Hi Raz,
I would like to congratulate you on your project! after reading it through it seems you have covered absolutley everything that might be wanted by everyone

Its good that you wish to share it with everyone and I wish you good luck!

If you added the mouse left click and scroll wheel click as a 2 lane interface option (as per PCSlotMouse) then I would like to try it out too

Cheers!
Richard

 

Hi!
Great idea. How about support for Carrera D132 system?
Thanks, FP

 

Great post...a bit on the long side, but well done..do you have a website for the package?

Do you plan spot support the DS products, such as DS300?

 

Sounds like a very interesting and ambitious project!

I shall watch with interest.

 

QUOTE (-Sy- @ 16 Oct 2012, 18:16) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>..do you have a website for the package?
There will be a web site at www.razmanager.com, but it will take a while before that is up & running. I'm not finished with the program yet, and that will take a while too, so there's nothing to be downloaded right now.

It's hard for me to predict how much interest others have, or will have, in RazManager. But I don't expect that much, really, as there are a lot of good alternatives available that people are already satisfied with. Also, I don't have that much to show yet. One reason for presenting all this at this early stage is of course to get some feedback, so I can do some early design changes. Another reason is to slowly build up some interest among other developers that might not have the time or commitment to build a full RMS, but that might want to write some parts of it. One thing I hope that others will contribute with is writing track interface plug-ins for products I don't have myself.

QUOTE (FacPrime @ 16 Oct 2012, 17:57) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>How about support for Carrera D132 system?
This is a case where I don't have the system myself, so I cannot myself support it. I haven't looked at its protocol, but I would guess that its features are covered by the functionality in RazManager, so for someone with the right developer skills, it should be "fairly easy" to write a plug-in for it.

QUOTE (PCSlot @ 16 Oct 2012, 17:55) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>If you added the mouse left click and scroll wheel click as a 2 lane interface option (as per PCSlotMouse) then I would like to try it out too

That was a great program you have, I haven't seen that before! A rather simple and inexpensive interface method, together with a lightweight program. RazManager isn't exactly lightweight though, a part of it is a 1.3Gb download of SQL Server, so I'm not sure if the mouse method goes that well with what I'm doing. Maybe someone want to try to write a mouse plug-in as an exercise?

QUOTE (-Sy- @ 16 Oct 2012, 18:16) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Do you plan spot support the DS products, such as DS300?
I looked at these products some years ago, but instead used some home-made sensors for my own track connected to a parallel port. I took part in a competition, also some years ago, where they used DS stop&go-boxes and the large pinball board for displaying result and times. It seemed to be a fun, simple, and reliable system, so I guess it's popular on analog clubs. It's not used that much here in Sweden, though.

Initially, I hadn't planned to support these products, simply because I don't have them, but I may re-consider that. E.g, I could easily take the light bridge, and the other stuff, with me and use it on someone else's track that might not have any sensors, and quickly demonstrate my project.

Specifically, I might then support the DS200 Pro and the DS300 Pro. Is the current protocol specification? But I guess a requirement from myself to add DS support, and buy all this stuff, is to also add support for DS-0045, the DS-INTERFACE box. It has a different protocol though, and it's two-way. I haven't found this protocol, anyone who can help me with that?

 

Hi, the DS protocol specification you have is correct and current. You say the project is in Visual Studio, did you say what language, is it C++ or VB.NET ?

I could send you some code to decode the DS protocol, quite straight forward, then you could cut it to suit.

[Edit] Just checked C#....

 

This sounds ambitious, but well thought out. I like the idea of having a dedicated database server (MySQL might be a less burdensome choice), as this opens up all manner of possibilities, especially in the form of reporting tools, particularly for things like club websites. I'm planning to go digital next year, and will need some form of RMS, so I'll add this to the list of ones I'm keeping an eye on.

