Automatic validation

parkour.design can help your course be compliant with FEI regulations and good design practices. As you are building your course, the application validates it in real-time and provides the summary of discovered problems on the top menu bar.

The red problems are some fundamental issues in the course. They will impact the correct validation of the course – you won’t get reliable status of your course until you fix the red warnings. The course’s statistics and summary table may also present incomplete information until reds are fixed.

The yellow problems are the discovered violations in the design. They try to guide you in improving your design, but you don’t have to fix them, if you think otherwise. Please mind some of the rules may be customary or differ depending on the geographical location.

If the application detects no problems, an OK message will appear. It means there are no problems known to the application, that are subject to the validation. Please always rely on your personal experience and judgment to evaluate if the design is ready for releasing and building the course on the arena.

If you click on the screen area with problems or select the command Validate project from the Project menu (default key shortcut V), a window with the details will pop up. You can keep this window open and continue designing. The list of problems will be updated in real-time as you are working on your design.

If the problem is related to a FEI rule or competition class violation, the column FEI Rules will contain the chapter of the rules or the class code. If this cell is empty, it means the problem is a violation of a good designing practice that is more of a customary than regulative nature.

The Objects column lists the obstacles or other objects that are the reason of the problem. If you click on a particular row, these objects will be automatically selected in the editor window, so you don’t have to search for them.

If there are any problems discovered, the problems window will always pop up before attempt to save or print the design. You can ignore it and continue your desired action by clicking on the appropriate button.

Validation rules

The following categories of rules are validated:

• Course completeness – whether there are appropriate rounds (primary, jump-off, two-phase) and they are complete.
• Good design practices – customary rules that the designers tend to follow, including some of the FEI rules applicable to any competition.
• Competition class compliance – heights, spreads, numbers of obstacles, efforts, time, distance, etc. as required by the configured competition class. It will be validated only if the competition class is configured for the design.
• FEI rules compliance – any specifics that are defined in the Jumping Rules published by FEI. They will be validated only if the FEI rules are configured for the design. The list of rules is quite large and we are not publishing it here in a form of a table.

Would you like other rules to be validated? Do you use other sets of rules? Drop us an e-mail or comment below this post.

Course completeness

Problem	Required (by the configured competition class or FEI rules)	But the design has
Two phases instead of primary round	Only the primary round allowed	Two phases
Jump-off instead of primary round	Only the primary round allowed	Jump-off
Primary round instead of jump-off	A jump-off is required	Primary round only
Two phases instead of jump-off	A jump-off is required	Two phases
Jump-off instead of two phases	Two phases are required	Jump-off
Primary round instead of two phases	Two phases are required	Primary round only
Two phases forbidden	Only the primary round with or without the jump-off is allowed	Two phases
Jump-off forbidden	Only the primary round with or without two phases is allowed	Jump-off
No finish line in a round	Unless the competition demands differently (i.e. articles 266.5.2, 267), there should be a finish line in each round (either Finish or Start/Finish).	No finish line
Loose section	In a complete design, all sections (sets of obstacles connected with a course) must belong to a round (primary, jump-off or two phases).	Some section that has no Start
Excessive finish line	No finish line for competitions according to articles 266.5.2 and 267	Finish line
No obstacles	A round should consist of obstacles between start and finish lines	Only start and finish lines in a round

Competition class compliance

Validated parameter
Maximum obstacle height
Ditches allowed?
Combination obstacles allowed?
Maximum ditch spread
Maximum liverpool spread
Maximum oxer spread
Maximum triple barre spread
Allowed outdoor and indoor speeds
Number of obstacles
Number of efforts
Number of combinations
Judging table A or C
Nations Cup specific: 2 vertical obstacles heights, other six obstacles heights, 2 spread obstacles height/spread

Good design practices (excerpt)

Problem	Required
Distance incompatible with stride length	The distance between obstacles must be compatible with the stride length range and obstacle’s jump on/off distance as configured in the competition parameters, so that it is possible to have an integral number of strides between the obstacles.
More than two same obstacles in a row	It is recommended to have no more than two obstacles of the same kind (vertical, oxer, triple bar) one after another.
Short curvy track	If a distance between obstacles is shorter than 18 meters, it is recommended that the obstacles are connected with a straight line.
Start or finish too close	The starting and finishing lines may not be more than 15 m or less than six metres from the first and last obstacle. (FEI 204.6)
Distance too long	The total length of the course in metres may never exceed the number of obstacles in the Competition multiplied by 60. (FEI 204.5)
Same side combinations	Two combinations placed one after another should be approached from different sides.
No first triple-bar in a combination	Triple-bar should not be placed first in a combination.
No first combination	Combination should not be place first on the course
Wrong obstacles in jump-off	A maximum of two additional single obstacles may be added to the course of a jump-off. If an obstacle included in the previous round(s) is jumped from the opposite direction in the jump-off, the obstacle is considered as one of the two additional obstacles allowed.