So when it's really not that expensive to scan a track it's getting even more harder to understand the iPricing for me... (Or maybe their salesman is a former apple manager, at least that would explain the "i" aswell, which I thought apple had all rights on .... harhar)

Quote from Shotglass :

which means the hardware is within reach of an average blokes income and if the track owners allow it anyone could do it (eg eric)

These are the 2 things we don't know, how much the hardware costs, but having brought 3D scanners in recent years I have some idea that the hardware is reasonably expensive, and there are many different types of hardware, all offering differing levels of accuracy.

And track owners permission if something that you can never bank on, however, considering the devs didnt want to do a real life track when it was offered to them on a plate means I doubt we will see real life tracks in LFS in the near future.

Quote :

So when it's really not that expensive to scan a track it's getting even more harder to understand the iPricing for me...

Atleast, it does seem reasonable that the technology will become cheaper over time. In a few years maybe, scanned tracks might even end up standard for all sims. For now, it will be interesting to compare the Eastern Creek track with the iRacing ones when they become available- to get a better understanding about what can be done with a relatively small team and a limited budget. If the quality's comparable, then iRacing will seriously need to rethink their pricing, no doubts about it.

Seriously, I'd love to get involved as part of an LFS team that goes out and does this stuff. Albert Park is just done the road, and Philip Island's a bus ride away.

Quote from three_jump :

which I thought apple had all rights on .... harhar

someone should ask jobs about this... kaemmer seems to love spending time in court so why not give him some reason to phone his laywer

Quote from danowat :

These are the 2 things we don't know, how much the hardware costs

at any rate its apparently cheap enough to justify the expense as a hobby and certainly much more accurate than working from photos

Quote :

considering the devs didnt want to do a real life track when it was offered to them on a plate means I doubt we will see real life tracks in LFS in the near future.

so do i but being able to do most of the work and achieve a high standard of accuracy largely algorithmically thus cutting out most of the hard work of modeling a real track might change their mind

Quote :

cutting out most of the hard work of modeling a real track might change their mind

Yup.

How much does it cost a laser scanning device?

Maybe instead of spending $20 to try iRacing, we can all donate $20 towards a state of the art laser scanner for the LFS devs

hehe seriously, real tracks would be awsome Maybe some tracks from the various formula bmw series' around the world.

Quote from danowat :

These are the 2 things we don't know, how much the hardware costs, but having brought 3D scanners in recent years I have some idea that the hardware is reasonably expensive, and there are many different types of hardware, all offering differing levels of accuracy.

Going to chance my arm here... So long as none of the end-of-days, global apocalypse, economic meltdown prophecies come to pass. The next decade or two will belong to the talented amateur. Browse around and there are various 3d scanner projects made with what looks like the contents of the waste bin at Maplins, plus lots of open source software for dealing with pointclouds and other 3d info.

Expense is not going to be the problem. Maybe permission won't be either. Maybe its only a year or two away from the time when every circuit owner is going to be looking at the private plane flying overhead and wondering whether its packing a homemade, 200khz laser scanner...

Bring on the reproduction rights war.

It's the intensive man hours that bump the cost up, scanners are in the ££££'s, it's a case of more money = a better scanner for sure , then you have to have someone to operate them, then turn the point cloud into something that you can use to overlay your mesh over.

It's not just a case of scanning an area and the jobs done, point cloud data can be quite hit and miss, and in some cases require a lot of cleaning up.

The simplest thing to do is get hold of some SRTM mesh (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) where shuttle missions have collected worldwide data, in some cases, all the way down to 2mtr res, should be enough to get at least a half decent representation, I think the GT series used SRTM mesh for the Nurburgring.

In short, this laser scanned track business is a marketing thing IMO

Quote from danowat :

It's the intensive man hours that bump the cost up,

Which is why I speak of the talented amateur. If someone can put in those hours because they have the passion, the interest, and NOT pass on the cost of that labour to an equally interested and driven audience... Then how is any 'normally' structured company going to compete?

It's probably the way it will go, but I don't see many tracks letting tom, dick & harry loose of their track with a few £k's worth of scanning kit.

