Beta Testers wanted for Bulk Decal Creation Tool

[nobkins]

Hi All,

Some of you may have been reading my Bulk Decal Creation thread but for those that haven't I have been trying to find a way of creating decals for RailWorks in bulk quickly from GoogleEarth. I started off manually creating them which was a 15 to 20 min process to create a decal covering a 1km square area. Then I hit lots of problems with large decals having missing chunks when used in RailWorks so any decal of 500x500meters had to be chopped up into separate decals.

Not only that but once you get the decals in to RailWorks they don't line up perfectly to Google Earth markers. The more decals you use the further adrift from the markers you become (unless you don’t align the edges of the decals properly to compensate for the marker discrepancy).

Anyway....

For the last couple of weeks I have been developing a script to automate the process of decal creation. I have given pre-release versions to Mike Simpson (the creator of the excellent RW Tools utility) to see if he could incorporate the decal tool into his utility. It does not look like that will be easy to achieve so it looks like RWDecal (the name of my decal tool) will be a stand alone utility.

I now have a beta version ready for release so would like to have some beta testers to find bugs and test it for me. I am using it already for a route I am working on (Harrogate Loop + York to Scarborough).

Here is a screenshot of the decals created by the tool in RailWorks. This only shows approx 2 km of decals. I have approx 5 km in the route which took approx 10 mins to create and import.



For beta testing I would like some people into IT as the script is written in Python and requires (at this stage) a little work to install it (about 10 mins).

If you are interested please reply to this thread or PM me and I will email you a copy of the tool.

What the tool does:

• Creates decals from GoogleEarth automatically by the user supplying 2 pairs of co-ordinates corresponding to the lower left and upper right corners of the decal
• Attempts to correct the issues with RailWorks interpreting Due North differently from GoogleEarth
• Breaks decals into chunks of no more than 500mx500m
• Creates blueprints for each decal so that all you have to do is export them using Blueprint Editor

Hope there are others who will find this useful.

Cheers

[pauls]

Hi,

Sadly I'm only doing design work in Rail Simulator at the moment so I'm not sure I can help you with the testing. However it looks a fantastic utility and will be incredibly useful for route builders.

A big thanks for writing this utility !!

Cheers
Paul

[nobkins]

Thanks to everyone for reading this thread. I have 2 beta testers and have sent them the first version. If there are any others interested please don't hesitate to PM me. It would be nice to have a few more testers.

I have managed to complile the script so it is much easier to install and use. Hopefully this will open it up to more users (and beta testers ).

So if you would like a free copy of a bulk decal creation tool to and are happy to give me feedback on problems please get in touch.

[nobkins]

Thanks for all the interest everybody. I have enough testers now. Found a few bugs already but nothing major. Should have a production release soon.

This is an awkward question to ask but what are peoples views on charging for tools and utilities such as these. I was thinking of making this donation ware. You would be able to use the software in a restricted mode for as long as you like but for the full version you would need to make a donation (an amount that the donator can choose not set by me as long as it is more than £1 - Paypal won't send anything to an account of less than a pound I believe).

I was thinking of restricting it in one of two ways. Either the zoom level of the software would be limited so that only relatively low resolution decals could be created. Enough for laying out scenery say but not enough to help with complex track work. Or I could make it so that only half of the decal was rendered.

Alternatively I could make it free to the community. This will give me a warm feeling inside but nothing for the 3 weeks development and research and continued development I plan to do.

I have used both donation way (ReDem) and payware (RWTools) and have been very happy with both and had no issues paying. However, free things are lovely and nice to have.

Your general thoughts would be appreciated.

[TjoeTjoe]

Should I say "make it freeware?" From my point of view, knowing that you spent quite some time on developing this utility, you have a good reason to ask for some kind of donation. Additionally, it is better to make such a decision now (at the initial release) than later on (new version etc). However, if you decide to make it donation ware or payware, people buying it are likely to expect support in case of problems or bugs and getting issues resolved.

Regarding the restrictions: my suggestion would be limitation of the zoom level so that only relatively low resolution decals could be created. This will allow people to see what the tool does and if it meets their requirements or expectations. My guess is that once people are convinced that the tool has big advantages, even though it is in low-resolution, they would be willing to donate for the full version. I think that is (from promotional point of view for the tool) a better approach than letting the limited version produce only half of the decal.

To me this tool looks very promising. It could help route builders creating prototypical routes without having to spend days on creating decals. I have been creating decals for a personal route a long time ago (in RS), but as it was time consuming, I finally gave up. Maybe this utility will get me “back on track”.

Good luck with final bits and hopefully further development.

[nobkins]

Update:

RWDecal is still in beta release but I have made a video tutorial to help people use it. It also gives a good insight into what the tool does.

Take a look:

[EDIT]video has been removed whilst V2 of RWDecal is indevelopment. Check back soon [EDIT]

[keithmross]

Great stuff Jim, a very clever tool.
Many thanks for efforts on this.

[moranb]

This does indeed look like a very positive development in the use of decals. It is coming up to two years since I wrote the original tutorial on making decals and of course, once learns many shortcuts as time goes on, but even so, it is still a fairly laborious process to make them manually. At this stage, in my route, I have all of the track laid and am now using decals mostly to provide a general indication of the location of fileds, rivers and roads so 100% accuracy is not necessary. Two questions, will the utility work with railsimulator of is it limited to working with Railworks? And seconfly, does it automatically change the size of the decals in the bin file from the default 20x20meters to the actual size of the decal ?

