see the results…Illinois Giant …very impressive to say the least. TrophyScore scored my friend’s deer within 3.125 inches of the actual score. That was enough for me to feel comfortable stating that Trophy Score is accurate when used properly. You have to pick the right photos when you have the choice and the better the photo the more accurate is TrophyScore.

Specifications as Tested

Retail Price: $69.99 for unlimited scores, $9.99 for a 10 score license, $19.99 for 50 score CD version.

Conclusion

If you want to accurately “pre-score” the whitetail bucks you are trying to harvest and improve your ability to harvest quality whitetails, then TrophyScore software will do the job for you…in less than 10 minutes per scoring!

Visit the website of Trophy Score

Example of the .html format page that TrophyScore provides after a scoring:

Maddog Illinois Giant on December 10, 2006 by www.Trophyscore.net

Normal Points	Right Antler	Left Antler	Difference
Main Beam Length	28.2	27.1	1.1
First Point Length	4.4	3.8	0.6
Second Point Length	9.5	6.2	3.3
Third Point Length	12.0	9.9	2.1
Fourth Point Length	0.0	0.0	0.0
Fifth Point Length	0.0	0.0	0.0
Sixth Point Length	0.0	0.0	0.0
Circumference below First Point	6.6	6.7	0.1
Circumference between First and Second Points	4.2	4.3	0.1
Circumference between Second and Third Points	4.2	4.3	0.1
Circumference between Third and Fourth Points	3.5	3.8	0.3
Totals	72.6	66.0	7.7

Abnormal Points
	2.7
	0.0
	0.0
	0.0
	0.0
	0.0
Total	2.7

Point Summary
Spread	23.2
Right Antler	72.6
Left Antler	66.0
Abnormal Points	2.7
Final Score	164.5