Release SRVTracker - Planetary GPS and Race Management (with VR support)

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
There seem to be quite a few trackers/waypoint locators available, but none of them quite fit my requirements, and certainly none of them offered full route planning and race management. So, I thought I could change that.

SRVTracker is an extremely lightweight tracker (it monitors status.json and optionally forwards events via UDP to a collating server). When in tracker mode its footprint should be almost unnoticeable, as it should be also when tracking stationary targets (e.g. waypoints). Advanced features (such as route planning and race monitoring) could potentially affect game performance (though shouldn't for a decent machine).

Features:

Tracker
Location and status tracker for your own commander.

Locator
Locates and tracks stationary and live targets (other commanders). Outputs bearing and distance to target in VR (requires SteamVR, I think). Position is currently above the scanner in the SRV (don't use it in ships, I haven't configured it properly there). I may be able to offer different positions at some point, but I'm still working out how this all works...

Route Management
Record and playback routes. You can configure the distance between recorded waypoints and their radius.

Race Management
Use routes in races, with automatic commander tracking and leaderboard.

All components now have at least basic functionality. Use at your own risk, but full source is published on Github so feel free to check that I'm not up to anything untoward.

You can download the tracker from here: https://github.com/TheCrankLarson/SRVTracker/releases
 
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Crank Larson

Crank Larson
So having worked out how to add VR overlays, I'll be adding the Locator (i.e. GPS tracking of commanders and locations) as a VR option. This could take me a few days as I've got some event stuff still to iron out (some of the SRV flags don't seem to work as advertised...), but now I've worked out how to do it, it'll be fairly high priority for me as I really want to see it. :D
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
The latest release has a working VR locator. It will only work with SteamVR (or headsets that use it, like my WMR). I don't know if it will work in Oculus - I doubt it, but I'd be interested to know.

Easiest way to test is to open the locator once you are in your SRV (and have enabled tracking by ticking the Track button in the tracker window). Tick the VR button and the current bearing will appear (most likely at 0 as there will be no target set). You can set the target to your current location and then drive around - the bearing and distance will always point you back to that location.

You can add locations using the Route planner, and save them. This won't be working in VR as it isn't really worth the work it would require - it is easy enough to add locations outside VR.

I've disabled server tracking by default as it should only be used for races. Now that I've got the VR locator part working I'm going to flesh out the GPS side of things more to give a full featured planetside tracker. It's useful to me now I don't need to remove my headset! :D
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Version 1.0.1 is now released. It is stable (actually it's been stable for a while) and I've updated the UI (including tooltips) so hopefully everything makes sense.

I will be doing more work on it (primarily local route planning, including being able to retrace steps and record your drive). I'll also be looking into further ship support (the tracker works in the ship, but isn't optimised at all - and the VR panel is in the wrong place for the ship).

Thanks to Alec for spotting that I'd actually broken the race tracking in the 1.0.0 release! Fixed again in 1.0.1. There is likely to be another update in the next couple of days, but then there will be a while before the next as I work on extending the route planning.
 
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Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Jhaelen said:
Anyone have a video of it working? Sounds interesting.
Click to expand...

It will be used by several racers during the live streaming of the Elite Racers event tonight. It will (assuming all goes well!) be powering the leaderboard and the commander tracking. For personal GPS, I've still got a lot of work to do (i.e. I want to add route recording and personal nav), but the race and community stuff is pretty much complete (in that I've added as much as I can based on what E: D gives me).
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Just released v1.0.3 that has a route recorder and player working. This also works in VR (will always direct you to the next waypoint), and the waypoint will automatically move on to the next in the route when you arrive. You can configured the radius for the waypoint - my default of 10m may be a little small. I've tested by logging every 100m, but it will go as small as the E: D status updates allow (which can be down to just a few metres).

Altitude waypoint matching isn't currently implemented.
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Just released 1.0.4, with a revamped locator that you should be able to pin somewhere (it has always on top). The VR version isn't movable (unless you want to get involved in the code!), but I have added a direction arrow to both it and the main locator.

Improvements to most other parts also (including ironing out the remaining bugs in the race monitor - we'll find out next Sunday how successful that was!).

Minimised locator now looks like this. VR version is very similar, though arrow is on other side.

Locator.png
 
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Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Managed to get a rather poor shot of the VR overlay. Warning: it appears to have issues with the OpenVR capture in OBSStudio (I was trying to capture a video). This is most likely an issue with my method of capture (I'm using a plug-in). It also appears in the wrong place with the plug-in (or could be because I'm capturing one eye, I guess) - the panel appears centrally in front of you (i.e. above the scanner).

Edit: this clip seems to work (though the locator is misplaced).

VR Locator.png
 
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Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Ok, I've finally put together a short demonstration of the VR locator HUD. Note that this isn't working in the released version on Github at the time of writing, but will be in release 1.1.0 (needs to be compiled in 64 bit for OpenVR to work, and I didn't realise that at some point the compilation switched back to x86). 1.1.0 will be uploaded within a day or two (or can be compiled from source already if you are that way inclined :) ).

 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
There will be a new version very soon - so many changes.

I am just finalising the time-trial functionality, which allows you to stream the telemetry and will also take a screenshot automatically at each waypoint. Sounds can be set as you pass the waypoint (which are the pings you can hear in the video).

 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Looking good. Is there any reason to assume it won't work for Odyssey? It just uses the journal right? And I'd imagine there's some effort on Frontier's part to keep that backwards compatible so we "should" be OK I guess? Is there any way I could get the SRV overlay to display on an iPad? I only have a single fullscreen display and I"m not that fond of overlays ... would love this on the tablet tho. I bet there's a general Window-to-tablet mirroring app out there somewhere, I'll have to google later.
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Alec Turner said:
Looking good. Is there any reason to assume it won't work for Odyssey? It just uses the journal right? And I'd imagine there's some effort on Frontier's part to keep that backwards compatible so we "should" be OK I guess? Is there any way I could get the SRV overlay to display on an iPad? I only have a single fullscreen display and I"m not that fond of overlays ... would love this on the tablet tho. I bet there's a general Window-to-tablet mirroring app out there somewhere, I'll have to google later.
Click to expand...

Sorry, missed this earlier. It works in Odyssey, already tested (the SRV). :) I haven't added any of the foot stuff (new flags, etc.) yet, but tracking should already work on foot.

Which overlay did you want on the iPad? I could potentially generate a webpage or similar within the tracker that you could connect to from your local network. That could then work from any device.
 
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Garettman

Garettman
Hey there,
I have trouble generating circumnavigation route for my SRV, it doesn't work at all from my side.
Does it work from yours ?

Moreover even if enabled audio messages aren't heard when it's supposed to.

Thanks for your incoming help.
 
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