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Old 2010.02.09, 12:29 AM   #16
Lorents
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 8
Tested your software yesterday on my rcp track and it works great

I used the PS3 Eye camera that seems to give about 58 fps. It was really easy and hassle free to set up!

Mini z drivers really love tweaking their cars so it might be cool to add a single driver test/practice mode to compare different setups and driving techniques. Maybe something like this:

- Start by entering a description of your current setup - ie. "Car a with tweak b, motor c and battery d" (just a text field)
- Define how many test laps you want to run - ie 20 laps
- Press start button
- Start driving - instead of a count down it could start the timing when you cross the line for the first time
- For each lap the lap time should be added to a list so that the driver can review it after the test race. Somewhere on the screen it should display no of laps driven, best lap time and average lap time while driving (large bold font)
- Would be cool if it could sound a discrete sound every time the car passes the line and a louder more cheerful sound when you beat the best lap time within the test - would give some feedback to the driver while driving
- When the test race is finished it could list the results for the race in another list (name of setup, no of laps, best lap time, avg lap time) to make it easy comparing different races and setups
- Would be really nice to ba able to save lists as .csv or something like that

This would make it THE tool for setting up cars, comparing cars and learning to drive

Another thing I thought of. Is it possible to increase the acuracy of lap timing by interpolating the car position on the camera frame before and after crossing the line? Ie if the car is 10 pixels behind the line after crossing and 20 pixels in front of the line on the previous picture and the time between the pictures is 2 ms you could remove 1/3 of 2 ms from the lap time. Not sure if the image is too blurry to get an accurate position though...

Oh, and it would be nice if you could show on the web-cam image where the timing line is to make it easier aligning it to a marker on the track or something like that.

Sorry, got a bit carried away here Great job on the software, I'll be using it a lot!

Last edited by Lorents; 2010.02.09 at 01:57 AM.
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Old 2010.02.09, 06:39 PM   #17
jokeane
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 8
Wow. Thanks for the valuable feed back!

I'll add these ideas to the feature request list for version 2.0.

58 FPS is pretty good...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lorents View Post
Tested your software yesterday on my rcp track and it works great

I used the PS3 Eye camera that seems to give about 58 fps. It was really easy and hassle free to set up!

Mini z drivers really love tweaking their cars so it might be cool to add a single driver test/practice mode to compare different setups and driving techniques. Maybe something like this:

- Start by entering a description of your current setup - ie. "Car a with tweak b, motor c and battery d" (just a text field)
- Define how many test laps you want to run - ie 20 laps
- Press start button
- Start driving - instead of a count down it could start the timing when you cross the line for the first time
- For each lap the lap time should be added to a list so that the driver can review it after the test race. Somewhere on the screen it should display no of laps driven, best lap time and average lap time while driving (large bold font)
- Would be cool if it could sound a discrete sound every time the car passes the line and a louder more cheerful sound when you beat the best lap time within the test - would give some feedback to the driver while driving
- When the test race is finished it could list the results for the race in another list (name of setup, no of laps, best lap time, avg lap time) to make it easy comparing different races and setups
- Would be really nice to ba able to save lists as .csv or something like that

This would make it THE tool for setting up cars, comparing cars and learning to drive

Another thing I thought of. Is it possible to increase the acuracy of lap timing by interpolating the car position on the camera frame before and after crossing the line? Ie if the car is 10 pixels behind the line after crossing and 20 pixels in front of the line on the previous picture and the time between the pictures is 2 ms you could remove 1/3 of 2 ms from the lap time. Not sure if the image is too blurry to get an accurate position though...

Oh, and it would be nice if you could show on the web-cam image where the timing line is to make it easier aligning it to a marker on the track or something like that.

Sorry, got a bit carried away here Great job on the software, I'll be using it a lot!
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Old 2010.05.06, 11:02 PM   #18
johnnc
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Join Date: Mar 2010
Posts: 1
Great software

Hey Jim,

Just wanted to let you know I downloaded and installed your software on my Acer 10" netbook with built-in web camera. tonight I ran 10 3 minute races with my dNaNo on my homebuilt track. You have a great product here. I haven't played with the settings yet but it works great right out of the gate. My average times is blank on the first series of 10 races. Not sure why that happened as it did show the avg time on each individual race.

Anyway, I know you were interested in knowing if anyone was using your software.

I am going to buy a USB camera tomorrow and set it up on my tripod so I don't have to move my netbook after every race.

keep up the good work....

John
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Old 2012.12.03, 09:49 PM   #19
BovineD
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 186
Jim just wanted to say thanks for an awesome piece of code! I have been looking to buy a complete i-lap lap timing system for my small group of racers but I wanted to try out your system first to see if it would fit my needs and indeed it works beautifully.

I used my ps3 eye camera with your software and everything just worked and was easy to setup but most importantly it was accurate. My first test run was with two cars one running a completely red enzo and another running the calsonic blue 350z body which is primarily blue but has lots of black and white decals on it and it had no problems reading them. I was most surprised when one of our races came down to the last lap in a photo finish where both cars crossed at the end but it identified the correct winner with both time and of course the final freezeframe snapshot at the end!

I will probably only have a max of 4 to 5 racers at a time and will run through a test with the max drivers next time to see how accurate it is but you have saved me a ton of money so far and I am grateful for that...watch for a donation coming your way.

Just a couple quick questions/requests:

Is there a way to view a list of the lap times in a race? I saw there was a way to save race and print race but was not able to print so didnt know if that was what the output was.

Can you swap out the sounds for each racer or add your own custom sounds?

Would it be possible to have the system call out the lap time in mins and secs in an audible voice?

Thanks alot again!
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Old 2012.12.03, 10:45 PM   #20
Draconious
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Could this be setup to detect LEDs, or even IR LEDs? instead of paint colors? Maybe LEDs blinking at different patterns?

This needs to be ported to Android
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