Robot Auto Racing Simulation (RARS) Mailing List Digest 19950820
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Contents
Monza Track files.
error in point standings
Track class - anybody out there?
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Date sent: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 11:39:23 -0400
Subject: Monza Track files.
I've put two new track files in the uploads directory at ftp.ijs.com.
They are MONZA-55.trk and MONZA-76.trk.
MONZA-55 shows the Monza circuit as it appeared in 1955 with the
combined road circuit and high speed oval. MONZA-76 is how it appeared
after the chicanes were added to the road circuit in 1976.
MONZA-55
This is the MONZA Autodrome in the same configuration that appeared
in the John Frankenheimer film "GRAND PRIX", starring James Garner.
The movie, filmed during the 1966 Formula One season, contains awesome
in-car footage of the old MONZA track.
The original MONZA road circuit was built in 1922. The 4.25km high speed
oval, with its two steeply banked curves (38 degrees!!), was added in 1955.
At the same time, the road circuit was shortened from its previous 6.3km
down to 5.75km. The Porfido curve, originally extending out past the South
curve of the oval, was eliminated. The track was shortened to bring the
curve into the infield of the oval. The resulting new infield curve was
named Parabolica.
The high speed oval was very bumpy. That, combined with the high g-forces
imposed on cars by the 38-degree banking, caused a lot of suspension
failures. The oval was only used for a few short years and then it fell
into disrepair and was abandoned.
The combined 1955 circuit, road course and oval, measured 10km exactly.
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MONZA-76
In 1976 the Monza road circuit was revised with the addition of three
new chicanes. The Variante del Rettifilo was added on the start/finish
straight to slow the approach to the Curve Grande. A second chicane was
installed at Curve della Roggia to slow the approach to the Lesmo turns.
And a third chicane was incorporated at the left-hand Curve del Vialone
where Alberto Ascari was killed. The new chicane is named in his honour.
In its 1976 configuration, the road circuit measures 5.8km in length.
Note:
In order to fill the screen better in the RARS version of MONZA-55,
I moved the start line to the short straight between the two Lesmo turns.
In this version of MONZA-76, I purposely left the start line in its
proper place. At the start of real F1 races at MONZA, there almost
always is a big pile-up in the first chicane (Rettifilo). It presents
a very good collision-avoidance test for the RARS robots too!
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Subject: error in point standings
Date sent: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 09:30:39 -0400 (EDT)
There was a small error in the points for the Aug. 6 races. Nicole
and Jussi were tied for 2nd & 3rd place, and therefore should get
5 points each. After making that change Jussi's point total will be
30 points and Nicole's will be 12. I will send a new racerep.806 to
the ftp site.
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Subject: Track class - anybody out there?
Date sent: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 14:59:55 +0100
Hello everybody,
about two months ago I submitted a track class for review - but up to today
I didn't receive a single comment on it! Quite disappointing...
Anyways, perhaps this lack of interest arose from the fact that
nobody knew what it should be good for. So I will give a short list
of its advantages and ask the Architecture Review Committee in particular
(and anybody else in general, of course) to have a look at it and
tell me what you think about it. It is located in the Tracks directory
on the RARS server, in the file trkclass.zip.
What is the track class good for?
---------------------------------
The track class was developed in combination with the OS/2 port of
RARS. This port differs from the original DOS version in so far as
it is a multiple-track/multiple-driver/multiple-race version, i.e.
you can start the program, select track, drivers etc., start a race,
stop the race, change each of the parameters and start a new race
(and so on).
That implies two things:
1) It should be simple to get rid of the memory allocated for
the trackin and trackout pointers and to assign new memory
and read the new values when a new track is selected
2) It should be simple to get the new track data into the file scope
variables that exist in almost every file (e.g. the variables NSEG,
width, trackin and trackout).
That's what this track class does! (and even more)
For the whole program, there is just one instance of that class
(i.e. the current track) that contains all of the info. The data
can only be accessed by functions, so that there is no need for
these file scope variables any more (with regard to the security aspect).
Another advantage: about 5 to 10 variables are removed from the
(file or program) global scope and moved into that class.
The class also realizes the change that I already asked for some time
ago (and that was at least approved by Marcel Offermans):
It separates the track calculation from the track drawing -
in my opinion they are not related at all, and their combination
is even hindering for OS's with graphics additions
(that might do (re-)painting more often than calculations).
Well, I guess I've done enough of an adverti***t - tell me
what you think about it!
Nicole
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The rars-digest is compiled and published by (Dave `Gizmo' Gymer)
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