One thing to keep in mind is that lots of computers used for RMSing tend to be older, less powerful machines no longer suited to other daily tasks. I wonder if the full on graphical experience of this free RMS might be too expensive in terms of hardware for many potential users. Do you plan to include a Lite form of the interface so that the full functionality of the RMS part can be enjoyed without over stressing lower specification hardware ?

I haven't done any programming in nearly 20yrs (I'm a network admin), but I often wonder why nobody has yet put together an incredible Linux based RMS. I would have thought many of the features inherent to *nix would lend themselves well to such a task. Things like lower hardware requirements, choice of lightweight desktops, remote screens, efficient multi-tasking etc. Also, not having to worry about Microsoft licensing when pressing reclaimed hardware back into service.

My apologies, I'm starting to drift off topic. I assume you are using this project as an aid to learning more about Microsoft's current programming tools. I am very interested to see how this project develops, and I wish you luck with it.

 

Linux offers many simplications in terms of interfacing with the hardware over Windows, and the timing resolution is much more accurate in Linux. The only problem I can see is which flavour? There are numerous Linux shells around, not all of them are the same.

I still like the idea of the way DS kit works, off load all the timing and accuracy into a black box then let the PC process the results, this could then be a web-based application written in Javascript with a CGI or servlet to get the data from the device into the web-application.

I agree using MySQL would be better IMHO, not being a fan of Microsoft. MySQL is free, much smaller and very effecient. The syntax of the SQL is almost the same with some small differences '%' instead of '*' for wildcards for example.

 

Stoooo and Sy,

Yes, I agree. If I had slightly different goals with this, there would be some products and technologies I may have used instead. But as I'm mainly a Microsoft developer, it's Microsoft-oriented products and technologies I want to use, as the number one goal I have with this is to learn new things that I have use for in my daily work. Also, when technologies are new or updated, they are supported by Microsoft, but may be not supported or be lagging a bit behind for non-Microsoft stuff. But if things don't work, if too many resources are consumed, I might need to make changes, like changing to MySQL.

QUOTE (stoooo @ 17 Oct 2012, 12:22) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>One thing to keep in mind is that lots of computers used for RMSing tend to be older, less powerful machines no longer suited to other daily tasks. I wonder if the full on graphical experience of this free RMS might be too expensive in terms of hardware for many potential users. Do you plan to include a Lite form of the interface so that the full functionality of the RMS part can be enjoyed without over stressing lower specification hardware?
I'm afraid that the full and animated graphical experience wont' be that good on a +10 year old computer, as you're saying, a computer perhaps often used as a dedicated RMS computer at home or at a club. When I did my prototype in 2009, I tried it on an old XP computer. It lagged a lot when using sweeping camera movements, moving spotlights, reflections, etc. But when gradually turning these things off, it got better and better, and was OK with only the car frames moving sometimes. So I'm planning to have a lot of these options configurable, like in most PC games. And there are "traditional" static 2D screens as alternatives to these animated 3D screens. But I haven't tried yet with also running both the RMS server and the database server on the same old computer; it may not work that well.

QUOTE (-Sy- @ 17 Oct 2012, 13:11) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I still like the idea of the way DS kit works, off load all the timing and accuracy into a black box then let the PC process the results&#8230;
Yes, I agree. I've used slotted switches instead of light bridges for my analog tracks, so I have used the length of the guide blade instead of the car's whole length for detection. I once measured how long the guide blade was "visible" for the slotted switches when running my 1/32 cars at full speed, it was ~2ms. With an old favorite RMS, SlotRace Manager, running in pure DOS and using the parallel port as interface, there were never any problems with missing laps. But when using Windows and a Windows RMS, missing laps were rather frequent. When helping a friend in a similar situation, I had to make the pulse longer than the ~2ms with some electronics to avoid missing laps. And then people think they have a 1/1000 resolution for their lap times&#8230;

Polling the parallel port for a trigger pulse isn't really a good method, so I didn't want to include it first. But as it's a popular method, I'll make a try and see if it works reasonable well. But I'll constrain the shown lap times to only include 2 decimals.

