Faster Ways to Prune Boards?

[quakers1]

Hello all,

As of right now, I am in the process of modifying the blank DEM of my Thayer South Sub (glad I kept the blank in my Trainz) to where it only has the route from West Memphis to Hoxie. My reasons for this is that doing the whole Thayer-West Memphis was really starting to eat my route's performance. I've decided to do the plains segment because it is home to most of the locals on the route.

But, pruning all the boards northwestward from Hoxie is starting to be a real hassle, mainly since deleting the boards in Surveyor is a one-at-a-time affair. Here is my question. Is there a way to lop off several boards at one time?

Thanks in advance for any help, and thanks even more for reading my post!

Cheers,

-Ace

 

[JCitron]

Sorry Ace.

There's no other easy way, sadly. We've asked for this ability for ages. A lasso tool to select a bunch of boards would be very handy.

I have had some luck zooming way out and clicking on boards. This seems to work a bit faster this way.

John

 

[quakers1]

Hey John,

Thanks for your speedy response. Since it's now clear that we have no way to mass prune boards, I'll give the map method a try. That should make things faster where I'm not having to prune more precisely.

Thanks again for your help!

-Ace

 

[Dermmy]

Just to add to John's:

Get zoomed out, but a low camera angle. Have the mini-map open, also zoomed out a fair way. Click the mm to move the cursor to the very corner of a board. If you are deleting towards the North you want to be in the north-east corner. Right hand on the mouse as normal, left hand poised over the 'Enter' key. Starting from as far away as you can see and working back towards the camera you can now 'Click > Enter > Repeat' and with the correct cursor placement and camera angle you get a minimum of 6 boards (8 is possible!) in not much over a second without moving the cursor. I've deleted hundreds and hundreds of boards this way - you build up a rhythm and it really does get done quite quickly. Just be very careful when deleting the board the cursor is actually on, the view will spin and land you on another board. There is a pattern to this also, it's not random, but it is VERY easy to find yourself blithely deleting on the 'wrong side of the line' after the cursor moves....

Andy

 

[mezzoprezzo]

One more tip

Andy,

Sound advice and a method which I always use. It takes around one second to delete each baseboard if the mini-map is left open.

~snip~ the view will spin and land you on another board. ~snip~

Not if you change the settings.

In Surveyor Options make sure camera behaviour is set to panning, not rotation. The latter is very disorientating. Worse still, it also spins the mini map.

The panning setting:

• Gives a nice smooth parallel, or right-angled, glide from one area to another
• Reduces the risk of deleting the wrong bits
• Provides a stable mini-map which will no longer revolve as you are deleting

Modelling in Surveyor, I find, is also much easier with the panning setting. Since finding it, I've never changed back.

Cheers
Casper

 

[JCitron]

Many thanks Andy and Casper for adding to my post.

I'll have to check the panning setting myself. Being spun around is really disorienting, and I have made many a fatal click and had to start over again with my trimming.

John

 

[mezzoprezzo]

You're very welcome John.

I'd be interested in hearing how you, and anyone else who changes to panning setting, get on.

Casper

 

[JCitron]

You're very welcome John.

I'd be interested in hearing how you, and anyone else who changes to panning setting, get on.

Casper

Works awesome!

Thank you, Casper. No more dizzy spells while surveying.

John

 

[Dermmy]

I've changed Rotating/Panning a couple of times out of curiosity (and again last night!) but for normal Surveyor work I honestly don't see much difference in behaviour. Next time I'm deleting boards though (and there's about a million to come off the Evansville Western Master DEM very soon) I will try the alternative again. I have pretty much mastered coping with the 'spin' though - I might miss it!

Andy

 

[mezzoprezzo]

I've changed Rotating/Panning a couple of times out of curiosity (and again last night!) but for normal Surveyor work I honestly don't see much difference in behaviour. ~snip~

The behaviour of each does appear quite similar when first trying them out. When using combined controls, the differences can be more apparent.

Here are the main differences I have found.

Panning
RMB+movemouse navigation follows the intended direction in a straight line. When combined with use of the arrow keys with the other hand, L or R key taps will spin the view to a new straight direction. Up/down keys will tilt the view.

Rotation
RMB+mousemove also follows the intended direction, but only for a limited distance. If you keep the RMB held down with the mouse moved to the L or R, the straight direct movement changes so that the terrain spins around the viewpoint in a continuous circle until RMB is released. The further to the L or R the mouse is moved with RMB held down, the tighter the radius and speed of the spin will be.

Panning, IMHO, is the preferred option when dealing with baseboard management, whether adding or deleting. Removing the spin helps enormously with reducing errors, particularly when embarking on mass destruction!

Casper

 

[maruffijd]

Here's a tip I use. I first carefully cut a 2 board wide path along the edge of what I am keeping so as to isolate the area to go away and as a result, it helps to keep the cursor moving around only the boards I wish to remove. This greatly eliminates the possibility for the cursor to accidently move to anything I wish to keep.

 

[JCitron]

Here's a tip I use. I first carefully cut a 2 board wide path along the edge of what I am keeping so as to isolate the area to go away and as a result, it helps to keep the cursor moving around only the boards I wish to remove. This greatly eliminates the possibility for the cursor to accidently move to anything I wish to keep.

That's a great tip.

Thanks for posting.

John

 

[maruffijd]

It took 3 redos on a map to finally think "what if I..."

 

[mezzoprezzo]

Here's a tip I use. I first carefully cut a 2 board wide path along the edge of what I am keeping so as to isolate the area to go away and as a result, it helps to keep the cursor moving around only the boards I wish to remove. This greatly eliminates the possibility for the cursor to accidently move to anything I wish to keep.

Hi maruffijd

That tip of yours is a really good one. Thank you.

I’ve just spent a few minutes trying it out on a big route. After creating my two baseboard protective “moat”, I started the deletion process.

With a lot of boards to delete it became very soporific after a while – it’s very easy to lose concentration during a lengthy deletion process. It’s therefore worth watching out for the final baseboard you want to delete! After zapping the final board in the unwanted group, the cursor immediately jumped over to the good stuff, almost prompting me to delete a board of what I want to keep!

Keeping the mini-map open during the whole process is a good plan, zoomed out so that both areas can be seen. You can then watch the reduction in volume as each board gets zapped and get ready to stop before deleting the important stuff (with no Undo option!).:'(

If the unimaginable should happen, however, all is not lost. I have found that you can exit Surveyor using the Esc key to open the dialogue box and choose the Don’t save option. All will then be as it was prior to the last save.

 

[maruffijd]

Hi maruffijd

That tip of yours is a really good one. Thank you.

I’ve just spent a few minutes trying it out on a big route. After creating my two baseboard protective “moat”, I started the deletion process.

With a lot of boards to delete it became very soporific after a while – it’s very easy to lose concentration during a lengthy deletion process. It’s therefore worth watching out for the final baseboard you want to delete! After zapping the final board in the unwanted group, the cursor immediately jumped over to the good stuff, almost prompting me to delete a board of what I want to keep!

Yea. I forgot to mention the last board snap jump. I appologize for that.