Anyrail License Key Free
Berry Spitsberg
AnyRail is a great tool for drawing model railroad panels. It includes a feature to Export as JMRI Layout Editor File. By default, this tool works fine to bring in a background image and your track diagram, but leaves a few steps incomplete. The steps below will move the generated Internal Turnouts and Blocks to your default hardware connection, create occupancy sensors tied to the Blocks, place icons for each of those new sensors, and make several cosmetic improvements. Follow the steps below to enhance your JMRI Panel:
1) Assign meaningful unique "Name"s to your AnyRail Sections. Start that "Name" with a unique number that will correspond to your selected Sensor hardware. e.g. "223 South Staging Lead". Make sure the name will still be unique when the number is removed.
2) Assign meaningful unique "Label"s to your AnyRail Turnouts. Start that "Label" with a unique number that will correspond to your selected Turnout hardware. e.g. "131 South:Staging 5". Make sure the name will still be unique when the number is removed.
5) Take the option "Export As: JMRI Layout File". This will create 2 files, an .xml file and a .jpg file. The .xml file contains the layout editor elements, such as track segments, blocks and turnouts. The .jpg file contains the "background" with all labels, scenic elements, drawn objects, etc. that you defined in your AnyRail drawing.
8) In JMRI, use File, Load Table Content and Panels... to open the file you just exported. (You can also add this action to Edit, Preferences, Start Up if desired)
You should see your JMRI track diagram, and a properly-scaled background image with your text and other graphics on it).
10) In JMRI, run the script AnyRailExportAdditions.py. It is included with JMRI, in the jython/anyrail folder.
Alternately, you can edit Preferences, Start Up, Add, Add script to button..., which will make it easy to rerun in future iterations.
15) Once you have the Turnouts, Blocks and Sensors named as desired, run the script "AddOccupancyIconsToPanel.py". This will create and place occupancy icons on every block on your panel. Test your blocks by clicking on the new occupancy icons and see that the expected track segments show as occupied.
16) To preserve your changes: File, Store ALL table content and panels. You can use the same name, or make a new name. Remember if you use a new name, you may need to change your Start Up to load the correct name.
No - if this is a plan for actually building something, you just need to see what happens when you actually put the track pieces together - there may be enough wriggle room for the gap to be unnoticeable. So just leave it for now.
But if you need it to be "perfect" without gaps for a simulation, try this - which works in XTrackCad, so might in Anyrail. Close the circled gap by moving the crossing and the SL-100 to its right to their right, so the gap now appears between the crossing and the SL-89 to its left. XTC will not do a "join two tracks" across the gap (it sees the tracks as parallel but misaligned), but if you start a bit of flexi from one side of the gap and make it the right length, it will let you "connect" it on the other side (although in close up you can still see the misalignment). This won't work across the circled gap, as the misalignment there is too great for the "forced connect" to cope with.
You need to replace the upper central SL-89 with a shorter turnout of the same kind, leaving a short but straight gap. Is it intentional that you are aiming for parallel movements through the slip? If not, the left pair of sl-89s are redundant.
I am pretty sure that that configuration won't work with standard unmodified Peco points as there is no point the same length as the double slip (and long crossing.) (9;9") the 5ft is pretty close (10.1") You need a 3ft radius (8.6") point and a stupidly short (1.3") bit of track or chop a bit off (0.2") the end of the 5ft point with the dremel and a cutting disc to get it to the same length as the slip . The stupidly short bit of track won't stay flat and the cutting disc will probably loosen the rails in the plastic sleeper base and ruin the point anyway unless you are very very careful..
I have done exactly this - take some flexitrack, cut it to approximate length, remove the individual rail sections, file to correct length if necessary, then solder to either of the planned adjacent sections and then replace as many sleepers as possible onto the soldered ends. If there is a gap between turnouts why would you cut them. I did this on my previous layout in several places without any trouble, the main thing is to ensure that the soldered extension, which has been inserted into a fishplate, does indeed remain flat during the process.
Areal world solution to the situation,i often play on anyrail but its just getting used to driving it to solve things like this buy cutting up flexytrack and keeping the of cut for other bits of drawing.
I finally got to the point of placing my first track component. I will say that one benefit over AnyRail is they show the track by what it actually is, and not the Tomix catalog #. Also - it's much easier to identify the track segments graphically, vs. the generic - confusing AnyRail icons. I had to create my own cheat sheet for the 20-30 track types I thought I might be using in AnyRail.
It was easy enough to drag a track piece onto the baseboard, but the real fun started when I wanted to rotate it. Just because this is a graphical application is no reason to think that there is some easy way to do that graphically - as is the case with AnyRail.
Instead, you need to select the Toolbox from the Tools menubar option, then select Start, and identify a start location using X/Y axis locations. Then you need to specify what angle you want the track at by numeric degrees. That was the point where I decided to quit. With AnyRail, I can place track on the layout surface, snap them together, and rotate or move them freely - using easy and fast graphic functions.
I know some folks on the forum like SCARM, and I wonder what their reasons are - outside of it being free. Are there alternate methods to positioning track other than the ones the rather minimal documentation and help videos pointed me to?
For the rail placement, well, the easiest way is to start from a piece of track parallel to one of the borders of your baseboard ! :)
Or else, just click on the right mouse button, select "New Start point" (first item), and place your new starting point with the angle you want. Easy and quick.
after using quite a few different track programs over the years (xtrak cad, 3rdplanit, anyrail, scarm, cadrail, railmodeller) ive realized its one of those things that seems to have different pathways for different folks. None i have used has ever felt like yes this is it! some ive thought the logic on how to do things totally nutz, but others thought it brilliant and visa versa! Ive settled on telling folks if they have simple needs just find the ones that works best for your brain, but if you have very specific needs then its pays to go over feature lists and put up with logic that does not speak to your brain so well to get the best combo of features you need.
Notes are always good with these kinds of programs as walking away from them for a bit usually means some non intuative to you features get lost and then its frustrating refinding and relearning them... xtrakcad is the worst like that for me w/o my old notes...
I'm sure the SCARM author would love your constructive feedback. Maybe you could send him an email with the same subject as the title of this thread? He does, after all, put a great deal of time into creating a robust product, which while far from perfect and has quite a steep learning curve, is available free of charge.
Our club has use xtrakcad thru it's whole history as it is free and thus all members could grab it to review plans and such. unfortunately the logic is opposite my brain but one of our other club members who did a lot of track planning it spoke to well. I always struggled thru using it to do planning as I realized it was free for all of us. Even so it has served me and the club very well. I still use it for certain things and I am always grateful to the developers that created it and keep it going, for FREE!
Also with a group no one program was going to be perfect (and there is the whole spectrum of programs defaulted to by individual club members!) so compromises need to be made and accepted and then just get the work done.
As mentioned previously, I prefer the SCARM labeling, which does not require a cheat sheet. I think that's about all I prefer, but I do admit to having used AnyRail first, and that often forms a bond. I had started trying SCARM multiple times previously, and had always stopped because I found it so non-intuitive. This time I was more determined, but the insanity of the process required to manipulate track elements just blew me away.
I think the logic behind is to build the layout as you would build a real railway line : start from a certain point and move forward, laying the rails where you can, with the limitations of your chosen track system.
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