Virtual Photo Finish Camera

When a race finish is this close, it would be fun to be able to see a virtual photo finish picture like they generate with the strip cameras in real races. 

I suppose the problem here would be for the system to know when to take the photo. At the moment at least, the game has no idea who is in a race (and if it did, the game would no doubt give us a results screen). An alternative I was thinking about last night would be to have a selectable camera position looking across the line. Someone could record footage and either review it locally taking a screenshot, or upload it to YouTube.

From one of the Zwift updates recently I got the impression that dedicated race events were being considered/in development so I would imaging this feature would be possible as part of that feature - it would know when to “take” the photo when the first rider in the list of riders competing in the event hits the line.

Yeah, I’m thinking of this as something to help with racing as it is now.  Once the full racing system is in place, the game won’t even need a photo finish as it will have the data to just tell us who won. The hard part may be to ensure that it’s correct and all clients are in sync.  The problem with networked games is that each person might see a slightly different version of reality, and it’s possible that 2 different game clients could take photos that show different people crossing the line first.

wait! what?  If you had a photo finish, then that would immediately and completely settle the matter; thus, killing all the cross-bragging from multiple different racers simultaneously claiming that this person–in fact–nipped everyone else at the line.

Or, a photo finish function would be an awesome feature to see how close it really was.  Races to the finish line take a lot of effort and a photo finish feature would be the apt icing on the cake as a reward for such efforts.

Yes. But it will only reliably do that if it’s server-side. Client photos won’t necessarily align with each other. I’d love to see it though.

A third-party client-side view would probably be a good enough proxy for server-side view. What’s missing is a recording or instant replay feature so you can go back and view the finish line after the ride is done.

My main thought for this feature request was that it would be fun to have when race features are released, but it probably also could help with race results. If I could just scroll through a film strip of all the riders crossing the finish line, it would be a lot easier to generate the placings.

Gotcha. Yep, would be good to have such a thing. I tried to position my bike along the finish line this evening - intention was to try and record the riders coming past using view 3. But I couldn’t get into the position I wanted. 

Could have used this feature this morning when another rider and I who has been neck and neck the whole lap had a photo finish that we both agreed as a tie. It would have made for a great photo though.