Laser scanned tracks

rfactor can certainly handle laser scanned tracks with no problem, I'm amazed there is even any comparison between laser scanned and google/gps tracks to be honest as laser scanned track surfaces win hands down. Even though the accuracy of the iRacing tracks is often over exagerated they are still by far the most accurate representation of a race track available to us mere mortals (and I don't even like iRacing)
As for people donating, well I've probably had less than five donations in 5 years which didn't even total $100 (way less in fact) so I seriously doubt anyone would go to the expense of scanning a track just hoping people would donate, if the cost was reasonable I would pay for a track, but as someone already pointed out it would currently be too easy to share the track with others for free so that probably wouldn't be a good business plan for a track maker either.

 

iRacing's feel and look of the tracks are why I can't drive rFactor anymore, however I don't need the track to be 100% accurate but I do want it to feel like a race track and if rf2 can do that then great!

There is more to the feel of a track then just the track, there's also the car physics and tire modeling and a bunch more things that make for a great racing experience. Netkar pro has some great road feel also...

 

Have a look to wha Piddy says about Eastern Creek and you'll find the answer by yourself.

This project has been a "Proof of Concept" to test how laser scanning can be combined with Bob's Track Builder (BTB) to produce an accurate track. A relatively cheap laser scanner was used (in future an even more accurate one will be employed) to obtain a "Point Cloud" of data. My knowledge of surveying was non-existent as was my knowledge of laser scanners and considering that this has been brought to life in only two months of part-time work, the track's turned out rather well.

Also (but I'm not sure on this), I think I read that rF is not able to handle very detailed laser scanned tracks and this was an improvement requested to ISI for rF. As I said, I think I read this time and time ago, but not being a track modder myself I can't confirm this.

 

@lc, that was a sarcasm directed at that exact reason you made a point of
--

I finally remembered the name of this laser scanner I spoke of.
http://shop.david-vision-systems.de/product_info.php/language/en/info/p84_DAVID-Starter-Kit.html

I dunno if it's just the language barrier, but sometimes I feel as if your out to get everyone. It seems as though you want to prove everyone wrong and make it known that your always right. Are you trying to do that? or am I completely mistaken and are you a really thoughtful person just trying to help? I apologise if I got this wrong, but sometimes the language barrier can play tricks on you

Anyway, about building an accurate track,,,
It took my friend and I about 2 weeks to build the track for Infineon raceway. I used google earth to get the elevations started along with some telemetry data I found on the net, then I sent the track to my friend who has access to a laser scanned version of the track (the same thing as if I sent it to a person who has access to the real track), he drove that track, then drove mine and told me where I got things wrong, I made adjustments and sent him the new gmt's, we did that for a while till he could drive my track the same way as he drives the other track. We haven't done the prominent bumps as I had to stop the track to get this car finished. but when we get into the bumps we will do it the same way. But as it stands now, the elevations are very close to the real thing.

You might say that is awkward, but it's a lot simpler for me to do it that way than it would be for me to buy a plane ticket and fly to LA with my laser scanner to scan the track. Plus its a lot more fun doing it this way .


If you yourself have access to a laser scanned track, why don't you try this yourself,
Go to http://seamless.usgs.gov,
Get a dem of the track,
Convert it to geotif,
Use the displace modifier in 3dmax to generate the terrain.
Trace the track from google earth, do some more research and find other overheads, check different dates in google earth to make sure you have the right position of the track, get some telemetry data if you can.
Then build the track, once its built make some simple temp. terrain and export it to rf.
Go drive on your laser scanned version for a few laps, then jump straight onto your track with a similar type of car.
You will notice the bits that are wrong straight away. You will notice if a corner is in the wrong place or has the wrong camber, you will notice a crest that is too shallow or too steep.
Fix them one by one as you go, going back to your laser version before each time you drive your track.

But in the end, its the skill of the artist, you see people who paint photo realistic paintings, they didn't use a camera to scan the image and software to paint it, they just did it with their eye's and hands.

And please, before someone says this is a waste of time, stop for one moment and think about why we do this stuff in the first place. We don't do it to mass produce mods and tracks so we can release heaps and get brownie points for having the most mods and tracks released. We do it because we enjoy this hobby. We do it because we are passionate about 3d art. The satisfaction for a modeller comes when they are able to replicate something that is as close as possible to the original thing.

