A Plugin architecture allows users to replace any or all aspects of the simulation with in-house models developed in C++ or Simulink1. Using Simulink1, all functionality may be developed in simulation prior to deployment as a Plugin. Plugins may be: Software-in-the-loop, compile control strategies into a plugin; Hardware-in-the-loop, interface rFactor Pro to hardware to run a real ECU; Car model, compile your own Simulink car model and run it real-time inside rFactor Pro.
Multiple plugins 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 game-quality video and audio and high fidelity control-loading systems.
Development and integration may be streamlined with Podium Technology's @Source2. Analysis, configuration and control are possible via interfaces to Pi Toolbox, CANape or Kleinknecht's Gredi.
For racing teams, rFactor Pro’s realism offers additional benefits for driver training, engineering development and setup evaluation, while networked simulators allow race training against other drivers and AI (Artificial Intelligence) cars running telemetry recorded on the real car.
By taking your existing model and running inside our proven software you benefit from:
- Significantly reduced risk.
- A very short implementation time scale
- A total budget that might be an order of magnitude below your expectations
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 (at a low rate to avoid excessive CPU usage) 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 liquid 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 automatic LODding to optimise frame-rate, 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.
- 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 (all of which can be turned off individually at a later date and replaced one at a time by your own synthesized sounds) and allowing different sounds for every item depending on the camera angle - e.g. the sounds in-car may be completely different to those for spectators.
rFactor Pro is in use in F1 as the primary simulator for engineering development, driver training and telemetry visualization.
Overview | Features | Benefits of using rFactor Pro