SEAT - rFactor 2 log analyser based on MATLAB

[Vitaly]

Strategy Engineer Assistance Tool (SEAT) for rFactor 2 is designed to efficiently summarize and visualize data provided in XML logs. Initially I made it for my own use to cover some functionality I needed that was missing in the existing log analyzers, but eventually I developed a standalone application that everyone can use.

Main distinctive features are many graphing tools as well as backend and frontend analytics. For example, this app can repair deleted lap times, detect traffic, overtakes, calculate pit window, etc.

Installation:

• Download archive with installation files (attached below or alternative link).
• Install .exe file from the archive as any other software.
• MATLAB Runtime version 24.1 or later is required to run the software. SEAT installer will automatically check if MATLAB Runtime is installed on the PC and, if needed, will download the most recent version and install it with the software.
• After you launch SEAT, use “File -> Load XML log” to load logs. Your local rFactor 2 XML logs are located in \rFactor 2\UserData\Log\Results folder.

Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 must be installed on PC to launch the installer itself. These components should be on most PCs by default, but if you get an error about missing DLL, install C++ runtime library from Microsoft website.

Features:

Database:
Multiple session log manager

• Store as many session logs as you need in a single database
• Quickly load any session log into program in one click
• Summary statistics for all session logs in the database on one page

Reports:
Session summary:

• Total race / session time, gaps to the leader, total number of laps
• Fastest laps, laps completed, number of pit stops for every driver
• Session classification overall and for every class
  
• Position changes relative to starting positions

Drivers:

• Fastest laps, theoretical best times, best sector times for every driver
• Average pace and consistency
• Average tyre wear and average fuel consumption for every driver

Stints:

• Summary statistics for every stint completed by every driver in the session. The data includes:
  • first and last lap (LS/LE)
  • length of a stint in laps and seconds
  • average pace (excluding pit in/out laps and outliers) and consistency (RSD)
    
  • tyre compound and average wear for every wheel (TWA, TWFL, TWFR, TWRL, TWRR)
  • average fuel consumption and fuel load
  • fastest lap, theoretical best and fastest sector times

Timecards:

• Detailed data for every driver and completed lap, including: lap number, track position, notes (traffic, pit entry / exit, etc.), lap time, sector times, session time, gap to leader, gap ahead, gap behind, tyre compound, tyre wear for every wheel, fuel consumption.

Pit stop analysis:

• Tyre compound in and tyre compound out of the pits
• Fuel added (estimation)
• Time lost in pit stop (2 estimations using lap times (LT) and sector times (ST))

All reports can be saved as .csv files for further analysis.

Graphs:

• Gaps on track to race leader or any car in the session (race session only).
• Lap times, with or without outliers.
• Sector times (S1/S2/S3).
• Positions on track.
• Race pace analysis.
• Remaining fuel.
• Tyre remaining for all wheels.
• Estimated pit stop lengths in seconds for selected cars and median pit stop time for relevant classes (race session only).

For most graphs, traffic, tyre compounds, fuel remaining, fuel added, overtakes and driver names markers can be plotted as overlays to the main graph.

Known bugs and limitations:

• Only rFactor 2 XML logs for the Race, Warmup, Qualifying, Practice and Test Day sessions are supported.
• Some functionally will be disabled for logs with incomplete data (fuel, tyre wear, etc.). Only server XML logs has data on fuel and tyre wear (rFactor 2 limitation).
• Gaps graph, traffic and overtake detection will be disabled for local logs recorded not from the start of the session.
• Very long laps (for example, Nurburgring-Nordschleife) may cause incorrect detection of traffic and overtakes.
• Functions that check track position, race time and lap time may provide unexpected results when active driver disconnects during a race session, then reconnects and continues driving.
• Legend can display only up to 50 drivers. There are no limits on plotting, but 51st and other drivers will not be displayed in the legend.

If you encounter a bug, send related XML log file with a short description here or to my discord Vitaly#8394.

