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Kalmbach Publishing Co.

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Tools and support exclusively for KPC and affiliates


Download Trackplan Tools

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Trackplan Tools v. 16 for Adobe Illustrator CS6 and CC

Trackplan Tools is a plugin by Rick Johnson/Graffix that’s proprietary to Kalmbach Publishing Co. and is available to Kalmbach’s affiliates at no charge. In order to use the plugin, you must authorize it. Add it to your “cart” and at the website’s checkout, enter the code “mr21027” for a 100% discount. You’ll receive an email with your authorization code. Copy the code from the email, then in Illustrator go to Illustrator’ application menu, Illustrator > About Graffix Plugins > Trackplan Tools. Click the Activate button and in the dialog that appears, paste the code into the first of the four text fields and click that dialog’s Activate button. If you’re connected to the internet, within a few seconds you should receive confirmation that the plugin has been activated.

Usage

Trackplan Tools consists of four tools plus a panel (formerly known as a palette). To show the panel, select Trackplan Tools from the Window menu. The tools should be visible in the tool bar.

The Gauge combobox refers to track centers. The popup includes standard track centers for common scales, and now includes two Lionel settings, O27a and O27b for 4.5″ or 6” track centers.

The Radius popup is for curves, and now includes the most common radii for toy trains, along with its diameter in parentheses.

The Curvature popup includes the common curvatures we’re likely to use (in degrees) with the number of pieces per circle in parentheses.

A flyout menu has been added to quickly set or restore either global plugin defaults or document defaults.

When using the turnout tool, pressing the cursor up or down keys will increment the turnout size by .5, or pressing 4, 5, 6, or 8 on the keyboard will give you that size turnout. If you’re connecting a turnout to an existing path, pressing the Control key will spin the turnout around to connect at the diverging route. If you release the Control key, then press it again, the turnout will spin to connect at the straight section. Pressing the Command key will draw the curved section of a turnout only, for the last track in a yard ladder.

When using the straight line tool, holding the Option key while starting to draw a tangent to a curve will give you a tangent guide line so you can drag along the curve to find the tangent you want, then release the Option key to start drawing the constrained line.

When drawing a curve, pressing the up or down keys will increase or decrease the diameter by the track-center distance to make concentric curves with consistent track centers. Pressing Command while drawing a curve will add an easement. Pressing the left or right key will add or remove additional curve sections while dragging. Pressing the [ or ] keys will increment the curve diameter by one inch or turnout size by .5, but unfortunately only works when NOT dragging, but be aware that pressing it too many times in a row can cause Illustrator to crash.

Using the keyboard to adjust the turnout size or radii as you work updates the panel settings accordingly. In the panel’s flyout menu are items to save the panel settings as the default for the plugin when starting a new track plan, or they can be set for the current document. Either the global or document defaults can be recalled at any time. A Defaults button on the panel will quickly reset the panel to the document defaults after changing settings.

The plugin now includes an annotator that displays information next to the cursor for instant feedback. It shows the size of a turnout or crossover as we draw it, the radius of a curve (plus number of curve sections and total rotation), or the length of a line. If you’d rather not see the annotations, select the item at the bottom of the flyout menu for a preference to hide or show them.

You can use the line tool to simply measure something in the scale of the drawing by holding down the Command key: if you’re pressing the Command key when you release the mouse, the just-drawn line will disappear.

Please let me know if you encounter any problems or have any suggestions.

Rick Johnson
rjohnson@kalmbach.com
support@rj-graffix.com


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