AnyRail 6 Tutorial Video 36 Addendum

I just wanted to go into a little more detail about what the endpoint angles of the track in a helix mean.

[@brettolsson]

Thank you so much for this video series on AnyRail! You have pointed out many, many techniques available with AnyRail's features for doing preccision placement than I think I would have ever stumbled on. On the apparent illogical ordering of data when you look at the "Details" of the helix, I tried a 5.5-loop helix (putting the helix on the end of the layout, so need it to do a 180º turn, hence the extra 1/2 loop) and I get even more randomness in the ordering. The ordering of the sections of track as listed in "Details" is as follows: loop 1, section 1 loop 4, section 4 loop 2, section 1 loop 2, section 4 loop 3, section 1 loop 4, section 1 loop 1, section 2 loop 4, section 3 loop 5, section 2 loop 2, section 3 loop 4, section 2 loop 5, section 1 loop 6, section 2 loop 6, section 1 loop 2, section 2 loop 3, section 2 loop 5, section 3 loop 5, section 4 loop 1, section 3 loop 1, section 4 loop 3, section 3 loop 3, section 4 One possible explanation could be the programming language and data structure employed by AnyRail's design. For example, I play around some with the Python programming language, and it suppots a data structure called a "dictionary". Without getting into specifics, while you may populate a dictionary in a specific order, when doing a dump of all of the data in the dictionary, the data can be presented back in an arbitrary order. This could be why, for "Details", there is no apparent ordering of the sections of track, nor consistency with the order of the start & end locations/angles within each track section (i.e., using a dictionary structure within a dictionary structure). Not saying, if this is the type of data structure AnyRail employed, that the data in "Details" couldn't be presented in a more logical order with some additional effort, AnyRail would need to determine whether implementing a more logical ordering of data in "Details" is practical or cost-prohibitive. Also, I tried using a 60º curve as the basis for the helix for a little more granularity than 90º in the entry-exit angles, but while AnyRail appears to draw & present the helix correctly, some pretty big location errors start showing up in the "Details".

[@steampoweredradio2981]

Brett, Thank you. That is interesting information. It's nice to know that it is just not me that is experiencing this. I have never been good at programming languages. Basic is more like trig to me and I was never good at math. If I needed something digital, I would always go straight to discreet logic chips rather than a PIC. I sometimes like to repeat myself on what AnyRail does not do correctly and I do that because I am hoping that someone at AnyRail sometimes views my videos and maybe they will make a change. My next video, which needs script revisions right after I post this, talks about making a helix out of discreet turns. That way, you can use any angle curve you want, remove sections or add in curved turnouts on different levels. Should be up on KZbin by Thursday. I think it will cover what you want to do. Dave