Guys

I am going to start competing in some local AutoX events. I'm thinking of being a bit cheeky. My plan is during the morning's walk of the course, I want to use my GPS phone to map the track. Then once I have this data i'd like to use it to quickly create an AutoX track in LFS. I will actually be taking a laptop and my G25 to the event so whilst other classes are competing, I will be able to sit in the car and practice the event

I've had a look at the file format... http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/File_Formats#LYT

How accurate is this? Has anyone developed an editor which writes out it's own LYT?

Any ideas are welcome...

There is a layout editer available and it would be very possible to make, I do believe though I haven't tried myself.

With that said, what is the data format of your GPS output? Maybe I'd be willing to write a converter if I have a feeling it would only take a day or two to do I would be all over it.

That said, I am going to look more closely at the format, where I have looked at it recently, I wanna see it more deeply for this idea. I will come back and edit or make another post.

Edit: It does look possible, however with the current version of LYT each object has different index values at each track. If this was only for the AutoCross arena it looks like that would remain fine, and I think it is a safe assumption that this would only be for the autocross arena since that is what you are planning. However, helping markers, that show which side of a cone to go on would likely need to be placed manually after the fact, but since you have the exact locations already this would just be visual touch and thus easy to to by hand.

I dunno the format of any GPS stuff but if you can plot it on a x,y coordinate thing then you could create a grid on top of the AU1.png in LYTe and map your stuff to a layout of some sort. The accuracy is decent but not perfect, but better than no grid and measuring maybe.

Still working on a 100% accurate version but not too much on that since it will be a while

Speaking of this I have just investigated and the latest Layout Format is 251 and not 247.

The Wiki article shows the version at 247 and the LFS programmer file format shows 250. I don't know what has changed, or when it has changed but that might pose a threat unless it is discovered.

I will ask Victor later today. I am interested too, because I am working on a layout php app.

Thanks, be sure to update me/this thread so I can help with this GPS thing, I'd like to play on some IRL autocross tracks. That and my AIRS project needs to know this as well!

The main problem is usually that the areas in LFS are too small to hold the layout, though you might get lucky if the shape fits or the layout is small enough to begin with.

How do you plan to record the GPS data? Walk once along the inner, then along the outer side of the track? Does it even have an inner and outer side, or is it just cones placed at some points?

So, I talked about it with Victor. He said, that the last change was the marshalls, which are already in v. 250 (according to lfs.net). So if there are any problems, we can just tell him about it.

Quote from AndroidXP :

The main problem is usually that the areas in LFS are too small to hold the layout, though you might get lucky if the shape fits or the layout is small enough to begin with.

How do you plan to record the GPS data? Walk once along the inner, then along the outer side of the track? Does it even have an inner and outer side, or is it just cones placed at some points?

The layout could be scaled to fit...

I would probably try to walk the centreline of the circuit and use a constant width, or walk two laps on the inside and outside edge.

Could be a nifty idea!

Awesome... the layout is going to be at the Oakland Arena and in the past it's looked like...

http://lubrify.com/autox/courses/monster_park2.jpg

I wonder if we could get a feature request in for S3 to double the size of the AutoX layout to help us get some real life courses recreated. I would seem fair if we had something akin to a large section of an airfield or a large parking lot like the Oakland Arena one.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I would probably try to walk the centreline of the circuit and use a constant width, or walk two laps on the inside and outside edge.

My friend is going with me, I was thinking of both having our iPhones and use a GPS tool that allows us to mark waypoints as we walk. This way we can both be on the inside and outside of the track and mark each cone we pass. I was hoping we can then translate this data exactly to the location of cones in LFS.

I'll get the data first and see how easily we can transpose into an LFS layout.

Here is a video for reference, the cones are well placed apart and they use some chalk or paint to outline the track.

http://vimeo.com/7510598

After looking at the picture I am pretty sure the Autocross Area in LFS is too small. That said, do you know the data format you phone(s) will give the GPS data? I need this information before I can try doing this, although as said I think the area might be too small.

Autocross is definitely too small, BL Carpark could work. I just checked what my tracks (PDA using odgps) are stored in, fortunately it's a nice XML format titled GPX. Reading those files is easy as pie, interpolating to the size of the area you want to apply the layout to shouldn't be to hard either.

Might give this a go later