[Plugin] Eneroth Railroad System (v 0.1.21)

deaneau

Technically that would work and a friend and I used a similar system to store metadata in file names for an early web project before we new about databases. However it would in the end mean the same thing as choosing these values (tunnel, bridge etc) from dropdown lists in the same form as name and description are written and store it in the same file.

The problem is that the user must be able to add own information that could be just about anything. A track can be made of dancing sharks or purple mushrooms with pink stripes or whatever and I can't make a list of all words and phrases that could theoretically occur. Those examples are quite extreme but what if a user wants to add Lego style tracks, or Märklin M tracks? I don't want to limit users to just make what I originally thought of with something as arbitrary as the user interface when it's actually supported by the rest of the code. If I had added such a limitation from the start there probably wouldn't even be roads now.

yes i understand your problem.. than i would say... description if possible in english.

here one of a railroad dictionary

Just a moment...

(www.csx.com)

Page Not Found

Page Not Found.

(www.trainweb.com)

i think if the creator will have a big range of user will understand, that the best way is to do this in english.

lastly i have had an example for russian or japanese creators that write the description in the own language. only russian or japanese user will understand this.
no other would be use this content if this is not in english.

look at other plugins written from chinese developer. english is important to popularize this plugins world wide.

EDIT:
i think you need only 4 main categories and than some subcategories

how many route of transport you know?

i know railroad, street, water and air. ok space for the future is possible, too
than you could split this in subcategories.

remmember you, you can not only design railroad. your plugin can more than this.

is a good idea to communicate this.

dean

ppoublan

Hi Eneroth,
First thanks for this amazing plugin. I really appreciate the way animation is done and the "open" features that allows customization of all objects.
I have a wish and would like to know if this is something you could think of :
I would like to be able to run custom script at each image change, to be able to render images in external render. I've seen its possible to add points where external script is called, but adding them one by one for each image would be too long.
Just an idea...
Yours
Pascal

eneroth3

@ppoublan said:

Hi Eneroth,
First thanks for this amazing plugin. I really appreciate the way animation is done and the "open" features that allows customization of all objects.
I have a wish and would like to know if this is something you could think of :
I would like to be able to run custom script at each image change, to be able to render images in external render. I've seen its possible to add points where external script is called, but adding them one by one for each image would be too long.
Just an idea...
Yours
Pascal

This is a great idea! I've been thinking about renderers and if they could be changed to run a script each frame but that's really backward. Letting the plugin run a script each frame and tell the renderer what to do is much better since I don't need to change the renderer.

edit: Or perhaps both. In case there are renderers that have the feature to run a script between each frame I can add a method to the plugin that can be called with the time difference as argument (this more or less already exists but isn't documented).

eneroth3

I've started working on the Advanced Animation Settings which includes running custom code between frames.

@ppoublan: Is there any specific renderer you where thinking of? I'm quite new to rendering but was thinking about some example code to show in the documentation.

ppoublan

Wow,
Your moving too fast !
My idea was at least at the beginning to be able to export as obj file the geometry of each image and generate the cmd line to render, and to be able also to export as 2D SU image (but with support of styles, shadows, custom size...) things that are not supported when using integrated make avi file from SU. Code for this exists in many plugins.
My personal final goal is to call Octane integrated render for SU, that is in beta now, but has in the todo list feature for future version to support calling the render from SU by script.

here is very simple example of code it could call

imagewidth = 1280
imageheight = 720
imagecompression = 0.7
imagetransparent = false
view = Sketchup.active_model.active_view
view.refresh
imagefilename=<string to build from model name + index>
keys = {
:filename => imagefilename,
:width => imagewidth,
:height => imageheight,
:antialias => true,
:compression => imagecompression,
:transparent => imagetransparent
}
view.write_image keys

Example of animation created by own script, would like to make same kind of result but with objects animated by your railroad system

edit
just for fun, after printing in 3D, the wheel built and rotated by a lego robot without contact

eneroth3

My first video exported with the plugin. Also the first time I can see the trains run with shadows, fog and textures without lag .

ppoublan

Yes, yes, yes. Great !!!! Like it.

deaneau

eneroth3

The latest version of the plugin is now published. Now rolling stocks can be added to the library from their context (rigth click) menu so there's no need to write stuff in the terminal any more! The documentation for custom tracks has been improved with images showing how different parts are drawn. Advanced animation settings now allow users to execute code between each frame. An example how to make a simple animation with Sketchup's own view.write_image has been added to the documentation.

