AnyRail

Anyone used this ?

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=A335 to buy

Chris

Reply to
Dragon Heart
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Why not just try the free download for yourself?

Or try XtrkCad which is completely free.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

XtrkCad is without doubt the most unintuitive piece of software I've ever used - I even had to read the tutorials before I could get anywhere ;-). But it is, as pointed out, free, and it does do the job. I've not tried Anyrail.

Reply to
airsmoothed

Ah, you've obviously not tried Templot :-) . Difficult and obscure is an understatement. I don't accept the Templot luvvies description of "its different to anything else so you have to climb the mountain before you can use it". I am happy with the Templot developer taking the view of "its my software I can do what I like", but equally, what I would like is software which attempts to follow standard UI design principles.

- Nigel (20+ years as a UI designer)

Reply to
Nigel Cliffe

No, I've always regarded Templot as track design SW rather than layout design SW, IYSWIM, and I've never had the need for that kind of SW.

Reply to
airsmoothed

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£35 to buy

Chris

I find it one one the easiest to use although it has its limitations, I have not found an easy way to do odd shape layouts, its square or oblong only as far as I can see, but so much easier than Xtrkcad etc.

But is it worth £35? I paid it but to be totally honest I don't think it is, for what you get it should cost £5 really, in reality the program and code puts it more in the shareware category than something worth £35, If you are expecting to be able to produce layout designs like the one on the front page of their Web-Site you may be disappointed, I suspect that's been worked on in an Art Package.

Paul

Reply to
Paul

It would be nice if the track layout could be knocked up in Xtkcad or whatever, then exported to Google Sketchup so buildings etc. could be added in 3D.

Reply to
airsmoothed

:-) Which is my point really. You have to try these things for yourself to see if you can get on with them. A bit like DCC throttles.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

I've done that, its simple. Export the XtrkCad design as a GIF/JPEG (can't remember if the software has this as an export, or if I went through a screen dump with CTRL-Print Screen, then paste into a painting package). Import to Sketchup as a surface to place on one face of a 3-D rectangle (the baseboard). Then plant buildings around it. I even put some cuboids with pictures of locos/stock on them to give an impression of the trains, plus photos on elevations of buildings, etc.. Really quick, but gave me the information I was seeking on the composition.

- Nigel

Reply to
Nigel Cliffe

Good call, I hadn't thought about doing it that way. There are a few pieces of model track in the Google 3D warehouse, but not many. Some nice UK outline station buildings and suchlike:-

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Reply to
airsmoothed

Simply because some of these types of software contain spyware etc. and they are sometimes not even worth the effort downloading them !

Reply to
Dragon Heart

"airsmoothed" wrote

What's up with a good old-fashioned pencil and the back of an envelope?

John.

Reply to
John Turner

Not a lot John!, especially for intial 'feasibility study' - but really I'd like to know if the layout I'd like will actually fit in the space I've got reasonably accurately before committing chainsaw to plywood. :-)

Reply to
airsmoothed

I'd agree that Templot is overkill unless you either a) love the nice pictures it produces b) are keen on getting transition curves looking really nice with flexi track (a definate plus in my book) c) want to see what you layout looks like in 3D (using GoogleSketch or other CAD package of choice)

I also agree that the UI is not perfect, but if ever there was a case for adopting the Acorn mouse button scheme (Select, Menu, Adjust) with context sensitive menus, Templot is it! Bloody Windows.... ;-) I think Martin will know what I'm on about.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
beamends

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like I need to update some things ... like price.

Byron's page is worth a read as is his site on other areas of planning

I did not find any 'nasties' with any of them, but if you have some updates on that?

Reply to
Lester Caine

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