rec.autos.simulators

Well, for your out-of-the-store handheld GPS unit this is true. I've worked
with a friend who runs a company dealing with on/offshore GPS products, and
by using his setup/systems and a radio link base station, we get down to a
discrepancy of 1-2 cm.

We can easily measure roads with incredible detail (20Mhz) by mounting 4
tiny antennas on a car or a trolley. In other words, if we pulled a trolley
after a car around a racetrack a given number of laps, and shook the data
about to get rid of the overlaps, we would have a seriously accurate bucket
of information.

I have mentioned this to one of the upcoming sim (maybe upcoming?er..)
companies with no reply. Initially we thought about making a plugin for say,
3dsmax, so that we could dump all the data straight over.These GPS systems
are serious - and very expensive (in the 30-50000 bracket) and are used
among other things to guide oil tankers etc so they dont whack the quays to
pieces. Accuracy is paramount!

Any thoughts?
/Matt

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=fi&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22GPS+data...

Cheers,
Leo

Sounds like a great idea (especially the max plugin), perhaps they are put
off by the hefty price tag, although you would imagine that hiring it would
be an option.  Also gaining access to some tracks may be a little tricky.
If I was them I'd jump at the chance to get some accurate tracks into max
with little modelling effort.  Hopefully it would be a case of adding the
textures and off ya go, although I guess thats the most important part  :).

Most developers probably have the attitude that most people wont notice and
whats it matter if things are a foot out here and there to the average
punter on the street.

Perhaps you should start a company and sell the data to multiple
developers - i'll of course provide a test-bed in sirocco :)))

And if you need me to do some measuring in Brazil / Oz / Italy /
Spain...well anywhere...i'm ur man :))

All the best,
Ash
http://www.siroccoracing.com

That was our idea. We could travel with a briefcase of GPS equipment and do
some serious data logging using a vehicle from AVIS or any other rental
outlet (that wouldn't mind the car returned with worn out tires, brake pads
and shocks of course...heheh)

 Also gaining access to some tracks may be a little tricky.
:).

Well, I believe it could be done. There are so many brilliant codies***
around here - and I think most of them would jump at such a project.

Yeah, but then again - some would mind. And who could say no to
1) Be able to sell your track data to any interested software developer
(track owner)
2) Be able to sell your data to race teams for testing/simulations
3) Drop the entire measuring process of building a track for a sim

If you could buy the data for track creation (say that covers 70% of the
development work) it's just a matter of seeing what would be cheapest. And
it would also cut dev time dramatically.

Hehe, if we do I'd love to. Scirocco rocks!
We might do a test at my local track (Rudskogen) later this summer...

It'll be us, our antennas and you of course! Sounds nice with some sun ;)

Best
/Matt
www.knutspeed.com

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=fi&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22GPS+data...
curate+circuit+modelling%22&btnG=Google-haku&meta=

Thanks!

--
Matt Knutsen
www.knutspeed.com

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://ymenard.cjb.net/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

The accuracy requirement for the vertical dimension is very tight, a 5mm
bump in the track is a big deal for an F1 car.  1mm vertical would be
desirable.

Sure, but are you telling me that there's a single game out there that has
every corner within 30cm accuracy - please don't say GP4.

Very cheap imo - but that's solely guided towards telemetry data, not for a
sim/game?

I wasn't thinking I had invented the wheel here:)  But - if that's how close
they need it surely the data must be renewed at an extreme interval? The
ground moves about from a lot of factors, temperature, sifting and shifting
and so on. I don't believe it would be possible to get it that close "out of
the box".

It is interesting to see where this is leading if one thinks of it as purely
a way of simulating for "real cars". Would the FIA ban it? What about all
the other factors? Would the tracks end up as a "Matrix" test bed with
sensors measuring everything to give the simulators enough food? When would
it actually be cheaper to take your F1 team there to do some real testing?

Come to think of simulations, we built a C2 car in the late 80s and took it
to a company in the UK called GeoScan who had it on the floor for a week.
They measured all suspension points, weighed every nut and so on, ran the
data through their software and gave us a book saying "move the rear lower
wishbone mount up 2mm, front 1,5 mm" etc etc. After this the car would
supposedly be 90% sorted. It wasn't  bad at all after we did the changes -
we did have to increase front track as well to counter some problematic
lowspeed understeer but overall I am not sure just how much help that
simulation was...

/Matt

Les Neilson

An early attempt would be Chaparral's Rattlesnake Raceway.  These days
Fiorano(sp?-Ferrari) must be one of the most heavily instrumented tracks?

invented the wheel here:)  But - if that's how close

ok, I was more thinking about the track changing over time. Doing a +/- 1mm
check one day will probably not match the track the next, not to mention the
next year. Even temperature should make the track surface heights fluctuate
more than 5mm?

Sounds interesting - have you got any further info on any of them? I think
dad's library has tons of Jim hall related stuff, but he/we are not really
into Prancing horses :)

--
Matt Knutsen
http://www.knutspeed.com

Yes, but the way we measure relies on a radio base station to get that
extreme accuracy. It has a range of quite a few kilometres if the line of
sight is ok. Our top plan would be a trolley with four antennas as a minimum
that would have telescopic movement for each antenna. Of course - if you
want to map every scratch in the surface you would need something even more
detailed, maybe laser measurement. But then we're talkin huge $ :)

--
Matt Knutsen
http://www.knutspeed.com
bk AT knutspeed DOT com