Data Analytics for Racing

Date of case study: 07/2021
Industry of business: Motorsports (Software development & data analytics)
Established: 2020
LightningChart solution: JS Charts (XY & 3D charts)

TestLogger: Data management & analytics systems for radio-controlled racing vehicles.

TestLogger Analyzer is a data analytics tool designed for radio-controlled cars. It is an essential part of the TestLogger Collector product line which is a data logging system for radio-controlled vehicles. The tool’s role model comes from full-scale motorsports analytics tools in which different types of charts, calculations, and relations between data sources are employed to analyze both the driver’s and car’s behavior.

TestLogger, as a company, was built around free data management tools for radio-controlled racing cars (https://www.testlogger.info). Now, TestLogger aims to provide a complete data management and analytics system for RC cars. In other words, the target is to provide tools to collect data in various forms, a platform to manage the data, and tools that support performing manual analytics and statistics. Naturally, this is an approach to analytics automation and gives automatic proposals for the users.

Why They Chose LightningChart®?

When building the first prototype, the TestLogger team was worried if the Electron framework together with a charting library could deliver good enough performance for analytics purposes. It was essential for the team to provide a good user experience joined to a good performance level.

With limited resources, knowledge from web technologies, and cross-platform requirement, TestLogger wanted to go forward with a Node.js®-based desktop application. For its first prototype, the TestLogger team tested a couple of different charting libraries which had an easy API to get started, but fairly quickly found out that performance wasn’t enough for large datasets.

LightningChart® was not first on the list of charting libraries to try, but immediately after giving it a go, our team felt that it is able to provide a feasible performance level to continue with an Electron-based desktop application.

As the communication with LightningChart team was really easy and efficient including flexible licensing schemes, we never looked back and LightningChart JS was the clear choice for the charting library.“

Jussi Luopajärvi

TestLogger | Founder & Lead Developer

He also pointed out that the support team at LightningChart® has a really fast response time, which is highly convenient from the customer perspective.

Data analytics for racing - TestLogger

Picture 1. The TestLogger Software in action

Flexibility and high performance with large data sets are the key factors.

In the first phase of product development, the focus is on XY charts and the most important type for TestLogger is the PointLine series. The PointLine series are used in a so-called oscilloscope view that additionally employs scatter plots for showing relations between two or three channels and area charts for density/histogram charts.

Mr. Luopajärvi thinks that maybe the most unconventional usage is the track map where they utilize the PointLine series to draw the track map and to show selected channel values linked to the track map. He considers for this purpose that it is really good to have the ability to adjust point color based on value from the third dimension. They have implemented 3D scatter and surface charts as well, so the users have the possibility to find new ways to analyze the data.

By far the biggest advantage of utilizing LightningChart® JS has been the gain in development speed without a need to make a compromise in their own requirements for the product. The reality is that LightningChart® JS made it even possible to develop the TestLogger Analyzer with the resources and knowledge we have at our disposal.

For more on charts for motorsports, check our charting toolkit for Motorsports page. Read more fascinating customer case studies or get to know LightningChart JS charting library better.