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In lugnet.trains, Mike Walsh wrote:
>
> "James Powell" <wx732@freenet.victoria.bc.ca> wrote in message
> news:I7oxzL.Aww@lugnet.com...
> > ... TD is the best program to come up with a concept of how much area
> > you have to cover,...
> ... IMNSHO TrackDraw (www.trackdraw.com) is much
> better than TrackDesigner. ...
I'm happy to announce that TrackDraw now has accurate models for 9V, 4.5V, 12V,
monorail, most baseplates and road plates in any color. And just today, Thomas
Woelk uploaded a crater baseplate that looks pretty darn good.
You can try it out by downloading TrackDraw from the Yahoo group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trackdraw ; go to 'Files', then 'Releases' to get
the latest (td_a13.zip).
Cary
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In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark wrote:
> In lugnet.trains, Mike Walsh wrote:
> > ... IMNSHO TrackDraw (www.trackdraw.com) is much
> > better than TrackDesigner. ...
>
> You can try it out by downloading TrackDraw from the Yahoo group at
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trackdraw ; go to 'Files', then 'Releases' to get
> the latest (td_a13.zip).
Erm, are there samples of designs drawn with TDraw to help the needy?
I have difficulty getting the curved part of a switch (points in UK) to join up
with existing track. It seems that only the straight part of a switch will be
accepted.
So I insert a switch and have to rotate it around. But then it will not fit the
existing track nicely. Any help?
C S Soh
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In lugnet.trains, Chio Siong Soh wrote:
...
> Erm, are there samples of designs drawn with TrackDraw to help the needy?
That's a great idea. It would be fun to turn all of the old Idea Book layouts
into TrackDraw files for instance. That would be a neat addition to the release.
If anyone has other interesting layouts, I'm happy to include them.
> I have difficulty getting the curved part of a switch (points in UK) to join
> up with existing track. It seems that only the straight part of a switch
> will be accepted.
If you press the Tab key after adding the point, it will rotate through all
three connections. Then the curved part of the point will match the adjoining
track. You can also click on the point (or any other part) after it has been
added to the layout and press Tab to rotate it through the connections.
Cary
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In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark wrote:
> In lugnet.trains, Chio Siong Soh wrote:
> ...
> > Erm, are there samples of designs drawn with TrackDraw to help the needy?
>
> That's a great idea. It would be fun to turn all of the old Idea Book layouts
> into TrackDraw files for instance. That would be a neat addition to the release.
> If anyone has other interesting layouts, I'm happy to include them.
>
> > I have difficulty getting the curved part of a switch (points in UK) to join
> > up with existing track. It seems that only the straight part of a switch
> > will be accepted.
>
> If you press the Tab key after adding the point, it will rotate through all
> three connections. Then the curved part of the point will match the adjoining
> track. You can also click on the point (or any other part) after it has been
> added to the layout and press Tab to rotate it through the connections.
Hi, thanks, Cary.
Tried it, works great! I'm sold on TrackDraw.
Besides samples of track plans, user-friendly documentation would be appreciated
in the release.
Another idea is to have symbols of straight and curved tracks where we have cut
the magic 5 cm gaps (for DCC). So that we don't have to go to another Paint
program to add them.
Also, a part symbol for the train connecting lead (part #5305) and maybe the
speed regulator (part #4548), too. You'll have to think of a way to manage the
wires - maybe get Kevin Clague's help. So that we can have a full picture of the
layout with all the electrical connections included.
The goal is that, we can then send a copy of the complete TrackDraw layout to
someone else in any other part of the world and he/she would be able to
duplicate exactly our layout. (Like we can now do in LDraw).
Look what you have got yourself into ;-)
C S Soh
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"Chio Siong Soh" <robodoc@fifth-r.com> wrote in message
news:I7w86q.Mu6@lugnet.com...
> In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark wrote:
> > In lugnet.trains, Chio Siong Soh wrote:
> > ...
[ ... snipped ... ]
>
> Another idea is to have symbols of straight and curved tracks where we • have cut
> the magic 5 cm gaps (for DCC). So that we don't have to go to another • Paint
> program to add them.
You have a couple of options here:
1) There is limited drawing ability within TrackDraw so you can "annotate"
your layout with text and arrows and the like and they become part of the
layout design.