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.59

New features
SEAT now recognizes driver swaps:

• In the "Graphs" tab the main table now contains all drivers that participated in the race. When a driver is selected, only the data associated with this driver will be plotted. If you need to plot data for the entire team, select all drivers from this team.
• "Drivers" report now provides summary statistics for every driver that completed at least 1 lap in the race. For example, for a team with 3 drivers you get the data for all 3 drivers separated instead of summary statistics for the entire team.
• "Timecards" and "Pitstops" reports now correctly display drivers that were active at a specific lap or a pit entry point.

As a side effect, for races with driver swaps all graphs are converted from line plots to scatter plots, because otherwise line plot automatically connects the last lap of one stint with the first lap of another stint for a specified driver. There are a couple of possible workarounds for this, possibly to be implemented later. Plotting for races with no driver swaps works the same as before.

Backend improvements

• Small performance improvement (2-5%, depending on the log) for XML loading process thanks to optimization of the code.
• Improved exception handling during the XML loading process to cover some rare errors.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug in log manipulation function that appeared when several drivers with the same name took part in a session or when driver(s) raced for multiple teams during a session.
• Fixed a bug in overtake detection logic. Overtakes for the lead in single-class races are now properly detected.
• "Remove outliers" option now correctly applies to plot with sector 2 times.
• Removed graph notes that were incorrectly displayed on the "Position" graph.

UI changes

• Added car numbers to "Session" and "Drivers" reports.
• Added the total number of completed laps for every driver in "Drivers" report.
• Some minor UI improvements to session and drivers summary reports.
• Allowed scrolling within the main app window. The UI was designed for 1920x1080 resolution and, as it turned out, it was unusable on smaller monitors.
• Statistics on traffic, overtakes and average tyre wear are removed from the "Drivers" report for the time being. Tyre wear will be moved to a separate report to provide meaningful data by compound instead of average for the entire race. Traffic and overtakes detection logic needs to be revised to work properly in multiclass races. For now, you can still access this data on graphs (Gaps and Tyre wear tabs as well as Graph notes -> Traffic, Graph notes -> Overtakes).

How to update
Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You won't need to download MATLAB Runtime again.

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.60

New features
New “Tyres” report:

• Report contains average wear rates for every driver and tyre compound, deltas to average wear rates for the same car class and compound, and estimated stint lengths. This report allows engineers to see if a car has issues with tyre wear relative to competition and whether these issues are vehicle, driver, compound or setup-specific.
• Columns with the key data:
  • Laps – total number of laps run on a specific tyre compound.
  • PB – personal best lap time on a specific tyre compound. Minimal PBs for every compound are marked green.
  • wAvg/wFL/wFR/wRL/wRR – average wear rates per lap (as percentage) for every wheel
  • ΔAvg/ΔFL/ΔFR/ΔRL/ΔRR – delta to average wear rates for the same class and tyre compound. Positive numbers mean that wear rates are higher than average (marked red), negative numbers mean that wear rates are lower than average (marked green)
  • Est stint – maximum estimated stint. Indicates how many laps a driver can run before the remaining tyre on a wheel with maximum wear reaches 0.
• The default sorting is “Class > Compound > Position” to provide chunks of comparable information, starting from the leaders. All columns in the table are sortable, but you will not be able to revert to default sorting once you change it, because in this GUI multi-sorting logic is possible only in the source code.
• You can export this report in .csv in “File -> Save reports as .csv -> Tyres” and use it in other software if needed.
• Depreciated statistics on tyre wear from “Graphs -> Tyre wear” are now removed from the program.

Updated “Drivers” report:

• Added average pace during “clean” laps (excluding safety car periods, pit in, pit out laps and driver errors).
• Added standard deviation for all “clean” laps as a measure of consistency in seconds relative to mean pace (lower number is better).

