A Plugin architecture allows users to replace any or all aspects of the simulation with in-house models developed in Dymola, SIMPACK, CarMaker, CarSim, C++ or Simulink1.
You may also use rFactor Pro's vehicle model as your plant model, allowing you to test your control systems Driver-In-The-Loop.
We support in-line simulation on PC, vTAG310, PTWinSim as well as HIL with dSPACE, vTAG-RT and SpeedGoat.
Multiple models may run concurrently making it possible to run an existing ECU in HIL mode, a new ECU development in SIL mode, and your own car model simultaneously. The driver benefits from the realism offered by a high-fidelity driver-in-the-loop environment with High-Def graphics and IGs specially adapted for the motorsport and automotive markets.
This architecture also allows the flexibility to start with the internal rFactor-Pro vehicle model and replace components with those of your own as and when they are available. For organisations developing their own vehicle model, this offers a lower risk route to develop a full-car model: Start with our model, then replace one component at a time (Aero, Tyres, Engine, Diff' . . .) testing and achieving correlation with each component in isolation:
By taking your existing model and running inside our proven software you benefit from:
- Significantly reduced risk.
- A very short implementation time scale
The software offers the following features that will help you deliver an immersive and valuable tool around your full-car vehicle model quickly:
- Continuity through unexpected behaviour by optionally running rF Pro's vehicle model in parallel so that your model does not have to concern itself with recovery from collisions, unusual attitudes (e.g. excessive yaw taking car outside the aero map), or viscous surfaces (sand, gravel) and return control back to your model once your model has accelerated itself into alignment with the rF Pro car. This is important for the driver's level of immersion, they can continue a lap after recovering from a spin or leaving the track rather than wait for the Sim' to be restarted.
- Detailed and flexible track database that allows manages Mu across the track surface and handles pitlane, grid, lights, speed limit and sector management.
- Replays - of entire events, laps, or live, instant replays.
- Networked spectator stations able to view from any camera angle
- Networked simulators so two or more drivers may be on the same circuit.
- Add traffic with Injected cars, opaque or ghost, running recorded laps, combinations of best sectors, AI, networked simulators, telemetry or lapsim output (accepts various input levels from full position and orientation, all the way down to a breadcrumb line of GPS positions using AI to make the car follow the line sensibly)
- We use the graphics and sound engines from the #1 PC retail game, which means our UI benefits from advanced features that would be low on the list of priorities for a bespoke simulator (including shaders, blurred shadows, lighting model, spray, smoke, dust, tyre marks, rubbered lines, animated scenery, motion blur) and benefiting from an engine with a record of continuous R&D to chase the ever more demanding expectations of the gaming market
- Comprehensive and high quality sound including those for the engine, drive-train, starter, tyres, road surface, brakes, wind, spectators, trackside announcers, Doppler effects and reverb / echo from road-side structures, walls and bridges.
- Physically modelled atmosphere with programmable weather. For example, run a simulation of Le Mans through 24 hours (in real-time or time-accelerated). The sun will pass through the exact path travelled by the real sun on the specified date, the shadows will fall accurately throughout the day, the sun will set, the trackside lighting will turn on, the vehicle's lights will illuminate the road ahead. In the morning the sun will rise, the ambient light will allow vehicles to turn off their lights. Clouds then cross the sky and the occlusion of the sun affects the track temperature where it is in shadow.
rFactor Pro is in use in F1 and NASCAR as the primary simulator for engineering development, driver training and telemetry visualization.