(Images from documentation showing what's the extrusion, arrayed parts and endings)

deaneau

Eneroth busy as a bee!
thank you

Oxer

The new feature to export animation images is really fantastic , here a quick test of video animation created with Quicktime Pro
http://youtu.be/khK_p5UaK4g

eneroth3

@oxer said:

The new feature to export animation images is really fantastic , here a quick test of video animation created with Quicktime Pro
http://youtu.be/khK_p5UaK4g

First I couldn't understand how you could move the camera while exporting. Then I realized that it's probably my computer that is so slow Sketchup nearly freezes when exporting. Each frame takes several seconds for me .

Oxer

On my computer export each frame it's near to real time (milliseconds) with shadows included. I have a iMac i7 3,4GHz 27" (mid 2011) 16GB Ram.

eneroth3

@oxer said:

On my computer export each frame it's near to real time (milliseconds) with shadows included. I have a iMac i7 3,4GHz 27" (mid 2011) 16GB Ram.

Hehe, I'm on a 1,8GHz (dual core) with about 3GB ram. I think it's time to replace it .

deaneau

eneroth3

Cool bridge!

have you created custom track types for street lights and bridge deck?

deaneau

@eneroth3 said:

Cool bridge!

have you created custom track types for street lights and bridge deck?

no not really.
this was a bridge for a simulator and i have try to combine this. i have this design by photos

http://structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?ID=s0005274

some parts of the bridge will be possible however the suspender cables ,the tower and pier will not possible.

i can send you the sketchup model and you can try what´s possible.

is a bridge possible with more than 2 "tracks"?

dean

eneroth3

I think everything but the cables could be drawn as a track type. if the cables were straight even those could be included but the bridge would be a lot less cool.

You can follow the instructions for double tracks in the docs and just make it wider to fit more tracks of the corresponding track type.

ppoublan

Hi Eneroth,

Thanks again for this amazing plugin and the add of custom code at each frame.
I’m playing like a kid with its new toy.

Here are some suggestions/ideas for improvements. Feel free to discard…

I created a custom track (Lego type) with small gauge (0.084m) and scale. Do not know if this is link to this scale but then I got sometime strange behavior when adding new tracks from webdialog:

Can’t create even straight tracks of less than a length (60cm) without getting ties drawn in the opposite direction of the rails.
For slips, tracks at each end are drawn over the slip, not externaly
Do you want a copy of tracks I made to test or this is something you already seen ?

Not sure you can do something with this, but when placing an object (track, train, …) , cant zoom with the mouse wheel until it is pressed one to activate orbit tool. This is not the case with other SU tools.

I replaced default signals. Will wait for the customization doc. One thing is I’m not sure why you need left and right template. Why not to place/rotate within the tool.

When working on complex models, it should be great to be able to change the type of multiple tracks at once. (select many and change the type) in place of doing this one by one.
Would like also a way to force reloading and redrawing tracks when template has been changed.

Regarding camera, maybe a fixed point but with eye following a train would be interesting.

Last, I played a lot with balises. This is the most interesting part. I added 3 instance variables to the balise class to be able to build with the balises a kind of auto-controlled circuit to avoid collisions and add more trains to the same circuit.
These I think may be useful :

Last train : to be able within a balise code to access to the previous train that passed the balise (and not only the current one)
Last run : time the balise was last activated. I use this to control spacing/speed between trains
Custom status : a variable to store a user state for each balise

Yours
Pascal

eneroth3

Hi Pascal

I've never tried making such small tracks but I can look into it. It'd be helpful to see the file. The mouse wheel doesn't work as long as the web dialog is focused and I don't think I can do much about it.

The signal system is quite old and will be replaced completely. Some signal types can show both left, straight and right will some only can show straight and turn so it's a bit complicated but the new system will contain one model only and the hidden property will be changed on the lights/arrows instead of replacing the component.

I have planned for some time to make the track properties dialog work on multiple tracks but haven't been sure how to do it. I'll keep working on this.

I've actually tested to follow with a fixed camera by changing the source code temporarily and it would be quite easy to implement technically but I'm not sure where to put the options in the UI. The Drive Train dialog wouldn't work when you follow a rolling stock without having the tool activated.

The Balise ideas are great! I'll defensively look into it.

Christina