Track plan designer - points icons

[ChrisWV10]

Hi

I'm having aplay with an evaluation copy of railmaster and trying to set up a track plan to match my layout in the track plan designer.

There are 9 icons shown for points but there doesn't seem to be one suitable for my needs. Are there

more included in the full version?

I'll try to explain.... I want a point icon where the mainline runs from bottom right of the square to top left and the fork goes left at the midpoint of the square.

A bit like this...

\
- -\


\
\
so that it connects to a horizontal point like this ---\------

If you see what I mean!?

Cheers

C. :)

[ChrisWV10]

hmmm welll that didn't exactly show up correctly!

C.

[stevecamden]

The track design is topological ( it doesn't have to be or even can be an exact schematic of your track) - think London Underground map.

[SailorSam]

I agree with the Chriswv10 i have a lot of track on my 3mtr x 2mtr layout and a point icon lying at 45degrees so the branch joins to the horizontal or vertical would be good. I understand re the Tube map, that's one of the most famous designs ever. i could

have saved some space on my design layout if i had icons at 45.
Cheers

[beejack]

SailorSam said:

I agree with the Chriswv10 i have a lot of track on my 3mtr x 2mtr layout and a point icon lying at 45degrees so the branch joins to the horizontal or vertical would be good. I understand re the Tube map, that's one of the

most famous designs ever. i could have saved some space on my design layout if i had icons at 45.
Cheers

[beejack]

sorry above post by error

Just trying the program myself, and would find it beneficial to have pint icons at 45° angles. Would save me a lot of space and would be a closer mimic of the layout.

I know it does not have to look the same but

if you have young children it helps if what is shown on screen closely mimics what is seen on the layout!

[St1ngr4y]

The reason that there aren't the shapes that everyone (including me) would like, is that when you have to add the red/green buttons to control the point, they have to be placed at the toe end of the point at the corners of the cell. That's why all of the

points have their toe-ends at the points of the compass N, E, S, W. So you have eight possibilities for l/r points i.e. the four compass points x two for the left and right. The curved part of a l/r point always ends up in one of the corners of the cell. For

Y points the l/r doesn't exist, so you just have the four compass points. These have two curved bits which both end up in two corners of the cell. Geometrically, these 12 shapes could be doubled to 24 if the points were allowed to have their toe-ends in the

corners i.e. NE SE SW NW. The curved ends of these points would end up at the centre of a side of the cell i.e. N, E, S, or W.
To allow this to happen, the red/green buttons would have to change. Why do we need them? Already you can click on the point icon

itself to change it. There is just enough room to make the two buttons part of the point icon itself. In design mode you could right click the point itself to bring up the dialog box to configure its address etc.
Getting rid of the red/green buttons not

only would allow all these new shapes to be introduced, but it would also get rid of the annoying message in design mode telling you that a point is too close to another one. In particular, you could even have two points toe to toe, which you can't do at the

moment without having a straight track piece to separate them.
Can anyone see anything wrong in this reasoning?
Ray

[RDS]

@ChrisWV10
I have recently upgraded from the Evaluation to the Full Version and they are exactly the same, apart from the limitations of 10 lines of program, 4 points & signals and 2 locos.

[96RAF]

I had to write up a trackplan in XML for another software package and to cover all point variants we needed 8 versions in both left and right hand styles.

So the dialogue went like this - point left,2 or point right,5, point right,8, etc according

to track requirement.

A similar nomination was made for track corners whether 45 or 90 degree bends to get the alignment right. e.g. bend left 45,7 bend right 90,4, etc.

The right hand point variants went as follows using a square and clock numbers

to illustrate.

Draw 8 squares and in each square mark the centre, 3, 6, 9 and 12 o'clock positions. Now draw these lines in.

Sq1. main 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock, branch centre to top right hand corner.
Sq2. main bottom left to top right corner,

branch centre to 3 o'clock.
Sq3. main 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock, branch centre to bottom right hand corner.
Sq4. main top left hand to bottom right hand corner, branch centre to 6 o'clock.
Sq5. main 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock, branch centre to bottom left

hand corner.
Sq6. main top right to bottom left hand corner, branch centre to 9 o'clock.
Sq7. main 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock, branch centre to top left hand corner.
Sq8. main bottom right to top left corner, branch centre to 12 o'clock.

Left hand

points are mirror images of the above variants.
The one Chris is looking for is point left 2. i.e. a mirror of the right hand Sq 2 described above, so it seems RM doesn't have enough variants to fulfil his plan.
Rob

[St1ngr4y]

If you just take the existing 12 icons for points and rotate each of them 45 degrees clockwise, you have the 12 new point icons everyone would like.
Ray

[DaveAus]

St1ngr4y said:

If you just take the existing 12 icons for points and rotate each of them 45 degrees clockwise, you have the 12 new point icons everyone would like.
Ray

I know I would ...

