New User Old User Of Dashware

[KBflyer]

So if you have not noticed or if your one of the lucky ones that have not taken the latest updates in Window 10 that made Dashware stop showing the video you just added to your project you will need to move on and start using a alternative program. Dashware was supported by GoPro but they stopped updating it a couple of years ago so as windows 10 updates dashware got left behind.

So I search google and came up with RaceRender. I actually bought the program, and I don't buy many

The freeware version is not as good as the dashware but it will do the trick.

The program is not that hard to figure out if you have used dashware in the past. You can make custom gauges and link them to your telemetry file for the video. There is for sure a learning curve but its not a long one. The nice part about this program it handles 4K video where Dashware would not.

Here is my first attempt at using the program. The video and telemetry I used was not the best for sync. The quad was already up in the air before I started my video so trying to sync data to to the video was pretty hard. It might be off a few seconds but you get the picture.

[stuka75]

I too was a Dashware user until the last update Am thinking of buying Racerender. Does it use our .csv files?
Thanks
Everything changes except me.

[Weston@HPTuners]

Welcome! As with most changes between software applications, there can be some learning curve, but I hope you'll find that RaceRender is easy to use while also offering quite a bit of capability.

[KBflyer]

I too was a Dashware user until the last update Am thinking of buying Racerender. Does it use our .csv files?
Thanks
Everything changes except me.

If your talking about the .CVS files for Yuneec products you still need to convert them using ST2Dash or q500log2kml. Other then that its pretty basic stuff. I have a couple of templates made up and next I want to learn how to make gauges.

[Chris King]

Fellow ex-DashWare user here (Thanks Microsoft)...I had built quite a few custom gauges to pull in boating data. I have an app that dumps the boating data to CSV and had built a custom data profile in DashWare. I know I can't import those DashWare gauge files, but are you guys doing a 'data list' gauge like in DashWare? I have 2-6 text variables I want to drop on a custom gauge and export as a gauge (to share with a community of users). It seems RaceRender is more overall template based than gauge based? Also, I noticed the layouts are percentage based instead of pixel based, any way to lock in a size for gauge and not have it grow if the screen is larger? Also, it looks like you don't really need a data profile like in DashWare since I can just select the CSV inputs on each gauge (love that)?

I do love some of the features of RaceRender and love that it's a supported product. I just hope I'm missing the gauge piece and it's really there somewhere for non-standard tach/speedo type gauges.

[Weston@HPTuners]

... are you guys doing a 'data list' gauge like in DashWare? I have 2-6 text variables I want to drop on a custom gauge and export as a gauge (to share with a community of users).

For the data list (ie a panel that shows multiple data values as text), you could create that in RaceRender with these steps:

1) For the panel background, you could use a "Shape" display object, set that to the type you want (such as "rounded rectangle), then set the Fill Color to your desired background color, and the Line Color to your desired outer trim color.

2) Optional: You could also add a logo to it. To import an image in a way that you can export in a template, use the "File" -> "Add Embedded Image to Project" option; that will store the image data directly in the project or template rather than only linking to a file.

3) Use the "Text Data" display object types to show numerical values for each input. To take control over the drawing area of left/center/right justification, un-check the "Fit Box to Text" option.

4) Use simple "Text" display type to create any labels you want. You could also put this on top of a shape if you want it to have a background color.

5) Repeat #2 - #4 for each data channel that you want to display in the panel. Use the "Move Up" / "Move Down" buttons under the Display Objects list to change the drawing order / layer if needed.

6) Now Select all of the panel's display objects in the Display Objects list by either holding Shift and selecting multiple objects, or holding Control and selecting individual objects, then press the "Group" button. All of the panel's displays should now be listed under the new group object, and when you click & drag on it, all of them should move together, maintaining their positions within the panel.

7) You can then go to "File" -> "Export Layout as Template" to save it all as a .RRT file for easy use in the future, and this can be shared with other RaceRender users as well. If you only include data displays (ie no video displays) and save it into the Templates folder with a file name that starts with "Data - ", it should then be listed in the menu that appears when you add a data file to your future RaceRender projects.

It seems RaceRender is more overall template based than gauge based?

In some ways, yes... Some of RaceRender's individual display objects can offer more complex visualizations by themselves (Gauge and Enhanced Display Objects), while others are more basic elements (text, shapes, etc) where you may want to use several of them together to create one display. You can export any individual display object as a "style" for that object type, which will be in a .RRO file. For cases where you want to use several objects together, you're able to use the Grouping feature to combine them, and those can be exported all together as a template. The function of a template can range from just containing one of these custom multi-element displays, to containing a complete data dashboard (ie data displays only, no video or others), or even to containing an entire project layout (data, video, everything).

Also, I noticed the layouts are percentage based instead of pixel based, any way to lock in a size for gauge and not have it grow if the screen is larger?

Everything is percentage-based so that it will automatically adapt when changing resolutions or aspect ratios, and is also very useful when working with 360 video workspaces. There's not presently a way to lock it to a specific pixel size.

Also, it looks like you don't really need a data profile like in DashWare since I can just select the CSV inputs on each gauge (love that)?

That's correct. To make things easy and somewhat universal, RaceRender will auto-detect certain common data fields (latitude, longitude, altitude, g-forces, speed, heading, engine RPM, etc) for many data formats and then those will automatically work for their corresponding displays, and we can intelligently setup the user's selected data template based on what's actually available from his input file (ie avoid showing dead displays that have no data source). These main data fields can also be set or changed manually by double-clicking on the data file under the Input Files list, and then choosing specific fields to use for each item, or you can also just set the display objects directly if you wish...

When you encounter a situation that goes beyond the automatic detection capability, or just want to use a custom or auxiliary data channel, you can use the display object's "Field" selection to choose any data channel from your input file. If you scroll down, you'll also find that many of the automatic selections (and some unit conversions) are listed there as universal data fields such as "(Speed)", "(Heading)", "(Altitude)", etc.

[mainshipper]

I had looked at adding an OSD using software for my Phantom 3 Pro a while back but did not dig in seriously until today. After just a short encounter with Dashware, I realized quickly that it was not going to work for me (Win10 and 4K) and after a brief search I stumbled upon RaceRender. In some respects I liked the front end and features of Dashware because it seemed to have more components that looked better for what I was trying to accomplish. I think that RaceRender has a richer UI but needs some more UAV/aviation components. I looked at one video on YouTube that used RaceRender and the display was really what I would like to see in an OSD for my videos. Here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-jfkf-FGZ4 , I think RaceRender is a terrific product and should start attracting more UAV users after they realize Dashware is dead.