Date & Time display along with time lost/gained with AiM Solo 2 data

I am finally getting round to digging through my AiM Solo 2 DL data from last year's track days and I have been playing with Race Render. This is a picture of my current template for my MX-5 @ Laguna Seca:

Attachment 98806

There are three things I am struggling with:

• Getting a good time gained/lost display for the current lap vs. best lap
• Getting the date and time to display
• Creating a list of lap times that displays all driven laps from the start

For the first one I have sort what I want by editing the "Bar Graph - G-Force Horizontal" element but I have seen much better ones. I have not been able to find a template for the style I want, but essentially it is a horizontal bar with time lost and gained either side with green and red bars.

The second one seems to be tricky as the AiM Solo provides seconds elapsed from the start of each lap, but no global time in the CSV. This could be calculated from the header which has the starting date and time, but I am not sure how to read in these parts of the file.

Finally, I would like all the lap times shown up front, not as they are completed as currently shown by the lap list. Any ideas how to do this?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fancythathat

I am finally getting round to digging through my AiM Solo 2 DL data from last year's track days and I have been playing with Race Render. This is a picture of my current template for my MX-5 @ Laguna Seca:

Attachment 98806

There are three things I am struggling with:

• Getting a good time gained/lost display for the current lap vs. best lap
• Getting the date and time to display
• Creating a list of lap times that displays all driven laps from the start

For the first one I have sort what I want by editing the "Bar Graph - G-Force Horizontal" element but I have seen much better ones. I have not been able to find a template for the style I want, but essentially it is a horizontal bar with time lost and gained either side with green and red bars.

The second one seems to be tricky as the AiM Solo provides seconds elapsed from the start of each lap, but no global time in the CSV. This could be calculated from the header which has the starting date and time, but I am not sure how to read in these parts of the file.

Finally, I would like all the lap times shown up front, not as they are completed as currently shown by the lap list. Any ideas how to do this?

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Here is the Time Delta bar that I'm currently using:
Attachment 98836

It's probably easiest to use the "(This Lap vs Cur Best Lap)" calculated field since that should be pretty close for continuous circuits. You can adjust the amount of time that is displayed on either side by adjusting the Range fields in the Display Object Properties (e.g. -2 to 2 would display a bar from 2 seconds behind to 2 seconds ahead). Make sure these add to 0 though since I didn't add extra logic to handle them being different.

If you want more precision or if you ever participate in a point-to-point like autocross or trackcross, you can follow the example I have here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing You simply fill in the lap time in seconds at each particular spot on the track where you can compare your current lap (Column C) vs the previous lap (Column D). A staging time is added to the current lap time to get the current session time, and the current and previous laps are subtracted to get a "Time Delta" field for use in the RaceRender object. I have a negative value in the first row so that it will be active prior to my first autocross run (and so that it just happens to line up exactly with when my data began recording in that specific example). That value may need to be adjusted if your staging time is different.


Regarding date and time: you can open the Configure Input File window by clicking Config when selecting your data file. At the bottom, change the name of "Calculated Field 1" to something like "UTC". Select your session time field in the Input Field dropdown, and add a value in seconds to it which can be found using an epoch converter like this one. For example, 3/31/19 4:25pm PST would be 1554074700. You might need to adjust that value slightly to get the precise time that you want.

Unfortunately, the logic in the existing "Date and Time" object doesn't quite work at the end of the month; so try using this one instead and simply select the "UTC" field that you just created:
Attachment 98835


For the list of lap times, that should be pretty straightforward. I already do something similar for my autocross times because of how RaceRender handles point-to-point data (i.e. the run in my video is always Lap 1, and subsequent laps are calculated to be the "previous" laps). What sort of requirements would you want it to have? Display all laps (up to a max of 20 or so) in reverse order? Highlight the current lap? Display the current lap as a running timer or only the lap time? Anything else?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HoboBob

Here is the Time Delta bar that I'm currently using:
Attachment 98836

It's probably easiest to use the "(This Lap vs Cur Best Lap)" calculated field since that should be pretty close for continuous circuits. You can adjust the amount of time that is displayed on either side by adjusting the Range fields in the Display Object Properties (e.g. -2 to 2 would display a bar from 2 seconds behind to 2 seconds ahead). Make sure these add to 0 though since I didn't add extra logic to handle them being different.

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This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for sharing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HoboBob

For the list of lap times, that should be pretty straightforward. I already do something similar for my autocross times because of how RaceRender handles point-to-point data (i.e. the run in my video is always Lap 1, and subsequent laps are calculated to be the "previous" laps). What sort of requirements would you want it to have? Display all laps (up to a max of 20 or so) in reverse order? Highlight the current lap? Display the current lap as a running timer or only the lap time? Anything else?

