Subject:
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Re: announcing TrackDraw (BrickFest preview)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dev
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Date:
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Thu, 7 Aug 2003 18:46:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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1460 times
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In lugnet.cad.dev, David Graham wrote:
> In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark wrote:
> > I've been working on TrackDraw, a replacement for Track Designer, • ...
> You did not explain why a replacement is need or what extra facilities it
> will have.
One basic difference between TrackDraw and Track Designer is that TrackDraw uses
vector-based graphics; Track Designer uses bitmaps. With vector graphics, the
drawing can be scaled arbitrarily large, and can be easily transcoded as LDraw,
SVG, and drawn at high resolution as JPEG and PNG (all currently supported).
Another reason is that, as far as I can tell, Track Designer is no longer under
development, nor is its source code available for someone to take over that
support. (I'd love to hear otherwise.)
The most compelling personal reason is that I like to program and this is fun to
do. The PowerPoint presentation is bare bones, and without the demo and me
talking over it, a lot of the 'features' won't be apparent.
> The only problem I find with it is that it takes a bit of time to design new
> elements such as the new station etc.
Please think of TrackDraw as a schematic designer. It is intended to show where
things fit into a track layout, and how they connect together, not represent the
object photo-realistically. As such, things like custom buildings can sometimes
be represented with a few strokes and fills. I represent track with 10 to 100
times fewer drawing elements than LDraw, for instance.
> I'm sure there are lots of suggestions on enhancements to track designer:
> 1. Defining a table size,
...
I'm sure I'll hear plenty of suggestions at BrickFest as well!
My primary goal is for the program to be suitable for designing the NCLTC layout
and my home layout. One reason to make this 'open source' is to allow others to
help in implementing those suggestions if they so choose.
> Your presentation did not show how you can easily define new elements.
Yes, that's a "talking point." It is pretty easy though. I'll flesh out the
website about this in the future.
> A small point - I think it's important to emphasise the ends of each track
> element so you can count, say, the number of straights on a section.
The way the track is drawn is completely specified by XML data; you're free to
customize it any way you like. But there are easier ways to count track.
Eventually, the status bar will show you the number of selected parts.
...
> Will it be able to convert my own elements from Track Designer to TrackDraw?
If I could get the file format for Track Designer, then, yes. Otherwise, I may
leave this feature for someone else to add.
Cary
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: announcing TrackDraw (BrickFest preview)
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| (...) I looked at the presentation on the replacement for Track Designer. You did not explain why a replacement is need or what extra facilities it will have. One of the advantages will be that the code will be available to enhancements can be made. (...) (21 years ago, 7-Aug-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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