Mmm, nice showing the surface rubber as an extra layer on the tyre side view (getting thinner as you "wear down" the tyre)

Have to agree with danowat, the most useful/used tabs will surely be the suspension and damping ones, so until now it is more or less doomed to be a optimizing-shift-points-tool. Though these two tabs are probably the trickiest, which is the reason they're not finished yet, I reckon.

I have managed to start this only two times after download, too much other stuff I guess, but I just have not noticed anything worth mention yet, lol.

Ok, I don't know if you remember when I sent some pic and link to software some time ago, I think that it could be alternative presentation to torque plot graph as there is alternative presentation to speed plot graph?

I've still got that image saved, don't worry, not forgotten about it. There'll be quite a few things I can go back and add at a later date, I must get the core of the analysis finished. Once the new GUI was established I've spent ages re-organising code and setting everything up to use all the extra data available from LFS .bin outputs. Then I've updated each section, one at a time. The only truely new section since GRC is the decelleration, but everything is done in much more detail now and hopefully with more accuracy too.

Also don't under-rate the usefullness of the aero tab for setting up wing angles, I use it frequently when I'm driving on a combo for the first time. On the whole I know what you mean, it is suspension I adjust the most, and it made sense to do it last the way I'm working through things.

After that I'm still planning quite a few large seperate features:
* Custom tyres designer, where you can add extra tyre types
* Custom wings designers, where you can add extra wing types
* Auto-loading of vehicles, tyres and wings
* Large, resizeable graph display which will display any one of the graphs in the program and update in real-time. The real time nature is of most benefit to high resolution and multi-monitors users but I know this is a long requested feature.
* Real time 'replays' of acceleration (and braking) with play stop, pause, rewing, fast foward, etc. Will be played through a separate form, showing the vehicle pitching, springs and tyres compressing, etc. Should be very cool to watch and will probably take longer to create the GUI for it than to code up, thanks to the way everything is stored in one big-ass array.
* Something similar to above (although less detailed) that will be truely live with LFS by using OutSim.

The first three are obviously concerned with the real life aspects of the program. These will also come in handy when 'porting' for other race sims.

Oh yes and you have to fill those empty tabs at some point

I have download this program and I don't know how to use
Can I tweak cars?

How I can export my sets in the game life for speed to use it?

Sorry for my bad english

It can read and write LFS .set files fine, just browse to your LFS folder from the "File, Open" menu.

You might have got the wrong end of the stick about what this program does though, it will not edit the stats of the LFS cars, only the setups. It won't let you adjust anything that LFS does not already let you do. What it does do, is tell you A LOT of information about how those settings will affect the performance and handling of the vehicle. It's a tool for setup makers.

Hope that clears it up.

Ive just found this and had to post.
Wow Bob wow. When I win the lottery youve got a very well paid job for life helping me set up my cars
Thats seriously impressive, if only I knew how to use it!
I know your still developing it, but even a basic manual would be useful.
Just to help people like me who want to get involved, but dont have the time or knowledge to just sit and fiddle.
Great work, you are a leg-end

Still quite a bit of work before suspension is done and I'm ready to let you all have a play, but to build up some suspense (, yeah right) I thought a teaser pic would be in order.

No doubt there'll be some GUI changes so it won't necessarily look that cluttered, need to find some extra room for it all.

Great job Bob, I know I, and I'm sure everyone on the forums, greatly appreciate your work. Can't wait for the suspension!

- I just got a book, Competition Car Suspension by Allan Staniforth. Lots of complicated things, explained very simply, its not as mathmatical as most of the good chassis or suspension books I've seen. He also does a great job of explaining the history of racing suspension. Just thought you might find it interesting.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Still quite a bit of work before suspension is done and I'm ready to let you all have a play, but to build up some suspense (, yeah right) I thought a teaser pic would be in order.

No doubt there'll be some GUI changes so it won't necessarily look that cluttered, need to find some extra room for it all.

now THATS what I am talking about

Well it's gone 3am and I'm still up, which usually means I'm up to something.

So here, have another test version. - link removed, please see first post

Springs analysis is now complete, although I haven't touched dampers (yet), so suspension as a whole is not.