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I am trying to bake the data from the Solo into the video so I can quickly reference good and bad laps. Seeing the list of laps once they are completed is not so useful. Ideally I would like a lap list that showed all laps from the start, highlights the current lap but shows the completed lap time, and highlights the best lap time from that session. I will then have a seperate running lap timer to show the current in lap time. This would never need to exceed 10 laps.

Does that make sense?

Managed to get the date & time in there along with the time lost gained.

The time was a little tricker due to how the conversion from the AiM original file format to CSV worked, but I adjusted the Epoch offset and it worked nicely.

Attachment 98875

I now like the idea of overlaying the speed graph of the best lap with the speed graph of the current lap so I can see the speed delta for a given lap time gain. For the brake/throttle graph I have two graphs with one transparent background laid on top. I was going to do the same for speed, but I am not sure how to get it to show this. The X axis would need to be distance rather than time, and the Y axis speed but not for the current lap but the best lap. Any ideas?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fancythathat

Managed to get the date & time in there along with the time lost gained.

The time was a little tricker due to how the conversion from the AiM original file format to CSV worked, but I adjusted the Epoch offset and it worked nicely.

Attachment 98875

I now like the idea of overlaying the speed graph of the best lap with the speed graph of the current lap so I can see the speed delta for a given lap time gain. For the brake/throttle graph I have two graphs with one transparent background laid on top. I was going to do the same for speed, but I am not sure how to get it to show this. The X axis would need to be distance rather than time, and the Y axis speed but not for the current lap but the best lap. Any ideas?

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The Time Graph objects allow you to choose the fields for Y and X. I've used the "Time Graph - Dark" in several of my comparison videos. You can even choose Graph Mode of "Fixed + Both" to have it instantly show the full lap if desired. I haven't personally found distance to be a particularly useful measurement, but I would think it would be much more useful in track scenarios as opposed to autocross. You could even use the "(Distance into Lap)" to have it reset each time.

In fact, if you use the "(Distance into Lap)" as your X axis and use one of the "Fixed*" Graph Modes, then you should be able to do exactly what you want here with a little Timeline work. It seems like you've already done this, but you'd want to set your Width and Thickness appropriately for one graph, and duplicate it for the top graph while removing the Back and Axis (alternatively, add thinner Axis with half the interval but remove numbers for halfway axis lines). From there, select the fastest lap in the "Plot a Specific Lap" field. That should always show the speed of the fastest lap in the background. I haven't played too much with multi-lap videos, so the top graph may require adding a new timeline segment at the start of each lap which would allow you to change the lap plotted by the top graph each time. To do that, you would:

1. Line up the video on the start/finish line just before your first lap
2. Then at the top of the Display Object Properties for the top graph, click the Add button. Click Okay on the pop-up (you've already aligned the time that you want).
3. Select Lap 1 for Plot a Specific Lap

Then you would repeat those steps for each lap in the session. That allows the graph to have different configurations for each lap. If you mess up on aligning with the start finish, you can always delete the current timeline segment at the top.

I plan to work on the lap list object for you at some point this weekend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fancythathat

I am trying to bake the data from the Solo into the video so I can quickly reference good and bad laps. Seeing the list of laps once they are completed is not so useful. Ideally I would like a lap list that showed all laps from the start, highlights the current lap but shows the completed lap time, and highlights the best lap time from that session. I will then have a seperate running lap timer to show the current in lap time. This would never need to exceed 10 laps.

Does that make sense?

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Give this one a shot:
Attachment 98967

It will dynamically determine the appropriate size based on the number of laps (up to 20; it ignores any laps beyond 20). There's also an "IncludeCooldownLap" flag at the top of the background script if you want to see the last lap. If you'd rather have the lap order reversed, change the "OrderAscending" flag to false.

Thanks HoboBob! This is exactly what I was looking for. I tweaked the template to match my other graphic elements (removed the trim, "Lap" title, switched to non rounded rectangle, removed the background). Here is a picture of it now:

Attachment 99114

This is an evolutionary process and I find the instrument cluster (tacho, speedo, etc) doesn't add a lot to my analyses of the driving for the amount of space it consumes. I am going to play with your advice on using the Time Graph to see what works. I think I will end up with a couple of templates, one data driven, one more basic for friends and family type of viewing :D

If anyone wants the template as seen in the image above here it is: Attachment 99115