[thebigo]

Hi, does anybody have a solution to overlay externally recorded videos with data from the McLaren telemetry app? I understand that all the data is stored in the HDF5 file, but using a HDF Viewer app does not reveal anything useful. In the end one of the tools like RaceRender or DashWare needs to be aware of this file format. But I haven't figured that out yet. Any hints?

 

[unmac]

Hi, does anybody have a solution to overlay externally recorded videos with data from the McLaren telemetry app? I understand that all the data is stored in the HDF5 file, but using a HDF Viewer app does not reveal anything useful. In the end one of the tools like RaceRender or DashWare needs to be aware of this file format. But I haven't figured that out yet. Any hints?

The system is atlas I believe. I'm not aware of being able to overlay with externally recorded video. Have you figured out how to save the overalid video from the telemetry system? Basically, you have to do a screen record through your computer. A little complicated to do it because there is two separate screens. One with the overlay on the video and the main telemetry screen. it's a little tricky to figure out how to record the correct screen.

 

[thebigo]

Ok, managed to extract all the data of the telemetry app into a common file format.

The telemetry data is stored by McLaren using the HDF5 format. This format is a hierachical one and follows some sort of directory structure. Normally, HDF5 is used in big data or analytical applications.

Attached, you will find a script in the programming language "R", a special purpose language for statistical data manipulation. The language is free and you can download a full development environment call "R Studio" free of charge.

Important: You may have to change the extension of this file from ".txt" to ".R" to use it within R Studio. I cannot upload non-text files to this forum.

In the script you will find two variables "inputFileName" and "outputFileName", which you need to change according to your needs. The input file must be the data file from your recorded session, the one with the ".hdf5" extension. The output file will be created and is in CSV format, which can easily be used with video overlay renderers like RaceRender or Dashware.

Have fun...

 

[Middachten]

Ok, managed to extract all the data of the telemetry app into a common file format.

The telemetry data is stored by McLaren using the HDF5 format. This format is a hierachical one and follows some sort of directory structure. Normally, HDF5 is used in big data or analytical applications.

Attached, you will find a script in the programming language "R", a special purpose language for statistical data manipulation. The language is free and you can download a full development environment call "R Studio" free of charge.

Important: You may have to change the extension of this file from ".txt" to ".R" to use it within R Studio. I cannot upload non-text files to this forum.

In the script you will find two variables "inputFileName" and "outputFileName", which you need to change according to your needs. The input file must be the data file from your recorded session, the one with the ".hdf5" extension. The output file will be created and is in CSV format, which can easily be used with video overlay renderers like RaceRender or Dashware.

Have fun...

Great post
I will definitely give this a try.

I’ve been going nuts trying to do this with a HDF5 viewer last autumn. I don’t understand why Mclaren stopped using Vbox and designed their own system. Or is this the same system they use in their racing departmant? That would be cool ?

 

[gr1nd1n]

Go pro does it for me too well and super easy. I never saw the point of that pack for that money honestly.

 

[thebigo]

@Middachten: Thanks a lot.

Indeed, it looks like McLaren is using some fancy stuff for the new telemetry hard- and software. There are some papers out there from Applied Technologies referencing using the HDF5 format for F1 telemetry applications.

Take a look here, for example: MTAP - McLaren Telemetry Analytics Platform
·

 

[Middachten]

Ok, managed to extract all the data of the telemetry app into a common file format.

The telemetry data is stored by McLaren using the HDF5 format. This format is a hierachical one and follows some sort of directory structure. Normally, HDF5 is used in big data or analytical applications.

Attached, you will find a script in the programming language "R", a special purpose language for statistical data manipulation. The language is free and you can download a full development environment call "R Studio" free of charge.

Important: You may have to change the extension of this file from ".txt" to ".R" to use it within R Studio. I cannot upload non-text files to this forum.

In the script you will find two variables "inputFileName" and "outputFileName", which you need to change according to your needs. The input file must be the data file from your recorded session, the one with the ".hdf5" extension. The output file will be created and is in CSV format, which can easily be used with video overlay renderers like RaceRender or Dashware.

Have fun...

I finally got some time to sit down and give this a try!

After downloading R Studio and running the first part of the script to add some modules I gave it a shot with two recordings I made with the MTT last year.
It worked like a charm!

I have never worked with R Studio, RaceRender or Dashware before but in about an hour I got everyting up and running and had my first video rendered with RaceRenderer

Here is the first video:

It is not the smoothest of workflows and I need to get a decent overlay designed in RaceRendere but it works!

Thanks again for providing the script, impressive stuff

 

[hydrosome]

For those of you interested: Based heavily on this R code (thanks @thebigo!), I made a Python script that outputs the same CSV format but with a few changes:

• Fine-tuned the time resolution (0.2s resolution rather than 1s) for smoother data
• Removed the thousands of duplicate lines that MTT for some reason outputs at the end
• Correction to the G forces (they were inverted in the R output)
• km/h -> MPH (disable this conversion by setting the flag in line 28 to False)

This script will process all HDF5 files in the current directory.

To run it, you'll need to install Python, pip, and h5py. Instructions once you have Python installed are at the top of the file. Happy to help if you're having trouble getting it running on your system. Similar with the script above, you'll need to change the extension from .txt to .py.

Something's a bit weird with the MTT timekeeping; sometimes a timestamp will show up 6 times instead of 5. So instead of doing a bunch of complicated logic to parse the time out into the 0.2s resolution timestamps, I just took the first timestamp and incremented from there instead. It seems to work pretty well:

 

[thebigo]

@hydrosome: Great work. For all those using the R script already, here is a newer version with some minor corrections (including the g-force inversion hydrosome mentioned above) and some additions like file locator dialogs, that I made in the meantime.

 

[Middachten]

Thanks for contributing this to this forum!. I'll give the Phyton one a try as well when I can find the time.

 

[thebigo]

Here is a very short video from a run on the Nuerburgring GP track yesterday evening.

Only one and half rounds, because of an accident after just a few minutes. Being light on the brakes, due to new pads. First round was warmup and after I began to push a little harder in the second round, the red flag came.

Attached you will find the RaceRender 3 template for this video (rename to ".rrt"). You will also need the MTT converter, I posted above.

 

[rookie1]

Sorry for bringing this old thread up but is it possible in a 720S with track telemetry app only (so no cameras equipped) to export the data (without video) to USB as well?

 

[Middachten]

I'm not familiar with track telemetry without camera's but afaik if you have a MTT USB port you can copy the data to a USB. Also see this topic.
Note that nothing will be recorded if you haven't first 'registered' the track in the system.

 

[rookie1]

Sorry for bringing this old thread up but is it possible in a 720S with track telemetry app only (so no cameras equipped) to export the data (without video) to USB as well?

To answer my own question: Yes, Track Telemetry app can be retrofitted at McLaren dealership. I asked them before my anyway scheduled 2nd year service and they added/activated it.