Project: TS2013/4 Route Mapping program

[gougha]

This looks amazing and very useful. Unfortunately I don't think I can bring anything to the table but I hope the project goes well.

Regards

Andy

[Nobkins]

Jim, in all your improvements of the forum, you forgot making .odt or .xls allowed attachments to posts.

Fixed

In that spirit, it would be great if everyone could say what they would like to do with such a program.

For me the features that are of particular interest are the ability to use it for the creation of detailed route maps or to supply parts of the map with scenarios.

I also like the idea of identifying missing or assets or dodgy track. If you could also bulk swap / remove missing assets that would be great. You can swap items with RWTools but I believe it is only one at a time. I hacked together a program that can bulk swap assets using a CSV input for helping with the freeware pack routes. It allows me to swap original items to freeware pack items (as scenic freeware pack items are cloned to their own dev folder).

I am sure there will be other uses but those (at the moment) are the most appealing for myself.

[mikesimpson]

I also like the idea of identifying missing or assets or dodgy track. If you could also bulk swap / remove missing assets that would be great. You can swap items with RWTools but I believe it is only one at a time. I hacked together a program that can bulk swap assets using a CSV input for helping with the freeware pack routes. It allows me to swap original items to freeware pack items (as scenic freeware pack items are cloned to their own dev folder).

I am sure there will be other uses but those (at the moment) are the most appealing for myself.

Hi Jim,

Swapping a missing item (or for that matter an asset which you don't like the look of) in RW_Tools will swap it in all tiles in the route (at least it should).

I am most impressed with Ruth's work (Andi's math is way over my head...) - the ability to remove orphaned bits of track underground would be very useful. In my case I was experimenting in merging a small route into my own route and ended up with some track miles out at the bottom of the sea which took a lot of diving to remove...

Mike

[Nobkins]

Hi Mike,

Yes it does and it does it very well. The problem I had was wanting to swap hundreds of missing assets or assets that had been moved to the freeware packs. That is why I wrote a little program that just does that (and not the many other useful features of RWTools).

I found doing it in RWTools easy for small numbers of swaps but doing lots was quite time consuming. I might have missed a technique or something that would have made it quicker.

[rivimey]

Thank you for the kind words people. I am hoping at least some of them translate into offers of help!

I have now uploaded the sources for the program to Github under the GPL v3 license. [If you are unsure this essentially means you have the freedom to use and modify it and pass on mods, but are not allowed to restrict others in doing likewise).

The git repository is at https://github.com/rivimey/rwmapmaker and I am up for accepting pull requests created in a compatible style and that show evidence of testing! (yes, I know the existing test infrastructure is sadly lacking!)

There is a bug tracker available on my website. I don't know if I will make it public or move over to using Github's version: for the moment please use Github to submit issues.

You will need to install Visual Studio 2010 (or maybe 2012), the Windows version of Qt 5.2, and the Qt for Visual Studio plugin to make it compile as is. I don't think it will compile with 'Express' versions of VS.

I haven't yet worked out if or how to release compiled packages. Suggestions are welcome.

[AndiS]

Ruth, if you join the others in their assessment of my maths, I'm going to complement it by some pseudo code, for the drawing of the easement.

[AndiS]

Some more thoughts and visions ...

We got four implementation platforms to fulfill the route builder's desires:

• Mike's RW Toos;
• Ruth's map visualisation;
• Various batch mode tools from the likes of Jim and me;
• Last, not least, the route editor with the various display modes through which you cycle using the space bar.

We cannot modify the route editor, of course. We can only remember what it can do and not duplicate that. But complement it where desired, e.g., to show track properties in tunnels, too.

The most attractive field of development seems to me the integration of the complex/abstract stuff such batch tools to with the user friendly stuff by Mike and Ruth. E.g., it would be cool if RW Tools would read CSV tables and perform what it does already interactively for each of the lines in the table. E.g., swap assets.

Ruth's tool could take a list of missing assets, generated by RW Tools or my blueprint checker, and mark their locations on the map. Or it could just take a list of icons or colours and coordinates (tile number plus place on tile) specifying where to plot them (as a blob in the case of colours). This would be used for missing assets, or for marking fishy junctions, signals with some link flaw, distants that are really close to the stop signal they announce, harsh gradient changes, track segments with some property marked for a suspicious short length, e.g., under 1 m, other fishy spots in the track work. The idea is that if some analysis tool outputs a list of spots, then it is easy to show that graphically.

Colour-coding track is not as simply to implement. However, if the lines of a CSV contain some ID of the track ribbon plus colour, then it would be easy to implement in the map drawing.

Ideas for colour coding are, using red for bad and green or blue or black for fine, and yellow for medium:

• Deceleration do stop at the signal based on distance to distant, line speed and gradient;
• Curve radius;
• Centrifugal force based on line speed, radius and superelevation.

All these would help quality assurance in route building.

In addition, showing track links as arcs or tags could be helpful. The most useful representation appear to be 5-cornered tags (rectangle with adjoining triangle) pointing in the direction for which the track link is valid, bearing the number of the link. All links of the same signal share the same colour, colours for different signals are assigned randomly.

Showing markers and various track properties as simple track colouring might provide a swift alternative to the route editor and a foundation for route documentation in user manuals. On the other hand, it is not as much of an enrichment as showing something not visualised otherwise.

[rivimey]

Andy, I would very much appreciate additional help on the maths: I think I get what you mean but am not quite sure. If you could have a look at some code first, just to see what I'm already doing, that might be good. Would a skype call be a good way? The code I'm thinking of is here, and calculates a polyline to draw simple curves:
https://github.com/rivimey/rwmapmaker/b ... s.cpp#L532

My tool is not too far away from being able to detect missing assets too, although at present it doesn't delve into the innards of asset files. Nevertheless I can see the value in loading a list of asset IDs (whatever seems suitable: presumably the info seen in a blueprint reference) and being able to highlight those assets - whatever state they are in. Similar would be a 'search' type function to display the location of assets matching the search.

Indeed I would love to expand on the 'layering' aspect of the program. You probably know you can layer things in Google Earth, and I would like to see MapMaker move in that direction. There are currently a number of items which amount to layers, and can even be enabled/disabled, but the UI and internals aren't 'quite' there yet.

One thing I have been working towards is being able to link up track and read height info with the aim of producing a true gradient profile for a particular track route; again, GE can do something like this and it is rather cool. Moving on from that to highlight areas of concern would not be a big step.

Doing stuff with signal links: I see the value, very much, but doing the graphics comprehensibly will be hard I think. very easy to do a bad job, harder to do a decent one on that.

I am hoping for community involvement in developing this and so those who offer help will probably have their own agendas and wishlists too...

[rivimey]

Folks, I have uploaded a compiled pre-release (i.e. non-production quality build) of the program here:

https://github.com/rivimey/rwmapmaker/releases/tag/0.8.1

I have cheated somewhat: while the code is indeed that for source tag 0.8.1, I found the project files aren't portable, so I couldn't repro this build from the git tree: this build is from my original tree. I will fix as soon as I can work out what the problem is!

Enjoy.

[AndiS]

I will knock up some pseudo code tomorrow. I looked at the function you linked to, looks good to me is all I can say right now.

I totally agree that these ideas with the signal links are the most ambitious on the whole list. I just presented all of my wish list to encourage people to join in with their ideas or to give me feedback on my wish list or whatever.