Backend improvements
Several improvements to the code that cleans up raw lap and sector times:

• Added algorithm to detect safety car deployment. Triggered than lap times increase above 120% of median lap times for a class.
• Detection of driver errors now correctly applies for all classes individually rather than for the whole grid. Triggered than lap times increase above 107% of median lap times for a class.
• Added algorithm to clean up negative or very small sector times in the original XML log, probably caused by major track cuts. These used to ruin descriptive statistics in the reports – but not anymore.
• Simplified the logic behind “Notes” column in “Timecards” report. Now only pit entry, pit exit and starting point of the race are reported. Other flags (traffic, overtakes, driver errors, safety cars, etc.) are saved as logical arrays and used by the program internally.

UI changes

• Several small improvements to the pit stop report:
  • Most of the junk entries (like pit stops to retire) are automatically removed.
  • Default sorting changed to “Class > Pit in lap” to provide better picture for multiclass races.
• All columns in “Session”, “Drivers”, “Tyres” and “Pistops” are now sortable. “Timecards”, as a large reference table useful only for export of raw data, remains not sortable.
• Added class position column to “Session” report.
• Several minor UI improvements.

How to update
Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You won't need to download MATLAB Runtime again.

 

[Emanuele Dellera]

mmmm file doesnìt open,,,,,

 

[Vitaly]

mmmm file doesnìt open,,,,,

Send me the XML log, I'll take a look

 

[Emanuele Dellera]

here the insert with error message. Thank you

 

[Vitaly]

This is an issue on your PC, not related to the program. Can be caused by insufficient permissions for your local account, strict antivirus rules, etc.

 

[Emanuele Dellera]

ok thank you I will try to solve the issue on my pc. bye

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.62

New features
Manage multiple logs within SEAT:

• SEAT can now manage as many session logs at the same time as you need.
• To add a new session log, load XML file (“File -> Load XML log”) and it will appear in the table under the “Databases” tab with information about the session and some summary statistics (see image attached below). After that you won’t need the XML file anymore, data is converted into a format convenient for MATLAB and saved locally.
• To load a session from the “Databases” tab, tick a box in the table next to the session you want to load. Then you can go to “Reports” or “Graphs” tabs and work with data from this session as before.

Backend improvements

• Changed several areas of the code base to make them suitable for the management of multiple logs within the program.
• Updated backend from MATLAB Runtime 9.10 to MATLAB Runtime 9.12 with significant performance improvements in key callbacks and functions.

How to update
Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You will need to update MATLAB Runtime to version 9.12. SEAT installer will handle it for you.

Side notes about this release:
If you used SEAT before, you probably noticed slow loading times of XMLs for endurance races and that it could handle only one session log at a time. Fixing this was time consuming because of some issues with the initial design – for example, functionality for managing multiple logs was never intended.

In the new version, even though not much has changed in the UI, you’ll notice big improvements in performance. Here are the benchmarks for loading session log with 9000 laps total on my PC:

• SEAT v0.60, from XML: approx. 90 seconds
• SEAT v0.62, from XML: approx. 20 seconds
• SEAT v0.62, from “Databases” tab: less than 10 seconds

Related functionality is very limited for now, but once I’m sure that everything works properly, new features will be easy to add.

While the program is in beta, internal databases will not be compatible between versions.

 

[Capeta]

Hey,

Thanks for your work.

Do you think there is a way to implement an easy stint average pace calculation ?
Be it practice or race ?

About the incomplete LOGs and the lack of fuel/tires data, I understand that we can't see what others people do online but it's a shame that we can't analyze our own usage because the program can't get others datas.

I practice mostly online and I haven't been able to get datas for fuel/tires with SEAT until now.

 

[Vitaly]

Do you think there is a way to implement an easy stint average pace calculation ?
Be it practice or race ?

Yes, this feature is on my list. Actually, internally the program already knows how to recognise stints, but for now this data is used only to plot tyre deg.

About the incomplete LOGs and the lack of fuel/tires data, I understand that we can't see what others people do online but it's a shame that we can't analyze our own usage because the program can't get others datas.

