Quote:
Originally Posted by speedworks
Wstar, pretty cool stuff. I'll admit, I am a little stupid on all of this stuff, but liked your videos. Hey, I race, and currently use a Gopro for my video, and nothing for data. Any recommendations - that can combine some of this stuff (and cheap)? I have both an Iphone and Android (wife) as options.
And here is something I have looked at, but not sure how it works, do I just download the app and use the phone as a camera?
Welcome to Harry?s GPS LapTimer |
I really couldn't tell you much about the iPhone options, I've only really explored this stuff on Android. To replicate what I'm doing w/ my android, it boils down to this, building up in layers here:
1) You get the app "aLapRecorder HD" from the Market on your phone. There's a free version that's limited in how many recordings it will save, and then you can buy the full-feature upgrade later if you want. Just by playing with the settings in this app, you'll figure out how to record track sessions on it with no other external devices. Just mount the phone to the windshield and hit Record and you're good to go, basically. It will interpolate from the phone's built-in GPS (low accuracy, updates once per second) for track position logging and raw speed data, and combine that with video. You can also replay your sessions inside the phone app later, and edit the track layout to add start/finish lines, section split markers, review your fastest/slowest laps/sections, etc. The replays also have overlaid gauges, etc on the phone, but it's not highly configurable.
2) If you want to add OBD-II data (currently, this is mainly for RPMs and for more-accurate speed updates (during hard braking/accel, GPS speed isn't quite as up-to-date as OBD-II-based speed)), you can buy basically any ELM327-compatible OBD-II-to-Bluetooth dongle. I like my PLX Kiwi. You do bluetooth pairing with the phone and the dongle, and then enable the devices in aLapRecorder's settings menu, and now you have this extra data in your replays.
3) If you want more accurate GPS, you buy a 5/10-Hz external bluetooth GPS unit. Again you pair it with the phone over bluetooth, and then configure aLapRecorder's settings to tell it to use the device for External GPS, and the improved accuracy is automatic for your new recordings.
Then, if you want to export data+video and lay it out on a big screen with virtual gauges, there are Export options in aLapRecorder. You could export a data-gauge blue screen, but it's slow to encode on the phone and very limited in its options, and then you still have to use video editing software PC-side to blend that with the camera video.
The route I prefer is I paid for a license to some cheap software called RaceRender 2. aLapRecorder can export all of the data into a single CSV file that imports into RaceRender 2 on your PC, and then you can lay out all of the gauges, synchronize with the raw video, and encode video (which is what generated my youtube videos linked above).
I ran down the basic costs when I first put this together over here:
wstar's Journal, but basically assuming you already have an Android phone and a Windows PC for free, the rest is under $200.
As far as the GoPro goes, it's just a better substitute for recording on the phone's camera. You can disable video recording in aLapRecorder, so that it just logs the GPS/OBD-II/G-force-based data, and then mix your GoPro video with the exported data in RaceRender. You don't have to worry about timing the record button on both either, RaceRender will let you adjust the timing in sync, if you have some event that makes it obvious (e.g. blip the throttle hard on the starting grid while both are running, and then time the engine rev sound from the video with the RPM needle blipping from the data).
You could also run both the GoPro and the camera's phone for two different data views (front/rear?), and RaceRender can lay out one video embedded in the other, etc.