Live Mode Player

The Live Mode Player brings the race back to life. It orchestrates a synchronized animation loop, rendering the positions of all runners (and ghost runners) as they move through the course over time.

Sync Modes

The Live Mode Player features three distinct synchronization engines to answer different analysis questions.

1. Realtime (Absolute Time)

Uses the raw GPS timestamp of each runner.

• Best for: First-leg relay analysis, mass starts, or seeing exactly who was in the forest at a specific time of day.
• How it works: The scrubber timeline represents the actual clock time (e.g., 10:00:00 AM to 12:00:00 PM). Runners appear and disappear based on when they actually started and finished.

2. Mass Start (Relative Time)

Normalizes all runners to start at exactly T = 00:00.

• Best for: Comparing overall race progression in an individual start race.
• How it works: The engine subtracts each runner's start time from their GPS track. You can see who is leading the virtual pack at any minute into the race, regardless of when they left the start triangle.

3. Restart Per-Leg

The ultimate tool for comparing specific route choices. All runners are "teleported" to the current control and their internal timers are reset to T = 00:00 for that specific leg.

• Best for: Isolating execution on a single route choice. You can watch two runners leave the control at the exact same moment—one takes the left route, one takes the right—and see exactly where one pulls ahead.
• How it works: The engine recalculates the timeline bounds to match the duration of the current leg. When the scrubber moves, it interpolates positions based on the time elapsed since leaving that specific control.

Performance Details

To maintain 60fps playback with dozens of runners, the Live Mode Player uses linear interpolation between GPS track points. The "chips" (the moving dots representing runners) are rendered in an efficient overlay layer that updates independently of the heavy base map.