[eric from trainsim]

I created a utility called Tangent years ago, which was intended to calculate the QDirection (rotation) that a straight piece of track needed in order to connect two curves over an extremely very long distance (i.e. 10-30 miles).

The concept was simple - the user would enter in starting and end points (XYZ + W coords), and and the QDirection would be calculated. By going into the W file, the QDirection would be updated for the starting piece of track, and then connecting pieces added to that to complete the straight run. It's horribly accurate over distances as long as 20 miles (the longest I tried).


With the increased use of TSRE, one of the users contacted me for some help on how to get it to work, and the short answer is that it won't, at least not as it was designed, but with a simple mod to TSRE, it could still be used as intended.

The current editing box for track objects looks like this...

 capture__200354.jpg (4.58K)
Number of downloads: 1

The X, Y, and Z can be edited, but the Rot cannot.

How hard would it be to allow the Rot box to be updated as well?

[eric from trainsim]

Goku, hoping you might be able to give a thumbs up or down on whether or not that field can be manipulated thru the GUI.

In the legacy RE, we can change a QD outside the RE, click on the track section in the RE, and the vector gets reset in the TDB. I'm not at a point to test this in TSRE, but it would be good to know if this concept can carry forward in your editor or not.

[Goku]

Quote

In the legacy RE, we can change a QD outside the RE, click on the track section in the RE, and the vector gets reset in the TDB.

In TSRE you can reset the vector too. Use "Z".

You can also enter qDirection in editor. Use "paste rotation" button.

[eric from trainsim]

I know you can copy and paste a rotation from another existing section, but can you directly enter it?

Using .6892, I don't see a "Paste Rotation" button. I see several "Paste" next to "Copy Pos", "Copy Rot" and "Copy Pos+Rot".

If I use the same "update the W file outside of TSRE" method, the TDB never gets updated when I select the track section in TSRE. Note the shape's blue outline and the TDB line when I manually change the QD... TSRE is clearly reading from the TDB, not the W file. If they're different, shouldn't the W file over-ride the TDB?

 capture__200361.jpg (137.41K)
Number of downloads: 9

If you made the ROT box editable, and were able to ensure that the new rotation/QD got updated in the track object, that would fix the issue.

[Goku]

There is No issue! Everything you want - works. Look for it.
I'm sorry but won't tell you more now because it will make Dave upset xD

[cnw_fan]

This would be very handy if a feature like Tangent would be made available in TSRE. I am one of the users of Tangent and I still have to use MS editor to use Tangent to get rotation of the two points it would make sense if this would be worked in at some point.

[eric from trainsim]

Goku, on 26 February 2017 - 04:23 PM, said:

There is No issue! Everything you want - works. Look for it.
I'm sorry but won't tell you more now because it will make Dave upset xD

Well, I've looked. And I'm not finding it. Not sure why answering a direct question would make anyone upset.

I see where you can enter in a bearing (transform, and then define Y for rotation), but that's not the same as entering in an explicit QDirection. A compass bearing is not directly convertable to a QDirection when you're dealing with a skewed world projection.

What does work is deleting a piece from the TDB using the Z key, and then adding it back in.

Here's the process (Todd, take note and try it if you want)

1) Add the track piece
2) Save and exit TSRE
3) open up that W file in a text editor
4) change the QDirection for the track section
5) re-open TSRE
6) navigate to the track section
7) Select
8) hit Z to delete from TDB
9) Select again
10) hit Z to add piece to TDB
11) add the next track piece

It would be safer if you could just

1) Add the track piece
2) Update the Rot / Qdirection
3) Add the next track piece

[Goku]

eolesen, on 26 February 2017 - 04:53 PM, said:

Well, I've looked. And I'm not finding it. Not sure why answering a direct question would make anyone upset.

Because I gave you the answers. Don't you see them? I can't give more "direct" answer.

[eric from trainsim]

No, I'm not seeing them. You said look for paste rotation, and there's no such button. Nor am I seeing a way to specify the QDirection manually.

You can look at my screenshot and see exactly what I'm looking at.

If there's a way, perhaps you could do a screenshot and upload it so I can see what you are trying to describe.


You've been asking recently why people still feel they need to use the other RE... from my use of it over the past few days, it's almost to the point where I'd be comfortable staying with it. Some of the key sequences are a little confusing, but the functionality appears to be very solid.


Being able to edit the QDirection is important to those of us using Tangent. There's a workaround to mimic how it works in the RE, but I'd rather see updates enabled thru the Rot box, just as you do for the X/Y/Z. It would be safer, and it would be faster.

[Jovet]

I am pretty sure it's the Paste button next to the Copy Rot button. If it were captioned Paste Rot that would make more sense.

[eric from trainsim]

Jovet, on 27 February 2017 - 03:27 PM, said:

I am pretty sure it's the Paste button next to the Copy Rot button. If it were captioned Paste Rot that would make more sense.

I tried that. It allows you to copy the QD from another track section or scenery object and apply it to the selected object, but there's no data entry option.

What I want to do is enter in a quaternion value that's being calculated by an outside utility.

[Jovet]

eolesen, on 27 February 2017 - 03:43 PM, said:

I tried that. It allows you to copy the QD from another track section or scenery object and apply it to the selected object, but there's no data entry option.
What I want to do is enter in a quaternion value that's being calculated by an outside utility.

Oh, sorry, I was under the impression you couldn't find the Paste button Goku was talking about.
The quaternion values are just regular text on the clipboard. You could type them into Notepad or something and Copy them to the clipboard and Paste them into TSRE in the interim.

[eric from trainsim]

Jovet, on 27 February 2017 - 04:21 PM, said:

The quaternion values are just regular text on the clipboard. You could type them into Notepad or something and Copy them to the clipboard and Paste them into TSRE in the interim.

Thanks Joseph, that was the trick. It's a little kludgy, but copying the quaternion values over to the Windows clipboard worked with the Paste button next to "Copy Rot"


Todd (and others), I'll see if I can spend a little programming time to read in tile & X/Y/Z values from TSRE like the current app does with the RE's camera window.

The current functionality already copies the entire QDirection () line over to the Windows clipboard, so it's straight forward modify Tangent to copy just the quaternion values for a TSRE user.

[Goku]

Quote

kludgy

? It is much easier to just copy and paste something instead of typing by hand ...

[SP 0-6-0]

Is Tangent still available any place?

Robert