All of this was actually one reason why I changed my mind and want to include DS support anyway.

 

I've hit my first road block in this project.

QUOTE (Razamanaz @ 16 Oct 2012, 10:28) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>RazManager is developed with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, C#, and .NET Framework 4.5&#8230;
Two of the books I've read to prepare for this project, Introducing .NET 4.5 and Pro C# 5.0 and the .NET 4.5 Framework, both fail to mention that when going from .NET 4.0 to .NET 4.5, you'll lose support for Windows XP. I didn't check this myself before I started this thread, but instead realized this when I tried to install .NET 4.5 Framework on a Windows XP computer. I generally try to avoid using smileys, but right now I find them useful:

There are features in .NET 4.5 Framework I would like to use; ADO.NET Entity Framework 5.0 is dependent upon .NET 4.5, among other things. But this should mostly affect how I want to do things on the RazManager server, I should still be OK with using .NET 4.0 on the client.

Unfortunately, this means that I'll have to drop support for Windows XP on the server part. But I can still support Windows XP on the client.

QUOTE (Razamanaz @ 16 Oct 2012, 10:28) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>If you're using a 10 year old computer for your RMS, then a RazManager client, the RazManager server and the database server won't run very well on that. You'll need something better to run all these pieces on the same computer. But even then, you might not gain that much compared to your current RMS if you only want to use a single computer with a single monitor.
Having RazManager drop support for Windows XP on the server may in reality not mean that much, since a 10 year old computer with Windows XP wouldn't be used to run both the client and the server anyway. Also, if your XP computer has +1GB memory, you can upgrade it to a later Windows version.

This means that you can still run the RazManager client on Windows XP, but to be able to do that you need to have (at least) a second computer with Windows 7/Vista (or Windows Server 2008/2012) that the RazManager server and the database can run on. You would still have use for some old XP computers, e.g. using them as extra presentation computers. If using Windows 7/Vista as your one and only RMS computer, this is still sufficient (provided it has enough memory).

OK, I'm disappointed myself, but it's not affecting any existing user base, only a few days old presentation. I think it's the right decision for me to take advantage of new technologies, and not writing yet another RMS program with the same features and low hardware requirements. There are plenty of very good alternatives already out there for old hardware.

I also didn't notice before that Microsoft dropped support for Windows XP when using SQL Server 2012, it was there in SQL Server 2008 R2. OK, I could have solved that by using SQL Server 20008 R2 instead of SQL Server 2012, but there are some 2012 features that I may want to use, so this is a part of the decision to drop Windows XP support for the RazManager server part.

Sorry guys...

 

QUOTE (Razamanaz @ 19 Oct 2012, 13:18) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>OK, I'm disappointed myself, but it's not affecting any existing user base, only a few days old presentation. I think it's the right decision for me to take advantage of new technologies, and not writing yet another RMS program with the same features and low hardware requirements. There are plenty of very good alternatives already out there for old hardware.
I actually admire you taking that stance. Since you are planning to give the software away for free, there is no need to put up with people whining about this or that. You are developing a solution for *you*, and sharing it with anyone else willing and able to play. If it has higher hardware requirements than everyone else's products, then so be it. Stating this at the beginning sets expectations appropriately.

It also leaves you free to use whatever bleeding edge technologies you like. I'm excited to see what you can achieve.

 

Is the executable win64 or win32 ?

 

Of course you can run it under a 32 and 64 I guess it works on boot..The database of course. If it will be installed in Azure, it dostn matter.

I will love to test it with my new track, pictures will come.

In my point its neceserly to keep track of each single track Id.
How will we do that?

Passing Göteborg next week, maybe I get some answer say Lasp

Its one the time that we got a new thinking on software.
In swedish we say Lapp on Lapp , and it dosnt means track records. Patching!
Its about you add different thing on a all ready solution.

