Motion Simulation TL1 simulator

[NormLarson]

Jon, awesome work and totally cool project!

... and I hope you can take a joke.

Am I the only one that thinks this looks like a ladies tech shoe from the side?
[img width=600 height=600]http://www.imgtree.net/files/ccqv301c07322tkix6qp.jpg[/img]

[JonB]

Now those look damn cool but I think TL1 might be a little bigger

[Trigger]

Bloody big feet.....

[JonB]

Now had more than 100,000 viewings of this video. Incredible. To put that into perspective one of the main competitors has had 55,000 viewings in 2 years....Need to get a lot more Onboard video
Motion Simulation TL1 on board - Touring Car

Getting significant press coverage too, including Car Magazine prior to the full prototype being completed in the next few weeks
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/News/Search-Results/Industry-News/Motion-Simulation-TL1-Ariel-builds-an-immersive-simulator/

[John Scherrer]

Good to see that the product is getting lots of exposure Jon!

Out  of interest, what do you say to those competitors who offer the computer-controlled hydraulic jacking g-force simulation?

Surely the "immersive", "ultimate", "most realistic", "non-compromised", total realism", "every bump in the road"...
can only be achieved if it includes the physical 'G' aspect as well.

Is there going to be anything like that coming down the development path or scope to offer your video hardware to those bigger simulators?

Any plans to organise an AAOC event to demo etc?

[JonB]

Well done for picking up virtually every quote from the web site

Other simulators offer different types of motion. No one does hydraulic for domestic sales and rarely for commercisl anymore. We provide high frequency motion in TL1. There are a number of solutions for low fequency motion and most people are doing it wrong (im not going to explain why here).There is nothing worse than a false motion cue. We have a lot of experience in this area and will be incorporating different technologies at an additional cost to our customers.

We want to get the experience right from the start as opposed to taking the easy path of compromising or making the same mistakes as others.

[JonB]

I think we can get an AAOC racing day organised. Maybe top gear lap time styly...  But that may be a little way off. Anyone seriously interested in TL1 for personal or commercial reasons should drop me a line

[JonB]

Here's an interview explaining the background and some of the development stage images
http://www.motionsimulation.com/?page_id=1612

[NormLarson]

That's just the video, .... the simulator has to be off the hook.  I would get out of that completely ready for anything, except being calm

[ross]

It's a great design Jon and I completely agree with you about the motion side of things.  Getting the visual immersion right with these things is the key thing and adding 'accurate' motion would make it much more expensive and complex (probably too expensive and complex to make the numbers add up - but perhaps I'm wrong on that).

I love the idea of the adjustable seat - that's a great addition.

Prior to building my own rig, I'd been considering a (much simpler) design based on triple projectors on to a curved (not spherical due to the difficulties making one) wrap around screen all housed in a 'dark man cave' that I could still fit in my study.  In the end though, cost, size and time got the better of me so I settled on my smaller triple screen rig for the time being.

I'm certainly interested in this area of business though - will PM you.

Cheers, Ross.

[AtomMadStew]

I do believe I saw a trailer for jon's simulator on the next gadget show on next week

[JonB]

The Real Race Car vs TL1 feature aired Monday night in the UK and (I believe) will be shown again tonight. You can also watch online but this is in the UK only (we are trying to get a HD copy so we can post it for everyone to watch).

It was an extremely intense, busy days filming at Brands Hatch in early May, lashing down and freezing. We spent the evening with Polly and the film crew in the hotel the night before so we were ready to set up the TL1 protototype (exc bodywork(such a shame this wasn't ready)) from 7.30am in pit garage 7. Building the whole stand takes a long time so we only had everything running by midday which left circa 5 hours of filming.

Overall Polly and Jason were excellent, very funny, professional and slick in what they do. If there were any outtakes, they were hilarious. They were very strict in practice laps both doing circa 15 laps with Jason getting Mark Blundell and Polly getting muggins (boat on camera)....Out of 400 people that have driven TL1, Polly was a total natural, quite extraordinary how she picked everything up and was quickly posting times at around 1 minute. Mark Blundell did maybe 10 laps on track in the wet and was recording lap times of 1min 10's which I can tell you based in the near monsoon conditions was ompressive. Polly was getting around a 1.01 in the perfect, dry conditions in TL1.

I spoke to the race team owner of the MX5 and he said they could get a 53 second lap in the dry with one of their pro drivers on slicks..... I was able to get 55 seconds consistently on the semi slicks in TL1.  Regrettably someone had to decide on the day what lap time variance to allow for dry vs wet and between the track owner and the race team owner they decided on 10 seconds which was very much a finger in the air decision. We were all too busy to think about this but what we should have done was use my fastest laps vs Mark Blundell which would have been a 14 to 15 second variance and much more accurate. I wrote to the producers post filming but they didn't highlight this.

Anyway, pleased with the result. We were going to film at the Ariel factory but timings were too tight so filming was delayed a few days. Only regret? they didnt include stuff about Ariel and iracing, they had all of the information but that's what several hours of filming condensed to several minutes of edited footage does I guess.

In the preview of this show, Polly said "this is the most incredible motion simulator we have ever tested". Anyway for anyone in the UK, here is the film, I will try and rip a HD version and post for everyone to watch ASAP.
http://fwd.channel5.com/gadget-show/videos/other/uk-tl1-simulator

[Trigger]

Superb Jon. Great to see it getting some serious publicity.

Looked like a fun day. Cant help but like Polly......

The sim looks really good though - very impressive. Judging how far away Clarkson was at Laguna from his playstation time, yours looks much more accurate. Using better dry/wet differential would have meant their 2 times were pretty much spot on each other.

T

[JonB]

That's right Trigg. The best comparison is my fastest lap in the TL1 vs the mx5 race car fastest at their (claimed) 53 secs. So just 2 secs difference with semi slicks vs slicks. Quite astounding really

Here's the full HD video of the day

TL1 Simulator review - Gadget Show May 2012

[AtomMadStew]

Great to see it getting a propper airing on the gadget show...

polly 

keep up the good work Jon

Stew