On Tuesday 30 January 2007 15:33, Curtis Olson wrote: > A professor at the University of Minnesota is looking at doing a project to > evaluate several different combinations of train crossing signs. This will > be a "psychology" style experiment where you set up maybe a dozen different > scenarios, run boat loads of people through, and then take statistics on > what combination of signage works the best and what people like the best > ... something like that ... I don't attempt to understand the world of > psychology ... :-) > > They want a system that is mostly non-interactive (so that they can have a > room full of people watch the scenario at the same time.) Essentially you > are driving in a car (which you don't see), you come up to a train > crossing, there is a train actually crossing in front of you, and the > signage does the appropriate thing ... in this case it's either a static > sign, or a sign with different combinations of blinking lights. > > FlightGear seems like a perfect platform to rig up their experiment. It's > "free", it can run on just about any OS, it only requires a single > computer, we can script the view point motion, we can script and animate > the signs (this is daytime only), we can script and animate the train, it > should be all doable with some 3d models and a few nasal scripts. There's > a guy here who can do the environment model and the signage. I'm planning > to set up the xml animation files and do the nasal scripting. > > So my question is this ... to save us some time, does anyone out there have > a 3d train model in their back pocket they would be willing to contribute > to FlightGear? I'm thinking diesel locomotive, some sort of box/cargo > cars, something in plausibly north american markings. The train will be > travelling in a perfectly straight line across perfectly level tracks so we > don't have to worry about the complex linkages between the cars ... the > whole train can be animated as a single model, but it would be nice if the > wheels spun relative to the train speed. > > Thanks, > > Curt.
Hi Curt, [second attempt at posting] I did a UK Class 56 diesel loco for a picture I was working on and you're welcome to that but I didn't need any wagons for the pic so I cant help you there. Perhaps a 'light' engine movement would sufice :) There's a wip image of it at http://www.spatial.freeserve.co.uk/V5/im_Class56.008.003.jpg The model wouldn't be usable in FG in it's current form, as it's made from a combination of SDS, NURBS and Analytical solid objects and it's in RS3D format so I'd have to convert it all to SDS before I could export and convert it to AC3D format. The conversion would take some effort because some of the modelling techniques I've used only work well with the particular object formats I've used, for example, I've used boolean NOT or trim curves to cut holes in surfaces (can't remember exactly which technique I used) but if were to make that surface and it's hole AC3D compatible I'd actually have to model the hole. You can see this in the image linked to above in the grills in the side of the roof - the roof surface is SDS but the holes are boolean/trim-curve cut-outs and the grill 'slats' are analytic cubes. Actually, now that I've thought about it while writing this, I'd probably do the grills with a texture, rendered from the model itself, Anyway, let me know if you want it (it's a UK loco remember, not a US one, so just that fact might cause some confusion among the viewers) and if so, what sort of time-scale would it be needed by. LeeE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