Time for new thinking ;-)

well done

 

QUOTE (-Sy- @ 19 Oct 2012, 19:18) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Is the executable win64 or win32 ?
This article gives some background: Understanding .NET application options for 32 and 64-bit systems

The RazManager executables will not be set to specifically target 32-bit or 64-bit. The .NET runtime and the JIT compiler will take care of producing code for the platform that is used.

When calling external DLLs, there's a potential 32-bit vs. 64-bit problem. I see two cases where I will need this:

• The Phidget drivers are platform dependent, but there's a Phidget .NET wrapper DLL that takes care of the differences, and hides the platform dependent details from my program.
• If I'll do an interface plug-in for the parallel port, I'll need to call external DLLs; one for 32-bit and another one for 64-bit. Using techniques similar to the ones described in the article above, I should be able to make the right call at runtime.

This is the theory; I hope it works as I expect it to. I'll of course need to test on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, and various Windows versions.

 

I don't work with C# so I really don't know to much about it, I do work with C and Java on a daily basis. If C# uses pointers or shared object library calls then the pointers will have to be of the correct size. Win32 executables can be run in Win64 environments, but Win64 exectuables cannot be run in Win32 environments. This is important when considering older systems as most older systems will only support Win32.

 

Should we all take in respect the old parameters I will citats Henry Ford:

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

So let us face the new thing says Lasp

 

QUOTE (Razamanaz @ 17 Oct 2012, 09:26) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>But I guess a requirement from myself to add DS support, and buy all this stuff, is to also add support for DS-0045, the DS-INTERFACE box. It has a different protocol though, and it's two-way. I haven't found this protocol, anyone who can help me with that?
I e-mailed IBB Auto Racing, the company that makes the DS products, and asked about the protocol for DS-0045, the DS-INTERFACE box. They no longer make this product, so there will be no support for it in RazManager (at least not from myself). However, the DS-200 Pro and the DS-300 Pro will be supported.

There's now a Swedish thread for RazManager. It's basically the same presentation as here, with some small adjustments and clarifications.

One clarification was how I intend to use oXigen in combination with a Pit-Pro. With SSD, I want to use Pit-Pros for not only pit lane and pit bay detection, but also for sector time detection, sector synchronized computer cars, and as a part of speed trap detection. This would also work with an oXigen chipped car with the chip in SSD mode and with ID 1-6, and using the SSD C7042 power base for start/finish line detection. In this case, the oXigen car would work as any SSD car. I haven't tried yet that an "oXigen chipped car with the chip in SSD mode and with ID 1-6" can actually be detected by the Pit-Pro, but hopefully it will work.

However, not all of the above will work with an "oXigen chipped car with the chip in SSD mode and with ID 1-6", and using the oXigen USB dongle for start/finish line detection. The dongle, not the PC, is doing the timing. Although lap times are exact, there is a delay of up to 600 ms until the PC receives the lap times. Timing the moment when this data is received cannot be used as a time reference in combination with other sensors, in this case the Pit-Pro; calculating the time difference won't be exact enough. Therefore, the oXigen dongle in combination with a Pit-Pro cannot be used for sector times and sector synchronized computer cars.

Using the Pit-Pro for detecting an "oXigen chipped car with the chip in SSD mode and with ID 1-6" in combination with speed trap sensors would still work, but I guess no one would buy a Pit-Pro only for that purpose.

 

Hello RAz,

This sound great!
Whats the release date off your project?

 

Hi!

I'm currently working on this most of the day, currently mainly on the server and the database parts. It's still a bit hard for me to predict when it will be ready. Among other things, it depends on when I need to start working again, when some Microsoft software components are released, and how much effort I need put into preparing for my 50-years birthday party at the end of August (which involves arranging a big rock/pop concert in the garden, practicing drums, programming some backing tracks, programming the light show, and of course rehearsals with the temporary band).

But my current guess is that the first public release of RazManager will be somewhere at the end of 2013.