[Cuthbert]

It makes absolute sense to me to have 45 degree point icons. I am tired of reading posts that say I do not need them. Yes, I can draw up a version of my track layout using the existing icons, but it looks a complete mess, and makes it difficult for me

to relate the track diagram to my actual layout.

I also agree that it be a good move to include the red and green buttons as part of the points icon. The buttons could then be placed either side of the divergence point of the tracks, rather than at

the corners of the tiles. This would then permit points to be placed back-to-back.

Some of you may be happy with the existing icons, but there are clearly some people out there who are not. I would be nice to hear from the normally silent majority,

and not just the regular forum posters.

[Fishmanoz]

Good and constructive discussion all. I'm just wondering when the TnT explosion will come?

[St1ngr4y]

So.... is there a mechanism for passing on these ideas to Hornby? Do we use the 'Wishlist' forum? Do we send a message through Customer Care? Is there someone at Hornby who may have already read the messages in this thread? Or is there another way?
Ray

[walkingthedog]

St1ngr4y said:

So.... is there a mechanism for passing on these ideas to Hornby? Do we use the 'Wishlist' forum? Do we send a message through Customer Care? Is there someone at Hornby who may have already read the messages in this thread?

Or is there another way?
Ray

Hornby do not read this forum. It states at the beginning that you should use the 'comment form' to pass your ideas to Hornby.

[walkingthedog]

Cuthbert said:

Some of you may be happy with the existing icons, but there are clearly some people out there who are not. I would be nice to hear from the normally silent majority, and not just the regular forum posters.

The lack

of response from the silent majority would indicate to me that most users are happy with existing icons.
Use the comment form to inform Hornby of your requirements.

[Montywb]

I've broken my vow of silence, (I'm whispering this in hushed tones), and would like to add my vote to those calling for 45 degree icons, they would be most useful.

[Fishmanoz]

Another way of putting it would be to ask Railmaster Support if there are any plans to provide them as they would be really useful.

[Pete172]

Yes I would agree, 45 degree points icons are needed. I am new to Railmaster and am still building my screen layout, I can already see they would be useful...
I could also do with a 3 way point icon !, instead I have just laid 2 points in line with

a straight in between, but this takes up lots of space.

[Fishmanoz]

Yes, 45 degree point icons would be useful, but their lack is not as bad as you may first think. The thing to get in your head is that you don't need to use a left hand icon for a left hand point. When you look at the detail you program in via the red/green

buttons, all it knows is whether the point is set left or right, not what type it is. You just use the icon that is most convenient at that point in your layout, be it left or right.

The thing to remember is that the layout you design is only a schematic,

not the detail of your layout. And none of your points turn at 45 degrees anyway, in fact if you are using express or streamline points, they turn way less than that.

Just as you represent curves by 45 degree elbows and 45 degree straights together

with horizontal and vertical straights as appropriate, you also have to use these pieces in combination to represent straights that are at an angle other than 45 degrees. So lots of parts of your layout in RM are going to be only an approximation of the real

thing.

If you have access to the Hornby track plan book (I think they are reproduced on the free track plans website), take a look at the difference between them and the schematics in RM and you may get a few ideas as to how to make the schematic of

your own layout.

Also, on 3 way turnouts, take a look in the RM manual on how it suggests you do these by laying to point icons on top of each other in the same square.

No, it's not perfect and 45 degree point icons would help. So would straights

and elbows at 22.5 degrees, and even 11.25 degrees along with points that have their turnouts at these angles. But you can get by without them.

[Fishmanoz]

Second last para, that is 2 point icons not to. And they are one left hand and one right hand laid on top of each other.

[Fishmanoz]

And it would change page just there so it is not obvious my post above this one refers to corrections to mine at the bottom of the previous page.

[LMSTim]

That is an excellent answer regarding 45 degree points. I couldn't have put it better myself. 45 degree points would definitely be useful and they would allow complex layouts to take up less space on-screen, however they are not essential.

[St1ngr4y]

What are your thoughts on having the red/green buttons incorporated as part of the point icon? I have never understood why they are a separate pair of icons.

[LMSTim]

I can think of two advantages of having the green and red point control buttons separate. Some users may not want to control particular points. Not everybody has every point linked up to a point motor. Secondly, you can use the control buttons to control

other things that may not be standard, e.g. a weird multi-way point, in which you would make up the point without using the point icons, then manually position the red and green dots where you want them. You could also use them to control multi-aspect signals

separately.

There is only one advantage in having them combined and that is that you don't have to press another button to add the control buttons then drag one of them to the point. For me, the two advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Remember

also, that you tend to produce a track design once. It's not like you have to do it all the time to control your layout.