Also included is a vehicle template for the DP1 with a set, I've guessed values that I've not been able to find but since we don't have a DP1 to go simracing in, it's only for interest anyway.

Right, bedtime.

zzzz

Great job Bob! First one to try this new beta, and still surprised of the progress. This tool is a must for precise adjustments of any kind (drift, race, rally-cross, wrecking?). I really get what I want and what I need from my setups with your tools. Greetz

Thanks. Glad to know people are really finding it useful.

Gonna start on the manual today but I doubt it will be complete enough to release for a week or two. To give you an idea of development rate, I started work on springs on Wednesday night, so only took a couple of full days. I spend most of my time working on the documentation atm.

Yep! Great work as always!

Is going to be a very useful tool.

Little bug: lateral acceleration unit is fixed at (m/s^2) and doesn't change if you change the setting in the preferences.

Ah yeah, thanks for pointing that out. For now, moving the slider again (after changing the units in options) will cause it to update.

Right, if anyone cares to download the Springs test version again, it has a few bug fixes and, thanks to Dennis, updated specs for the DP1.

Cheers Bob, I'll check out the latest version when I get a sec.

Don't let lack of response put you off, it has the potential to be a VERY good tool once it's complete, I appreciate it for sure, I still use your analyzer excel sheets a lot.

Roll angles and Pitch angles say 0 in XRG, but don't know if that is how it should be?

Passengers, where do I add passengers ? Next Tuesday's race I have again passenger as I was enough stupid to win race so need to check suspension a bit, last time it was rather quick tune up and car did not drove too well. Anyway passengers are important to have in when analyzing suspension as they add quite lot of weight

Roll and pitch angles depend upon loaded suspension heights, if you stick 2g of lateral acceleration on using the live settings, I'm sure you'll get plenty of roll unless your suspension is bottoming out when static.

No support for passengers at this stage, sorry.

Awww, no passengers Well, understandable

I always forgot to look those live settings :magnify:

But it seems that increasing rear spring stiffness now increases under steer, however I'm pretty sure that bar should go to other direction and over steer it is that should be increased, imo

You're just reading the graph wrong. When the red bar moves towards the right, where the "oversteer" text is, then the car oversteers more. You're probably thinking, since the red bar appears to be coming from the left, where it says understeer, that the red bar represents understeer, so when it gets larger, there is more understeer. Which is not how it works.

I was hoping colour coding would solve this issue, if you just focus on the colours, more red = bad = oversteer, more blue = safe = understeer.

This is why I'm writing the manual atm.

The over-/understeer bar was always pretty confusing in my opinion, but while I know how it works, the colours make it much harder to understand. The important part of the bar is the vertical "line" where red and blue meet. The position of this line tells us whether the car has a tendency to understeer (line is on the left) or oversteer (line is on the right).

Now by using red and blue you take away any attention from that line - you don't even recognize it as one. You just see a blue bar "labelled" oversteer and a corresponding red bar for understeer. Logically I'd now assume that a big blue bar means big oversteer, but it's actually the opposite.

Just swap places of texts and it will be all ok and simple to understand even for people stupid as me

Ok, there is not yet manual available, I thought you were working with one? LOL, just kidding

I post something more stupid findings when I find something, then you will get better manual and not so many stupid questions after writing it

Quote from AndroidXP :

The over-/understeer bar was always pretty confusing in my opinion, but while I know how it works, the colours make it much harder to understand. The important part of the bar is the vertical "line" where red and blue meet. The position of this line tells us whether the car has a tendency to understeer (line is on the left) or oversteer (line is on the right).

Now by using red and blue you take away any attention from that line - you don't even recognize it as one. You just see a blue bar "labelled" oversteer and a corresponding red bar for understeer. Logically I'd now assume that a big blue bar means big oversteer, but it's actually the opposite.

100 % agree, get rid of the filling colours and just make it a red vertical bar, that would show the tendency much easier and clearer than it is now...

Do you mean bar that would start from center and grow to direction or another?

That would be clear and good too, I think.



Something like that, would be logical and easy to get?

edit: Bloody forum ignoring spaces....