The data is there already, if you can get SRTM mesh for the area of the track to a greater enough res, it negates the need to go there in the first place.

Quote from danowat :

It's probably the way it will go, but I don't see many tracks letting tom, dick & harry loose of their track with a few £k's worth of scanning kit.

Most race circuits will be very happy to let a somebody scan their circuit for a non-commercial project, as was the case with Eastern Creek, it's free advertising for the track and it the result will be useful for a variety of PR uses.

Quote from ajp71 :

as was the case with Eastern Creek,

Yeah, as I understand it the track underwrote most of the cost - which was about fourteen/fifteen thousand pounds sterling.

Quote from nihil :

Yeah, as I understand it the track underwrote most of the cost - which was about fourteen/fifteen thousand pounds sterling.

Interesting where did you here this?

Quote from danowat :

The data is there already, if you can get SRTM mesh for the area of the track to a greater enough res, it negates the need to go there in the first place.

nonsense... 2m is not fine enough to represent a track which isnt much wider than 2 mesh steps

Quote from Shotglass :

nonsense... 2m is not fine enough to represent a track which isnt much wider than 2 mesh steps

It's a start

But it doesn't "negate the need to go there". You'll get much more detail by scanning it up close. I'm willing to bet it'll be much more accurate as well.

SRTM would not show you where the track ended and the grass started, though. It is very suitable for larger scale maps where exact precision is not required. For example at work we have used some 30m data to recreate a location in the states and then smoothed the data out to make it driveable. For a large scale map it works great but I don't see it as being suited for making a track. The general landscape that a track is built on though, could be done that way.

2m SRTM data would be great for the terrain, not good for the road. Although the mesh I ended up making in Eastern Creek is more spaced out, the point cloud data used to position the vertices is a lot more dense.

Quote from nihil :

Yeah, as I understand it the track underwrote most of the cost - which was about fourteen/fifteen thousand pounds sterling.

Wrong. I funded the entire project myself. Future projects will require financial backing as I cannot afford to continue doing this.

arent most of the expenses covered now that you have the equipment?

Quote from nihil :

Yeah, as I understand it the track underwrote most of the cost - which was about fourteen/fifteen thousand pounds sterling.

From what I've read at the post at RSC he's given an approximate cost that a laser scanned track might cost if done commercially with a less efficient scanning system and having to pay for the track. I think what he's saying about the track owners is that they reduced the cost by letting him scan the track for free, not that they gave him any money for doing so

Quote from ajp71 :

From what I've read at the post at RSC he's given an approximate cost that a laser scanned track might cost if done commercially with a less efficient scanning system and having to pay for the track. I think what he's saying about the track owners is that they reduced the cost by letting him scan the track for free, not that they gave him any money for doing so

The cost I mention is when a small track would be scanned and produced using a top-of-the-line scanner that produces even greater results. And you are correct, the only money I have received for this is a $20 donation of thanks.

The saving I make mostly through the use of my customised version of BTB which allows me to easily adjust the track mesh, edit terrain and make walls ... see here for an example ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpnMjD_v1yY

Quote from Piddy :

And you are correct, the only money I have received for this is a $20 donation of thanks.

Sorry for the misinformation - the grapevine working its seductive magic! Anyway, happy to say to you personally that you have my admiration for a job well done. I know very well how much it takes to get people spread around the web to co-operate (in theory it should be so easy!), so I'm not just smitten by the technical proof-of-concept, but the whole enterprise.

Quote from Whitmore :

I feel the opposite - that we've seen the peak of the amateur and the professionals will increasingly leave the amateurs well behind.

It would be interesting to know why you feel that. It might make conversation on the subject easier...

Quote from Whitmore :

I feel the opposite - that we've seen the peak of the amateur and the professionals will increasingly leave the amateurs well behind.

So by definition you are saying that ALL professional drivers are better than ALL amateur drivers? Sorry I disagree, that’s simply not true. There are many people out there that call themselves professionals and make a living off certain projects. But that alone does not make them efficient in their jobs.