 

2-millimeter accuracy!? I think that's overkill. Any race track modeled to that much accuracy would not be able to fit on a computer. And it would choke out even the best graphics card instantly!

 

Looks like you are 'the artist' who enjoy creating tracks, doesn't matter if it is close or far to reality. I believe it may be enough for some part of community to enjoy such track. But you have to understand that another part wants to race tracks which is the same to real tracks in every detail. There are simracers who wants to simulate reality as much as it is possible technically. Not only in matter of car simulation. But also in matter of representation of virtual world. They don't want to drive another Spa which only looks like Spa.

 

OK, understood, but what I see that's illogical is what is involved for someone like me in Australia, making a laser scanned track in the USA. I'd either have to fly to USA or get someone else to do it. I would only be limited to tracks in my local area. I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars travelling around the country and the world just to laser scan a track to satisfy the hardcore. This is a hobby, not a profession.

The impression I get from what your saying is, there is no point of anyone building a track unless it's laser scanned, should all track builders just give up? Elwood, Com8, Scott, The Lonley, etc, should all just stop making tracks right now because if they aren't laser scanned they are no good. So in other words your saying that rFactor is completely useless because it is not like Iracing and you cant feel every little bump, so what's the point of even buying rFactor when you can get laser scanned tracks in Iracing.
This is why I am being defensive, what your asking for is not what rFactor is all about. I really think you have not considered the consequences of what your talking about.

As for every bump I would not bother with every bump, but I would bother with the notable ones, places where tarmac joins and such.

But in the end, yes there is a way to get rfactor to work with minute bumps with million's of polygons for the track. But I'm not sharing my idea's yet. I want to test them first. Anyone with track building knowledge will be able to see it straight away. So if you would like to go and laser scan a track for me, I would be happy to work with you.

 

Sorry for double post, but I want to point out the detail from google earth, this is not in all places but in some places it is very detailed. Weather or not this data is available from the places we get height data from I don't know, but it exists so there has to be a connection somewhere.
You need to google earth plugin for your browser to see this properly.
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?clie...3.84555701,151.24091981,17.92,52.842,81.925,0

 

Man Google Earth just makes the possibilities for rFactor 2 that much more exciting. My only regret is I waited too long to learn how to create tracks. Feel like I am missing out while I am learning lol.

 

Well, I disagree with the height accuracy of those things unless it's something with my detail setting, but for creating a flat track, it's pretty accurate. Adding the hills will have to be done manually. Here's how Infineon Raceway looks on google Earth.

From the races I've seen there, I can assume with reasonable accuracy that Infineon Raceway is not that rough. There is an extra hill after turn 2 that is not there in real life, and the turn looks highly banked. It is flat in real life.

As for only having tracks that are laser scanned, you might run into a problem with doing that on fictional tracks. And, not everyone can afford the equipment.

 

Want to have nearly realistic elevation data from Google Earth? Use a .gpx converter and 3D Route Builder. Works like a charm. Google Earth is a godsend. You can also use Altitude smoothing to get rid of the rough edges, and if you save a copy of the rough edges version you can model in your bumps even more accurately afterwards.

Yes Laser Scanning is the ultimate of ultimates for modeling, but for rFactor...the next best thing (at least in my eyes) has to be Google Earth.

 

Agreed!

 

Lol. Well I keep hearing from the iRacing community that still races in rFactor the difference in the tracks. I want it to stop, I want the same level of quality in rFactor tracks.

Laser scanning tracks is EXPENSIVE, that's why I suggested that they be made available for purchase.

 

I'm with you 100% mianiak. You didn't mention the problem recreating ghost tracks. I'll get Iracing when they can supply me a laser scanned Meadowdale, Continental Divide or Green Valley. It's pointless arguing with fanboys.

 

Lol, I almost forgot about this thread, but that's a good point Nick in the Irating v rFactor saga. I had thought of this earlier but it slipped my mind. Yes you have super leet laser scanned tracks with little bumps all over them in Iracing, but you cant make your own tracks and mods, you are just stuck with what they give you. (er,, I mean, 'Sell you' )
With rFactor, not only can you make your own content but non modders have access to a 'large' range of free content, it's almost endless.