I practice mostly online and I haven't been able to get datas for fuel/tires with SEAT until now.

If you get a warning about missing fuel and tyre wear data, it means that the log contains no data whatsoever about these parameters, including your car. This usually happens when your server is not set up to log these parameters. If you can, send me one of your XML logs (in PM or Discord), and I'll check that it's really the case and not a bug.

 

[TheSecret1]

I keep getting an error advising unrecognised field name 'Lap'

I have tried it on multiple xml files.

 

[Vitaly]

I keep getting an error advising unrecognised field name 'Lap'

Strange. The log you attached works for me both on deployed and dev versions of the program.

This error means: the program loaded XML log successfully, started preparing data and then encountered unexpected data structure within the log. However, your log looks perfectly fine and the program should expect to see the field name "Lap" inside.

Try to load the log I attached below (WC22_R10_R) and let me know if you still get this error.

 

[TheSecret1]

Very strange. Could it be something to do with Practice files v's Race files?

I tried opening a race file and it worked, like yours did.
Then I tried opening the file I shared with you and now got this error message.

Having said that, I tried a few practice files and some opened and some didn't.
Either way, I have it working occassionally now.

 

[Vitaly]

Could it be something to do with Practice files v's Race files?

Probably not, because function that returned the error about unrecognized field name is the same for all sessions. Race sessions do have more data in logs than other sessions, but this additional data is handled by a different function that is called for race sessions only.

Then I tried opening the file I shared with you and now got this error message.

This is not an error, the program just warns you that this log has no data on fuel and tyre wear (and indeed, it has not), so functionality will be limited. But overall, the log was loaded successfully and you can work with it as normal.

My hypothesis about this inconsistent behavior is that your PC doesn't have enough RAM/CPU to handle SEAT plus whatever programs are running in the background. MATLAB is notoriously hungry for RAM and CPU when you ask it to do some heavy computational work, and it tends to throw random errors when it doesn't get enough resources. Maybe check Windows task manager and see if SEAT + MATLAB 2022a processes take up too much RAM/CPU while loading XML log.

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.63

New features

• Users can now edit graphs. “File -> Open graphs editor” creates a separate window with a copy of an active graph in MATLAB graphs editor. Note that graphs in SEAT and MATLAB graphs editor are 2 separate objects: changing properties of one graph does not affect the other.

Backend improvements

• On user callback SEAT will now only plot on the active tab, instead of updating all of them at once. This comes with approx. 6x performance improvement per callback.
• Many minor improvements to the readability and performance of the code in the “Graphs” section.

UI changes

• “Auto-update graphs” switch and “Update manually” button are removed as redundant after performance upgrade for the “Graphs” section.
• “Drivers” table in the “Graphs” section now properly fits in the UI regardless of the data.
• Summary statistics previously distributed over various tabs in the “Graphs” section are now available under the “Drivers” table regardless of the selected tab.
• Some of the statistics fields, duplicated in the “Reports” section, were removed from the “Graphs” section.
• Editable fields in the “Graphs” section (fuel tank capacity and fuel correction for lap times) are now highlighted with green color.
• Plotting area is now approx. 30% larger thanks to the UI improvements in the “Graphs” section.
• Options to plot laps as average km/h or mph were removed to simplify backend and improve performance. Now laps will always be plotted in seconds. Other related options remained unchanged.
• Removed a warning about missing linked databases that always appeared on the first launch of the program.

How to update
Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You will need to update MATLAB Runtime to the latest version. SEAT installer will handle it for you.

Notes
Another tedious backend update focused on upgrading legacy code in the oldest section of the program (“Graphs”). For a user the main change is the fix to old performance bottleneck related to plotting large datasets. Here are some benchmarks for plotting 10000 data points:

• SEAT v0.61 (July): approx. 25 seconds
• SEAT v0.62 (August): approx. 18 seconds
• SEAT v0.63 (September): approx. 3 seconds

I also enabled access to MATLAB graphs editor (it’s included in the Runtime anyway). Unfortunately, MATLAB editor for standalone apps is very limited, you can only save or copy graph in various formats, enable/disable legend, zoom in/out and brush data points.