 

QUOTE (Razamanaz @ 16 Oct 2012, 10:28) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>RazManager will contain a lot of configuration. But instead of having a few configuration screens with a lot of tasks in them, there will be rather many configuration screens but with only one or very few tasks in them. These configuration screens follows a user interface model known as inductive user interface. It basically means that it should be very easy to understand what a screen is used for. One part of accomplish this is to focus on a single task, and trying not to do too much in the same screen. Though that may not always be productive for someone that uses an application most of the day, it makes an application like a RMS program easier to use where you really don't go into the configuration screens that often. RazManager also follows the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines for Windows 7 and Windows Vista, so you should feel familiar with how the screens are used in general.
Here are some examples from how it currently looks. The screenshot below shows a list of cars:

The look and feel of this list is close to Windows Explorer and a lot of control panel lists in Windows 7 and the desktop mode in Windows 8. The screenshots in this post are from a Windows 8 PC, that's the reason for the "flat" look. When the program is run on a Windows 7 PC, the screens adjusts themselves and you'll get more chrome-like buttons with a bit more depth-look, etc.

To look good, the 3D presentation during a race is dependent upon pictures, e.g. car pictures. You will probably most often have a picture for each of your cars, and the list uses a picture to identify a car. As you can do in Windows itself, you can choose the size of the pictures in the list. But you can also show a list without any pictures at all.

From the list of cars, you can select a car to get more information about it:

The exact contents of this screen will change, so don't read too much into it about RazManager's functionality.

As mentioned earlier, one way to make all configuration understandable is to split tasks into separate screens and not try to do too much in every screen. An additional way is to simply not present options that are irrelevant. If you only are using one track system, and that track system is analog, then there's no need to present options that are only for relevant for digital track systems. With only one track system in use, there's even no point in selecting the track system for a car. In this case the car screen automatically adopts to this, and fewer options are presented:

The size of the fuel tank needs to be entered (directly or indirectly) if you want to use fuel simulation for a digital track. But fuel simulation isn't relevant for an analog track, and therefore not shown in the example above.

I.e, I assume that nobody is interested in fuel simulation for an analog track. I've seen some other RMS programs supporting it, but I've never seen anyone using it. IMHO, fuel simulation only based on lap times doesn't add any tactics that makes the driving more interesting, but I might of course be wrong. Anyone who have used it, and can explain in some detail how it made the races more fun? Maybe fuel stops in analog racing are used as an opportunity to change drivers when team racing, or as an opportunity to get another beer?

 

What is the current status of this project, because I'm really interested in it.
I looked many times this year on this forum to see if there was a status update of this project. But still no more updates.

Is there somewhere a version to download and test? So I'm able to compare it to eg pclapcounter, because that is the program I use now on my track.

 

QUOTE (Razamanaz) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>&#8230; and how much effort I need put into preparing for my 50-years birthday party at the end of August (which involves arranging a big rock/pop concert in the garden, practicing drums, programming some backing tracks, programming the light show&#8230;
But my current guess is that the first public release of RazManager will be somewhere at the end of 2013.

Above is a picture of me behind my drum kit at my 50 years party. Since then, I've spent a lot of time on RazManager, but no, there won't be a preview released before the end of the year&#8230;

The 3D screens can of course be configured with your own images. Here's another example (I hope my favourite slot car supplier doesn't mind that I've borrowed some images):

However, to be able to use the same 3D source code for the Windows 7/Vista, Windows Store 8 and Windows Phone 8 clients, I will need to re-write all my previous 3D code and switch to some other 3D programming framework, probably MonoGame.

I've spent a lot of time learning how to write Windows Store 8 apps, but these types of apps haven't yet had the success that both I and Microsoft had hoped for. Here are some screenshots from my current prototype:

In my professional assignments and on the client side, I have mostly developed Windows (desktop) clients. Most new applications have a web client instead, so I've had to spend a lot of time learning these techniques instead. The positive side of that is that I will develop web clients for RazManager a lot earlier than I initially thought, this is actually what I'm currently focusing on.