So,, I think it boils down to a case of 'be thankful for what rFactor offers'. In this world of ever growing corporate strangles, I am grateful for rFactor being open the way it is.

If I ever get the chance of getting my hands on laser data, I will happily use it to build an rFactor track or add it to an existing rFactor track and I would no doubt say that any other track builder would do the same thing and I really don't think there will be any charge for it either. It would remain as free content.

Now, instead of people arguing for the sake of arguing and posting for the sake of posting, how about get that energy and use it to try and track down laser data of your fav tracks. In some cases this data already exists.

 

This is a very interesting thread. I've spent much of the last 2.5 years as an iRacing member, and although the overall service annoys me a lot because of its restrictive nature, there is no doubt that the tracks (and most of the vehicles) are superb and probably worth the money they charge, even with the ongoing membership costs. I'm just tired of iWaiting instead of iRacing, which is why I hope rF2 will soon fill the gap left by my lapsing membership. (If it doesn't, then Oleg and Cliffs of Dover will have to do instead! :->)

Anyway, unless you are trying to provide a real training tool for real drivers on real tracks (which was always going to be a tiny minority of the iRacing membership), and can re-scan every time a change is made to the real track, how much accuracy do you need? Does laser scanning -- to the iRacing level of detail -- add anything to the average deskbound sim driver?

I think not, though I admire iRacing's ambitious intentions. To me much of that additional expense and effort is wasted when I compare their tracks to the better tracks for sims like NKPro. All that matters is that a track surface feels realistic, not real. Not smooth as silk, or as rough as a dirt road after a bad winter, just believable. I'll take randomised "lumpiness" as long as it's the same track surface for all of us racing on it, and that the randomisation bears some resemblance to how real world tracks behave.

While I'm at it, on the subject of paying for tracks... I suspect the ongoing success and popularity of the Steam sales have hammered home the fact that if you make anything cheap enough, people will buy rather than pirate it. Heck, I've bought games I'll probably never play just because I was tempted. And in the same way if a decent scheme for micropayments can be made for tracks and mods I think it could work much better for sims. It's hard to justify paying a significant amount for a track you might only drive a few times a year. But if you could easily contribute something silly like 25c as a token of appreciation, I think a lot of modders could do surprisingly well. Not well enough to live off, but well enough to feel appreciated by the community.

However Paypal fees etc. make that kind of thing very difficult. In an ideal world we'd all have a kind of sim racing bank account. You could charge it up with $10 at a time (with a small fee to cover admin), and then transfer payments to other members at no extra cost. Then we'd all be much more likely to actually thank people for their efforts in a meaningful way.

Of course it would be even more depressing for those who got very little recognition. But the world is a cruel place, and some things never change.

A final world on the subject of tracks. At risk of getting burned at the stake, my favourite sim racing experience at the moment is GT5's Nordschleife. Many aspects of that game annoy me, but some things are done very well indeed and lift it into sim territory very easily. I believe their 'Ring is modelled using reverse-engineered car data, and it works very, very well for me. I really don't care whether it's 100% accurate, all I care about is the way it makes me grin.

That's what matters. And while modders will rarely have access to that kind of data (and the paid time to work with it) as long as they concentrate on makes us smile with satisfaction, that's all that matters.

Good luck and thank you to everyone out there who tries to make us smile.

Andrew McP

PS Something mentioned in one of posts above reminds me that any track modelled by iRacing is probably a very useful source of data. You might not be able to see the micro-bumps they model, but you can certainly see and feel the track in a lot of detail, and use it as a research tool. I suppose if someone was really clever they could even pick a camera view in iRacing (say one of the fixed suspension views) and work out a way of reverse engineering track data from it.

Whether iRacing would approve of that is a different matter.

 

As a PC simracer I was very sceptical about GT. After having tried GT5 I must say that their Nordschleife is by miles the best I've ever seen or tried, and the experience with some of the GT5 cars (mostly mid-range road cars) is fantastic, at least in terms of hot lapping.

 

+1

 

Agreed.