Using the Virtual Points Feature in SimpleClient for Lots of Laps

Introduction

If your event uses more than 12 laps, this method will help eliminate complications that arise in CT Live when attempting to use the standard MID method for laps. For events with 12 or fewer laps, you can safely use the Minimum Interval Duration feature without using Virtual Points. Click HERE for details.

Because the standard method of timing lapped events in CT Live requires using the same Timing Device at every Timing Point, every read gets duplicated across all instances of the Timing Device. This causes problems because every time an athlete gets read, the number of reads increases exponentially. In the example below, the event is a 50K race with 1k laps. If we were to set this up using the MID method in CT Live, there would be 50 individual Timing Points with 50 MID intervals. Since every read gets duplicated on every instance of the Timing Device, if the event only had 300 people, the event would easily reach 750,000 reads if each person only had one read each time they crossed the timing line. The immense number of reads involved here can cause serious issues with CT Live's results calculation.

Using Virtual Points in SimpleClient to only send every 10th lap read greatly reduces the burden of so many duplicates.

You can accomplish this in Fusion as well, using the Lap Count feature in Fusion under Adjustments: INTRO TO FUSION FILTERS AND ADJUSTMENTS

Configure ChronoTrack Live (If Applicable)

If you are using ChronoTrack Live to score your race, follow the instructions below. If not, skip to the next section.

1. Create the Event as normal.
2. On the Scoring > Course tab, create any and all Timing Points and Intervals associated with your race laps. In the example we're using, we'll be streaming every 10th lap's reads for a 50K race using 1k laps.
3. Create unique timing devices to correspond to each of your timing points.
   It is very important that each timing device has a different name, even though the same line and controller are being used to collect the data.
   
4. For our 50K example, the Point setup could look like this:
   

It is not necessary to use MID when you create the devices. The RMG file will automatically apply the correct read occurrence to the correct timing device.

Creating an RMG File

1. Open the Notepad program. In most versions of Windows, you can simply open the Start menu and start typing ‘Notepad’ and it will come up in a search.
   
2. Type 6 zeros, followed by a semicolon. This acts as a filler for the MAC address usually entered in this portion of a regular Virtual Point file.
   
3. Type X;X; where X is replaced with the number of the read occurrence that will be associated with the first Timing Device in CT Live. 
4. Next, in all caps, enter the name of the Timing Device the read occurrence will be sent to in CT Live.
   It is very important that the names applied to each line of the RMG file correspond in sequence to a different timing device name in CT Live, even though the same line and controller are being used to collect the lap data.
5. Repeat steps 2-3 for each Timing Device in your CT Live event. The finished file for our 50K example would look like this:
   
6. When finished entering all lines, click File > Save As…
7. Under Save as type: select All Files from the dropdown.
8. Name your file, then type .rmg after the name.
   Example:
   
   
9. Click Save and exit Notepad.
10. If you are streaming data for multiple Controllers, you can still use one RMG file for both Controller Sessions. 

Configuring SimpleClient

1. Open your Controller data as you normally would in SimpleClient, and select the correct Session.
   
2. If necessary, enter the Event name that corresponds to your CT Live event in the Rename Event field (EVENTXXXXX where the Xs are your Event ID number). After that, enter the first Point name in your RMG file in the Rename Point field.
   For our 50K example, the first line in your RMG file is 000000;10;10;LAP10, so we'll enter LAP10 in the Rename Point field.
   
3. Under Adjustments, check the Virtual Points box. This will bring up the Virtual Points window.
   
4. Click Load Ruleset.
   
5. Locate the .rmg file you created, and click Open.
6. You will see the lines of the .rmg file displayed in the Virtual Points window.
   
7. Click OK to close the window.
8. Set your Min Accepted Time to the start of the race. If this is not set, any reads that come in early will count as laps, which will throw off your virtual points' accuracy.
9. Be sure to click the Minimum Lap Increment Time check box found directly under the Virtual Points field. This feature instructs the software on how long to wait before applying a valid read occurrence to a lap. This in turn prevents an athlete who has multiple reads at the line within several seconds from having each of those times applied as lap reads.
   
10. Specify the amount of time the software should wait in seconds. For our 50K example, the laps are 1k, so 2 minutes (120 seconds) should be fine.
    
11. Repeat steps 1-10 for each Controller Session. You are now ready to stream the data. Click Select to finalize your settings and play the data as normal.

Two important aspects to take note of:

1.) If the start line is also your lap timing line, you will need to include the start of the race as your first lap for the sake of the count in Simple Client.

2.) All reads that are attributed to timing devices that are not specifically labeled in your .rmg file will be sent to your default named point. In this example, the default name shown is LAP10, so you will need to take special care to ensure CT Live is set to filter correctly at that Timing Point.