On the server side, I've changed the web service technique from WCF (SOAP/XML) to ASP.NET Web API (REST and some RPC-type methods, JSON or XML format depending upon what the client requests). Among other things, it will make it easier for others to develop their own clients, e.g. iOS and Android apps.

Here's an updated example of how a multi-user and multi-client installation might look like:

I'm not sure if there will be a Windows XP client or not. Probably not, it takes a bit too much time to convert the code from the Windows 7/Vista client, and as there will be web clients earlier than I initially thought, they are an alternative of you still are using Windows XP. Another solution might be if someone else ports the Windows 7/Vista .NET 4.5 client code to Windows XP .NET 4 once the code is released.

In summary, I still have a lot to do. My initial idea was to first release RazManager with a Windows client, and then continue to work on the other clients. But this as changed to develop all clients in parallel, which of course takes a lot of time to both learn and complete.

On the positive side though, it has worked very well for me to use RazManager as a platform for learning and trying out new techniques, my main goal really, and that's one very good reason for me to invest a lot of time into it. But since a specific release date isn't really a goal, I shouldn't make any more guesstimates on when you will be able to try it. But I'll get there some day&#8230;

If you want more technical information, you'll find that at the preliminary RazManager home page.

 

Hi
Looks like a very promising program,one thing I would like to see though is the option to have the Arduino board to do what the phidget and parallel port are doing.

Top spec Arduino has 54 I/o pins and be purchased for as little as £13,the phidget board only has 16 I/o pins and is over £75,parallel ports are now none existent unless you opt for an off board one and they are also pricey.

Looking forward to trying a release out.

 

Yes, I agree. I would like to use Arduino boards together with RazManager for the same reasons as you mention.

Also, a Phidget card is a bit slow; it takes a sample every 1/125 s. That's not fast enough if you want to have lap times with an accuracy of more than two decimal digits for your analogue track.

Though from a RMS developer's perspective, a Phidget card has one big advantage; it has a well-documented and well-supported way for communicating with it. I guess that's one reason why so many RMS programs support it. That's also indirectly an advantage for someone who connects a RMS program to their track; you can switch from one RMS program to another without changing or re-wiring your track hardware (assuming that the different RMS programs input/output functionality are the same).

An Arduino board is only hardware, there's no standard way of communicating with it. That of course makes the board flexible, but someone has to define how the computer should communicate with it. The examples I've seen so far where an Arduino board has been connected to a RMS program has been very specific to that program.

Nothing wrong with that of course, it's a hobby and it's amazing to see where people take it. But from my own point of view, I'm hoping that a more RMS generic Arduino solution will evolve, and if that happens I will be happy to support it. But I rather avoid making a RazManager specific Arduino solution.

Having said that, some day in the very distant future, I really would like to make a 20 car lap tower that got its live data from RazManager, no matter of have many Arduino boards it would take. That would be so cool!

 

I forgot to mention that RazManager can be extended by someone else to support custom hardware. All hardware communication is handled by "plug-ins", even the hardware I myself develop support for.

Someone else can write a plug-in that communicates with some custom hardware, e.g. an Arduino board, using a proprietary protocol. The plug-ins have to be developed with C# and .NET 4.5, and use a Microsoft technique called MEF, Managed Extension Framework. It's a fairly advanced topic, so anyone who is developing these plug-ins has to be a pretty skilled C# developer. Plug-ins (even those that I developed myself) are not a part of the RazManager executables. They are instead placed in a directory, and automatically detected when the program starts. Plug-ins developed by others don't have to be open-source, and they will not be a part of the main RazManager distribution (or source code), although I can of course link to them from my home page.

There are a set of functions and data available to the plug-ins, so a plug-in and its corresponding hardware are limited by that. But as an example, what you typically would do with a Phidget card could be supported by a custom Arduino plug-in developer.

People have contacted me about supporting SCX-D. That's a system I don't have myself, so I'm not able to develop and test for it. But this an example of a plug-in that someone else might develop.