Advanced Analysis
Coaching Lines
Coaching lines let you draw directly on the analysis track map and file each drawing under a specific turn. Instead of describing "brake a car length later into Turn 3" in words, you draw the line where it belongs and see it over your own driven trace every time you open that layout.
What a coaching line is
A coaching line is a short polyline you draw over the track map, attached to one turn of one track layout. Each line has a kind that says what it is teaching:
| Kind | What it marks |
|---|---|
| Braking | Where to get on the brakes |
| Turn-in | Where to start turning |
| Apex | Where to clip |
| Exit | Where to track out |
| Racing line | The overall line through the turn |
Lines are drawn on the track layout, not on a single session -- so a line you draw today shows up again the next time you analyze a session that matches the same layout.
Where coaching lines appear
Coaching lines live in the analysis cockpit whenever the session resolves to a track layout -- both when you upload a telemetry file and when you reopen a saved session. A saved session reopens on the layout it was analysed on: the one you chose in the layout picker, or the one TrackOut picked from the session's GPS trace when the venue has more than one configuration. A session at an unrecognized venue shows no lines.
Any layout with turn markers works
Lines can be saved on every layout that declares turns -- the curated layouts with full turn windows, and older layouts that only pin each turn's apex. On a pin-only layout the cockpit shows an Estimated turns chip on the map, because the window around each pin is an estimate; your lines are still stored at the exact positions you drew them.
Your lines are yours
Coaching lines are private to the account that drew them. Nobody else sees your lines, and you never see anyone else's.
Drawing a line
- Open a session in the analysis cockpit and make sure it has matched a track layout -- the track map shows numbered turn markers when it has.
- Find the Coaching lines panel under the track map.
- Pick the Turn you are drawing for and the kind of line (Braking, Turn-in, Apex, Exit, or Racing line).
- Click Draw.
- Click on the track map to place each point of the line. Two points is the minimum; place as many as the shape needs.
- Click Save line.
While you are drawing, the panel shows how many points you have placed. Undo removes the last point and Cancel discards the drawing without saving.
Zoom in before you draw
Scroll to zoom and drag to pan the map before you start drawing, so you can place points precisely. Points stay attached to the track as you pan and zoom, so you can also adjust the view mid-line.
Reading your lines on the map
Saved lines draw over the driven traces in their kind's colour, each with a contrast outline so it stays readable wherever it crosses a lap line. The panel lists every line grouped by turn, in the order you meet them on track, with braking first and the racing line last within each turn.
To remove a line, click the trash icon next to it in the panel and confirm.
Each group is headed by whatever the layout calls that turn today, so a turn that gets renamed or renumbered reads the same in the panel as it does everywhere else in the cockpit.
When a turn changes
Track layouts get re-authored -- a turn is renamed, a chicane is split in two, a corner is added or removed. Your drawings are unaffected by that: they are stored as real positions on the track, so they stay exactly where you drew them. What can change is the turn a line is filed under.
When the turn your lines were filed under is no longer the turn it was, the panel moves them into a Turns that have changed group rather than listing them as though nothing happened. Each group says which of two things happened to it:
- "T7 is no longer a turn on this layout" -- the turn was removed outright.
- "T3 is not where it was when these were drawn" -- the number survived but it sits somewhere else on the lap now. This is why a turn you can still see in the picker can show up here: the name is the same, the corner behind it is not. Reversing a layout's direction does this too, and those lines are worth another look regardless -- a braking point for a corner taken the other way is not the same braking point.
For each of those groups you can:
- Move the affected lines onto a turn the layout has now -- pick the turn from the dropdown and click Move. If only some of the group's lines were drawn elsewhere, only those move; a line already filed against the corner the layout has today stays where it is.
- Delete any line you no longer want, with the trash icon.
Renaming a turn is not one of these cases. A rename leaves the corner exactly where it is, so the panel just follows the new name and says nothing.
Lines drawn before this check existed are left where they are: TrackOut has no record of where their corner sat, and inventing one would only make a wrong filing look right.
Why you pick the turn
When a layout's turns are rebuilt, there is no record of which new turn an old one became -- so TrackOut asks rather than guessing. A guess could file your apex line under a corner you never drew it for, and you would have no way to tell.
When drawing is unavailable
The panel explains itself rather than offering a draw that cannot work:
- "Match this session to a track layout with annotated turns" -- the session has not been matched to a track layout, or the matched layout has no turns at all (neither turn windows nor turn pins). Coaching lines are filed by turn, so there has to be a turn to file them under.
- "This session has no GPS trace to draw over" -- the telemetry has no usable GPS, so a click on the map cannot be resolved to a place on the track.
Limits
- A line holds up to 200 points.
- A track layout holds up to 250 of your coaching lines. Delete one to add another past that.