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Curves

R

richard64

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wales
I seem to remember asking this before but I can't in what forum so please bear with me.

Without spending half my life drawing countless points is then an easy and simple way of drawing curves in ADE.

Regards
 
If you are talking about taxiways and apron edges then all curves are a collection of straight lines.
 
richard64 said:
I seem to remember asking this before but I can't in what forum so please bear with me.

Without spending half my life drawing countless points is then an easy and simple way of drawing curves in ADE.

Regards
Click to expand...

The short and long answers are both No. FSX always draws a straight taxiway between any two points. Since it does draw curved join lines - fillets (that ADE currently does not show) between any two points and an angle to each other the number you need to draw would not be as many as you might think looking just at ADE. ADE will support displaying fillets but there are currently no plans to introduce a curve drawing tool for taxiways.
 
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scruffyduck said:
currently does not show) between any two points and an angle to each other the number you need to draw would not be as many as you might think looking just at ADE. ADE will support displaying fillets but there are currently no plans to introduce a curve drawing tool for taxiways.
Click to expand...

The fillets in AFCAD (such as when taxiways went around a bend) were a wonder to me. It seemed that almost always, the way the fillet area looked in AFCAD, was identical to the way it looked in the sim!

I guess Lee figured out exactly the method Microsoft used?
 
One technique used by folks into military AI is to use very, very large parking spots are a guide for making a curved taxiway, or apron.

If the taxiway and the runway are 300 feet apart, the taxiway 100 feet wide and the runway 200 feet wide, a 300 foot radius parking spot would give you a guide to create a 180 degree turn in the taxiway to join the runway.

A 600 foot radius parking spot would give you a guide for a nice smooth 90 degree turn.

Just follow along the edge of the parking spot to place your taxiway nodes.

And don't forget to delete the parking spot when you are finished.

Military guys also like to add the extra pavement where the taxiway lights are located and use parking spots as guides to make the extra aprons look appropriately curved.
 
Mace said:
The fillets in AFCAD (such as when taxiways went around a bend) were a wonder to me. It seemed that almost always, the way the fillet area looked in AFCAD, was identical to the way it looked in the sim!

I guess Lee figured out exactly the method Microsoft used?
Click to expand...

True - we do know how to do it but it just hasn't gotten to the top of the list yet :o
 
rfields said:
One technique used by folks into military AI is to use very, very large parking spots are a guide for making a curved taxiway, or apron.

If the taxiway and the runway are 300 feet apart, the taxiway 100 feet wide and the runway 200 feet wide, a 300 foot radius parking spot would give you a guide to create a 180 degree turn in the taxiway to join the runway.

A 600 foot radius parking spot would give you a guide for a nice smooth 90 degree turn.

Just follow along the edge of the parking spot to place your taxiway nodes.

And don't forget to delete the parking spot when you are finished.

Military guys also like to add the extra pavement where the taxiway lights are located and use parking spots as guides to make the extra aprons look appropriately curved.
Click to expand...


Now why didn't I think of that :D
 
I'd still like to be able to create circular aprons for military-style dispersals - specifying the diameter and number of vertices would be ideal (and save many tens of hours faffing!):)
 
In many CAD-like programs you have a set of shapes (round, oval, rectangular...) that you select and then apply by clicking with the mouse and dragging the object up to the size you want.

Curved lines are done by creating the two end points and then extrude the line by selecting and dragging.

It would indeed be a hell of a feature if such a technique could be used to create aprons and taxiways.
 
Even if it's only an approximation, the ability to produce accurate shapes must surely be an advantage, and I'd argue it's worth it even if only as a time saver.
 
Tim_A said:
...the ability to produce accurate shapes must surely be an advantage, and I'd argue it's worth it even if only as a time saver.
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree. It would be a huge time saver. I have spend hours to get things into perfect circles. This would go by the snap of a finger this way.
 
Well using a temporary parking spot would certainly be a way to do it ;)
 
I know this trick for some time. And it is a very good trick. You would wonder how big some parking spots already have been in EDTG. :)

Still it's only a trick. This could easily evolve into a feature with more than just time saving potential.
 
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