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.64

New features
Multiclass races:

• Added calculation of position in class and gap to class leader for every lap and car class.
• “Gaps” and “Positions” are now plotted against selected class by default (i.e., gaps to class leader and position in class). SEAT will no longer make meaningless comparisons between a GT3 car and LMP2 race leader. You can turn it off by changing “Graphs – Gaps and positions – Plot for car class” setting, and SEAT will compare selected car against overall race leader, regardless of the car class. Note that even if the only difference between car classes is the name due to some oddities in the specific mod, SEAT will consider them as different classes and you will need to turn off “Plot for car class” setting.
• In multiclass races, SEAT will now plot entire team instead of individual drivers. To display individual drivers, go to “Graphs – Notes – Drivers”. This also solves an old issue which caused inconsistency between scatter plots for multiclass races and line plots for single class races.

Log management:

• Added callback to delete logs in the database (“Database – Delete selected logs” menu). This deletes only logs that were converted to MAT format, XML logs in the rFactor 2 folder are always used as-is. If active session is deleted, it remains loaded in the app memory and is available in the “Reports” and “Graphs” tabs until another session is selected or the program is closed.
• Added option to disable loading logs on selection (“Database – Load on selection”). This is useful when you need to delete multiple logs at once. Turning this option back on does not automatically update the session that is currently loaded in the app memory.

Backend improvements

• SEAT now saves and loads one requested MAT log at a time, instead of keeping everything in one large database. This makes the process much faster, especially for users who converted many large XML logs to MAT format.
• When SEAT encounters an error while loading MAT log, it now returns specific error message instead of a general exception.
• Added separation between “Stint” (set on pit entry and used in pace analysis) and “Tyre stint” (set when tyres are changed and used for tyre deg curves), so SEAT no longer gets confused when a driver is double-stinting the tyres. Drive-through penalties are considered as a new "Stint" (but not new "Tyre stint"). Note that if your log contains no data on fuel and tyre wear, and you always returned to pits with Escape, when SEAT has no way to know how to separate stints for a driver and it will consider all of your lap times as 1 stint.

UI changes

• “Confirm exit” popup window is removed as redundant after the addition of log management and performance updates in recent versions.
• “Missing fuel and tyre wear” warning is removed. Now this information is always available in the last column of the table in the “Databases” tab (“F/W log” – fuel and wear logged).
• Menu items were reorganized and slightly renamed to be more intuitive for users.
• Number of laps on one set of tyres (“Tyre laps”), position in class and gap to class leader are added to “Timecards” report. Position in class and gap to class leader are available only for race sessions.
• Options to plot lap and sector times against race leader and fastest lap are removed as being incompatible with the new code for plotting multiclass races.
• When you try to load an XML log that is already in the SEAT database, SEAT will detect this to avoid saving duplicated data, then select and load the log from the database instead of throwing an error and forcing you to do it yourself. Now you will only get a warning about a duplicated log.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a rare bug caused by the incorrect handling of UI process dialog during XML/MAT log loading process.

How to update

• Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You won't need to download MATLAB Runtime again.

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.68

New features

• New stint analysis report. This report provides summary statistics for every stint completed by every driver in the session. The data includes tyre compound, number of laps, stint time, average pace (excluding pit in/out laps and outliers), consistency, average fuel consumption, fastest lap, theoretical best and fastest sector times.
• New pit stops plot. This plot (available at “Graphs – Pits”) visualizes estimated pit stop lengths in seconds for selected cars and provides a reference line for median pit stop time for relevant classes. It can be used in addition to more detailed pit stops report (“Report – Pit stops”) to quickly see how pit stop times for selected cars compare to others.

Backend improvements

• Changed several areas of the code base related to internal data management and plotting tools for consistency with other programs I work on.