BFM

[nobkins]

I haven't tested it in railsimulator as I don't have a copy. If you could send me a copy of a blueprint.xml file created in railsimulator file for a decal then I will hopefully be able to check if it will work with railsimulator without any mods.

I think it probably will but it depends on whether the blueprint xml files I generate are in the same format for both RailSimulator and RailWorks (as far as decal blueprints are concerned).

In answer to your second question. Yes it does record with an accuracy of 1m or less the correct decal size in the blueprint. All you have to do (at the moment) is export the blueprints in blueprint editor.

I am hoping to have the ability to export the decals to railworks with out the using having to do this but I don't know the command. I believe it is the serz program I need to use (although I am not sure).

Does anybody have any ideas on what the command is to export a blueprint into RailWorks using serz (or what ever program you need). I should probably ask mike simpson this as his RWTools utility I believe uses serz for somethings and he probably knows the command line arguments.

[jaapsloot]

Regarding the Freeware-donationware-payware debate, I would choose for freeware with an option to donate for freeware routes, and obligatory donation for Payware/donationware route

It looks like a great tool


Jaap

[pauls]

Hi Jim,

When you process the decal in the Blueprint editor I think you will see the command used by the editor in the progress window at the bottom ?

eg......

C:\Program Files\Rail simulator\Serz.exe "C:\Program Files\Rail simulator\Assets\Kuju\Railsimulator\Environment\Terrain\Decals\test.xml" /bin:"C:\Program Files\Rail simulator\Assets\Kuju\Railsimulator\Environment\Terrain\Decals\test.bin"

I hope I haven't misunderstood your question ?

Cheers
Paul

I haven't tested it in railsimulator as I don't have a copy. If you could send me a copy of a blueprint.xml file created in railsimulator file for a decal then I will hopefully be able to check if it will work with railsimulator without any mods.

I think it probably will but it depends on whether the blueprint xml files I generate are in the same format for both RailSimulator and RailWorks (as far as decal blueprints are concerned).

In answer to your second question. Yes it does record with an accuracy of 1m or less the correct decal size in the blueprint. All you have to do (at the moment) is export the blueprints in blueprint editor.

I am hoping to have the ability to export the decals to railworks with out the using having to do this but I don't know the command. I believe it is the serz program I need to use (although I am not sure).

Does anybody have any ideas on what the command is to export a blueprint into RailWorks using serz (or what ever program you need). I should probably ask mike simpson this as his RWTools utility I believe uses serz for somethings and he probably knows the command line arguments.

[moranb]

I have both Railworks and Railsimulator, though I am building my route in Railsimulator as I find the latter more reliable than Railworks. I checked the decal blueprint in Railworks and I can confirm that it is identical to that used in Railsimulator. I can see no reason, therefore, why your utility should not work in RS. I look forward to trying it out when it becomes available.

BFM

[nobkins]

CALLING RSDEREK/RSADAM

Help!

I know you guys are very busy could you help me.

I am trying to automate the process of exporting my bluprints that have been made using my RWDecal tool. It would be great if I could pass a command line argument to the blueprint editor and have it export a blueprint automatically. Is this possible.

I have tried using the serz tool but the blueprint xml file undergoes conversion by the blueprint editor when it is copied from the source folder to the assets folder. I can not get this conversion to happen from the command line. I believe it is done by the blueprint editor.

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Once I have these final few pieces in place I can release my tool which I think will be a useful addon to the RailWorks tool lineup.

Thanks

[AndiS]

The way I do such things (processing many blueprints) is to stuff them all in a folder of their own and then right click on the folder in blueprint editor, selecting "export all blueprints in this folder" or similar. I asked your question long ago without avail, but this option is quite handy. Not as elegant, but still you get your 100 blueprints done with 1 interaction.

Regarding donationware, the first thing to do for me, if I were in your position, is ask Mike Simpson for a confidential figure on the returns of RW-Tools, then divide that by 5 or 10, because not everyone builds routes and not every route builder does big prototypical routes.

Personally, I believe in open source software, but I also understand the urge to get some return. An open source donationware project would be an interesting test, but clearly there is a lack of guinea pigs. The reasoning behind the open source idea is that this is a pretty small community and without cross-fertilisation, we all are not getting too far. Plus, as long as you trade money for merchandise, however small the sum is, it can get you into troubles with the tax authorities, in theory at least.

[nobkins]

Thanks AndiS,
At the moment right clicking and export all is how I am doing it (and how the documentation in the RWDecal tool states to do it). Just would be nice to automate the process one step further

I have decided to release 2 versions of the software. The first version will be slightly restricted but still provide a lot of functionality and be useful to many route developers. The second will have extra features that some (not all) will find useful enough to make it worth there while donating a £1 or more for.

The code will not be opensource as I have compiled the code into a exe so won't be releasing it as a native script. This also makes installing the program much easier as you no longer require python etc installed on the machine.

I would be happy to allow others access to my code if they wished to assist in the development. However to some extent the small community means that it often ends up being individuals who have to make the effort.

I am hoping this will be a succesful compromise. Giving something to the community for free whilst also helping me further develop the utility by the occasional donation for my advanced version. I am alrady up to nearly a month in development (and counting) although it is only evening and weekends the time soon adds up The minimum donation will be £1 so I doubt I will ever get enough from it require declaration to the relevent authorities but you never know.