Data Analysis Fundamentals: Step 3: Download Logged Data
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Step 3: Download Logged Data
07.24
| 00:00 | - Now I've just put the SD card into the computer and I've fired up the circuit tools software. |
| 00:04 | So there's a dialogue that comes up for us straight away. |
| 00:07 | And we've got a couple of different options here, we've got, we can open an existing file that we've already got stored in our computer, we can copy all the files from the SD card which is the option we'll be using when we want to get the data off the card obviously. |
| 00:19 | Then we've also got our access to a quick start guide and a software guide if we need those as well. |
| 00:24 | So if we're taking the data from the car, this is where we'll be clicking, we'll be clicking on the, from SD card. |
| 00:31 | Now there's a few different fields here, obviously by default it'll usually find the SD card without needing to change this, it'll usually hunt for it and find whatever's accessible from your computer so that's done that for me here, it's found it and assigned it as F drive. |
| 00:44 | One of the things to make sure you get right is to make sure you are saving your data as the right circuit. |
| 00:48 | It's just a basic thing of being able to go back and look at data from a certain circuit, a certain data, it's just the first hierarchy here that we're using for the VBOX system is assigned by circuit. |
| 00:57 | So if we come here and change I've got 2 circuits set up here for the VBOX at the moment, Donnington which is actually where some of the sample VBOX data comes from and I've got Highlands which so far is the only track that we've run this system at for this particular car. |
| 01:13 | So we're going to select that folder as Highlands, that means the data from this SD card is going to go to the Highlands folder, then we've got today's directory and by default it'll be named by date. |
| 01:22 | What I usually do in here is go in as well and as an appending to the date, which is quite nice because it means all of the files are ordered by date which makes it easy to find them within that track directory. |
| 01:35 | I also go and add a note about here, let's say it was test day number 3, something like that, whatever it is, whatever the event or test day that you're taking part in there, it just gives you again a little bit more context when you're looking through those folders to make sure you're finding the right data that you're looking for. |
| 01:53 | And then you've got the session directory for session so by default it's the first download that we've done, it'll be session 1, this is where you might come and put in practice 1 or qualifying, whatever it is, whatever session you're going for, that's where you'll put the session directory and essentially that's just giving us a sub folder to save that data into. |
| 02:12 | Again just to keep things segmented and to make it nice and clean when we want to go and review specific data. |
| 02:18 | The other option here that's really important to understand is the difference between moving and copying data. |
| 02:23 | So down here we've got these buttons move and copy. |
| 02:25 | The move, what that means, it's going to remove that data from the SD card and copy it to my computer and it's no longer going to be on the SD card. |
| 02:34 | The copy obviously is just taking, it's leaving it on the SD card and it's making a complete copy and saving it to my computer. |
| 02:40 | Now my personal preference is to use the move function. |
| 02:43 | That means that every time I come in and download, the data is going to be transferred to my computer and the SD card is going to be clean. |
| 02:50 | So that means that I've got much less risk of running out of space, it means that when it comes time to do the next download, only the latest data will be on that SD card and again I just find it much simpler to keep track of my data. |
| 03:01 | There are potentially situations where you might just want to copy, maybe if you're sharing that data around with multiple people and you only want to take it, take that data off and leave it on there for the next person. |
| 03:10 | But in most situations for me personally, I'm always just using the move function. |
| 03:14 | Now that we've gone through and named and specified the directory we can do the move, we can transfer all that data from the SD card to our computer and up here on my laptop screen I've got all the data that's logged in from one session here. |
| 03:29 | Now there's a couple of things I want to point out in the dialogue that it brings up for us here. |
| 03:34 | One of the things that's really useful in my experience is this preview window. |
| 03:38 | So you can actually just come through each of these files and it'll show you what was going on in the car. |
| 03:44 | What you'll quite often find is the files here, like here we've got ones from the end of the day. |
| 03:49 | Having that preview it just again gives you a little bit more context, you can see the times when the car's being maybe driven around the block in the workshop or it's been going on and off the trailer, you know those are ones that you don't need so again just having that preview is a nice way of just visually seeing what was going on with the car in that particular log file. |
| 04:08 | We've also got some details up here, up at the top so we've got the length of the log file in time, we've got the number of laps completed and we've also got the best lap time as well as the circuit. |
| 04:18 | Now that's again really useful useful context, if I'm just going through this lap list here, I can see really quickly at a glance what the best lap time was, how many laps were completed and again just allows me to assign which run goes with which data plot. |
| 04:33 | Obviously these are ordered by time anyway because they're in order but it just, if I'm going through and looking for the fastest lap of the day or want to look at the longest run of the day, this is just a way of giving me a little bit more context around it. |
| 04:44 | Now we've also got the option to come in here and edit the details. |
| 04:47 | So I've got option to specify the weather, the driver that was in the car, the vehicle and any notes about the car. |
| 04:53 | So this is absolutely information you should be going through and filling out each time you do your download, it's really important to be able to assign these different details. |
| 05:04 | So it's all very well for you now when it's all freshly in your mind but if you want to come, maybe you come back to this circuit the next year, having the ability to go back and read what the weather was like, what changes you'd made to the car throughout the day, which driver was in the car if you've got multiple drivers, it can be really valuable information so I'd usually go through and set that stuff up as well. |
| 05:22 | The other thing I wanted to talk about was the renaming. |
| 05:25 | So one of the things, we don't see it in this perspective 'cause it's just looking from the VBOX view but what you'll see in the file explorer for each one of these files, you'll have a VBO file for the log file and you'll also have a video file that goes with it as well so there'll be 2 files per run. |
| 05:41 | The important thing to know is if you go through and manually rename one of those files, the link between the video and the logged data gets broken. |
| 05:50 | So there's no way for the software then to know which log file goes with which video file and you won't be able to look at them together, they'll be unlinked or the link between them will be broken so that's not something you usually want to do with the VBOX system, however if you do want to rename them, there is a way to keep the links and that's what this rename function here is. |
| 06:06 | So if you rename here in this dialogue box, you can change it to whatever you want, maybe you want to add some details to the name, however you want to manage it, if you rename it in this way, then the link between the video and the data will remain so that's the way you want to do it if you're going to do that. |
| 06:21 | So there's 2 sections of data I want to look at here, I know this is one section, so this is the, I know the 1:48.5 is the fastest lap from the amateur driver and I know in this one here, this file here we've got the 1:47.3 which is the fastest lap from the pro driver so we can see the pro did 6 laps to get up to his best lap time. |
| 06:42 | We've also, I also find looking at the size sometimes, this isn't so much required because the VBOX does this really nice summary for us up here but in some data systems if it doesn't give you that summary, having a look at the size of the file can be a good indicator of whether that's a run you want to be looking at. |
| 06:59 | Often the logger's starting and stopping, recording lots of useless runs, this is a way to come through and understand what's the most useful runs for you to look at. |
| 07:08 | So these are the two I'm going to select both of these and I'm going to click open. |
| 07:11 | And then that will bring those both up into the user interface for me here. |
| 07:17 | So at this point the download process is complete and I'm ready to start my analysis. |