2) You can create modified versions of the track parts and add or delete
XML as needed to have the parts look visually like you'd like them to look.
>
> Also, a part symbol for the train connecting lead (part #5305) and maybe • the
> speed regulator (part #4548), too. You'll have to think of a way to manage • the
> wires - maybe get Kevin Clague's help. So that we can have a full picture • of the
> layout with all the electrical connections included.
Cary will have to comment on the wire itself but modeling the track
connector and the speed regulator would be pretty easy. For anyone wanting
to learn to author TrackDraw parts, these would be good ones to start with
because they are simply polygons and circles with some detail added.
>
> The goal is that, we can then send a copy of the complete TrackDraw layout • to
> someone else in any other part of the world and he/she would be able to
> duplicate exactly our layout. (Like we can now do in LDraw).
>
> Look what you have got yourself into ;-)
>
> C S Soh
Not to beat a dead horse but the best way to make this happen is to learn to
author the parts yourself and start contributing. Creating TrackDraw parts
is very easy once you get the hang of it. I have created quite a few of the
parts Cary is now distributing and he will incorporate contributions to the
parts library pretty quickly.
Mike
--
Mike Walsh - mike_walsh at mindspring.com
http://www.ncltc.cc - North Carolina LEGO Train Club
http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com - Carolina Train Builders
http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=mpw - CTB/Brick Depot
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In lugnet.trains, Chio Siong Soh wrote:
> In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark wrote:
> > In lugnet.trains, Chio Siong Soh wrote: • ...
> Besides samples of track plans, user-friendly documentation would be
> appreciated in the release.
No question; the documentation needs a lot of work. For instance, the keyboard
shortcuts merely says that "'Tab' alternates the last track added." Lame. That
means nearly nothing, much less suggesting that 'Tab' will rotate the connection
points.
Sometimes I can't see the big picture for all of the small details. It would be
helpful for me to get more questions about how to do things, for me to see what
the documention is missing. And as Mike said, I am happy to include any
contributions to TrackDraw -- documentation, parts, code, sample layouts -- in
the next release.
> Another idea is to have symbols of straight and curved tracks where we have
> cut the magic 5 cm gaps (for DCC). So that we don't have to go to another
> Paint program to add them.
As Mike suggested, you can add colored lines or rectangles, or modify a set of
parts to include the DCC modifications. Without knowing what you do in the paint
program, I can't be more specific.
> Also, a part symbol for the train connecting lead (part #5305) and maybe the
> speed regulator (part #4548), too. You'll have to think of a way to manage
> the wires - maybe get Kevin Clague's help. So that we can have a full
> picture of the layout with all the electrical connections included.
To present a simple schematic, you could use the existing line drawing
capability to show where the wires go. Let me know if this is not sufficient,
and what you visualize the lines looking like.
> The goal is that, we can then send a copy of the complete TrackDraw layout to
> someone else in any other part of the world and he/she would be able to
> duplicate exactly our layout. (Like we can now do in LDraw).
Unless I'm mistaken, you can't send a layout to anyone anywhere in LDraw,
because there are no LDraw representations of points / switches in 9V. The curve
finally came available in the last part release -- hooray for that!
> Look what you have got yourself into ;-)
Since TrackDraw is a completely public domain, open source, cooperative project,
the answer is "not much". Fortunately, folks like Thomas Woelk and Mike Walsh
have contributed greatly and made TrackDraw much more exciting than if I had
worked on it by myself.
Cary
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In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark wrote:
> In lugnet.trains, Chio Siong Soh wrote:
> > The goal is that, we can then send a copy of the complete TrackDraw layout to
> > someone else in any other part of the world and he/she would be able to
> > duplicate exactly our layout. (Like we can now do in LDraw).
>
> Unless I'm mistaken, you can't send a layout to anyone anywhere in LDraw,
> because there are no LDraw representations of points / switches in 9V. The curve
> finally came available in the last part release -- hooray for that!
Oops, sorry, should have been "(Like we can now do *for models* in Ldraw)".
I was making an analogy between TrackDraw and LDraw - the ability to reproduce a
train layout (TrackDraw) and a model (LDraw) through the respective data files.
C S Soh
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