UI changes

• “Consistency” of drivers is now calculated as relative standard deviation (RSD) of lap times instead of simple standard deviation for compatibility between different car classes.
  • RSD is calculated as the standard deviation of lap times divided by the average race pace (excluding outliers). RSD can be interpreted as the average variation of lap times in percentage from the mean race pace. Lower number is better.
• Added grid layout to UI. Positions of similar UI elements on different tabs and alignment of elements on one tab are now pixel-perfect.
• Added plot grids to all axes in the “Graphs” tab for better readability.
• All graphs that use the number of laps for X-axis are now automatically scaled to the maximum number of laps in the session.
• “Timecards” report (raw live timing data from the log in a matrix format) is removed from the UI for performance optimization. Users can still access this data in .csv by going to “Reports – Timecards”.
• Removed all manipulations with the UI associated with session types for performance optimization. Now SEAT will not update graphs of reports if there is no underlying data (for example, gap to race leader in practice session) instead of hiding these UI elements from a user.

Bug fixes

• Fixed several bugs related to stint detection logic.
• Fixed a bug related to estimation of fuel consumption for qualifying, warmup, test day and practice sessions.
• Fuel consumption parameters in the “Graphs” tab are now updated when the new log is loaded.

How to update

• Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You won't need to download MATLAB Runtime again.

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.69

New features

• New race pace visualization. Displays box plot with average pace of selected drivers (or drivers in selected teams for endurance races). Drivers are automatically sorted from the fastest to the slowest.

UI changes

• Total time driven for every driver is now displayed in the “Drivers” report.
• Simplified the view of tyre deg report (“Reports – Tyres”).
• Timecards report in CSV now automatically excludes all laps with no valid time set for all session types other than “Race”.
• Session date/time is now displayed under the “Reports” tab.
• Other minor UI improvements.

Bug fixes

• Fixed several bugs related to formatting of tables under “Reports” tab.
• Fixed a bug related to estimation of tyre wear rates in the “Tyres” report.

How to update

• Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You won't need to download MATLAB Runtime again.

 

[Vitaly]

Updated to v0.72

New features

• Users can now load multiple XML logs at once. Final log in the queue is loaded in the main interface, the rest transformed to MAT format and added to the “Database” tab. As in the previous versions, the program checks for duplicated logs and skips them automatically. If the process encountered errors with any of the logs, a small window pops up with a summary of how many logs were processed in total and how many of them generated errors.
• Users can now plot gaps on track against any car on grid (called “Reference car”), not just class or race leader. By default, this option is set to “Class leader” and behaves the same as it did in the previous versions.
• “Timecards” report now includes more data (tyre wear for every wheel, average wear, fuel consumption, rear tyre compound, etc.). “Note” column is now logical instead of string and all variable names have no spaces to simplify integration with other software.

Backend improvements

• Updated backend to MATLAB Runtime 9.14, which comes with a faster startup time.

UI changes

• Times for all sectors and wear for all wheels were moved under one tab.
• Legend was moved inside the plotting grid to save space.
• Plotting options (previously under “Graphs” menu) were moved to the left of all graphs to be accessible in 1 click instead of 3.
• Session summary was moved under the “Reports” tab to utilize unused space there.
• Some rarely used options and data fields were removed to simplify UI and the code base (for example, positions are now always plotted for car class, tyre wear is displayed only as tyre remaining percentage, etc.).
• Behavior of plotting options was made more consistent, most of them now apply only to “Gaps” and “Laps” graphs. The exceptions are “Reference car”, which applies only to “Gaps”, and “Replace outliers”, which applies to “Laps” and “Sectors”.
• Y-axis on tyre wear graphs was properly scaled from 0 to 1 for readability.
• Fastest lap, theoretical best and sector times in the summary panel were properly formatted (72.345 -> 1:12.345).
• Some fields in the Reports -> Session are no longer editable.

How to update

• Uninstall existing version and install the new one. You will need to update MATLAB Runtime to 9.14, the installer will handle it for you.