SCARM modelling software

[Mixy]

Hello dear friends,

 

I want to introduce my freeware layout design program, called SCARM, which you can download and test from www.scarm.info/index_en.html.

 

I will appreciate any comments concerning SCARM here or by email – scarm at scarm dot info.

I was not sure where to post this topic, so I do it here - please excuse me if I'm violating some of the forum rules.

 

Mixy,

from Bulgaria

[Chris Nevard]

Looks very interesting! For the UK market you need to add Peco Steamline with small/med/large radius pointwork and flexitrack. Looks really simple to use

[Mixy]

Thank you, Chris

 

I will start working on Peco SL library soon, but for now it is difficult to find relevance data of Steamline geometry with all needed dimensions, angles and radii. The info on Peco web site is not enough, so I continue to search.

 

Mixy,

from Bulgaria

 

 

 

[shortliner]

Mixy - you will find some dimensions/angles/measurements here

 

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/kBOmTOxtWjwEJcxjY9S7XYZ3v6ElLXJ9pEsorSRKGIEDzfIndKBr7H_mCIEsKpwfw_lM9Mo91paDw_NBQwM8nw/XTrkCad%20Turnout%20info/XTrkCad%20Turnouts.doc

[Rammy]

Hi Mixy

 

Nice piece of free software - thank you.

I managed to knock up an image of my proposed depot area within a couple of minutes:

 

 

 

Only problem I has was I started placing parts too far left and couldn't work out if there was a way to move the track once it was down?

Great work though.

 

Dave

[trisonic]

No plans for Apple?

 

 

Best, Pete.

[kevinlms]

Thank you, Chris

 

I will start working on Peco SL library soon, but for now it is difficult to find relevance data of Steamline geometry with all needed dimensions, angles and radii. The info on Peco web site is not enough, so I continue to search.

 

Mixy,

from Bulgaria

 

 

 

 

Hi Mixy

 

Is this link adequate?

 

 

http://www.rmcq.mixedpk.com/worksheets/peco_turnout_dimensions.pdf

 

Kevin Martin

[Mixy]

Thank you, guys and sorry for late reply.

 

The information was very useful and now SCARM includes Hornby and Peco Streamline and Set-track libraries as well. The new version 0.4.0 is ready and you can download it from www.scarm.info/index_en.html. The main new feature is working with heights, so now layout can be deployed in more than one level. See How to set heights and slopes topic in FAQ section (www.scarm.info/index_en.html#faq) for details.

 

@trisonic: Unfortunately, there is no Delphi for Apple, so I am unable to port SCARM source for Apple computers.

 

@Rammy: Yes, you can move the tracks at the desired position. Select the tracks, hold Ctrl key and drag selection with left mouse button.

 

Mixy

[Kenton]

@trisonic: Unfortunately, there is no Delphi for Apple, so I am unable to port SCARM source for Apple computers.

Instead of Delphi use the open source equivalent - Lazarus - not much of a big step in coding terms. In fact it is usually a breeze to move over to Lazarus if you are into OOP Pascal. The only issues may be Borland specific libraries or, obviously, Windows libraries (it is not great with .NET)

 

Lazarus works perfectly on Win/Unix/Mac platforms and with all the usual caveats should involve minimal pain.

[Mixy]

@Kenton: Yes, Lazarus is multiplatform IDE, but SCARM uses some non-standad VCL components and some Windows-specific API calls and porting will be too much difficult and time consuming for me.

[Kenton]

@Kenton: Yes, Lazarus is multiplatform IDE, but SCARM uses some non-standad VCL components and some Windows-specific API calls and porting will be too much difficult and time consuming for me.

Understandable for something being developed as free to end user, but ignoring a whole marketplace if not.

Arguably, developing "non-standard" components is not good OOP and as for using Windows specific API, well, that is just Microsoft.

[Mixy]

@Kenton: I am respecting Apple users, but please note that I am working over SCARM in my free time as programmer, tester, documentation-writer, translator, track-libraries maker and doing all this for free - I am not gain money from SCARM and I just haven’t time to port and test it on other platform than Wintel. As non-standard components I mean some free utils that I am using in my projects (but without Pascal sources) and I suspect that they also are Widows-specific.

[Will Vale]

Just had a play with this and I think it's off to a really good start. I like the interface and the breadth of track libraries available.

 

One minor tweak which would be really useful - when undoing the most recent piece of track, it'd be good if the endpoint of the piece before that stayed selected, rather than deselecting as now. It would make re-laying a piece of flexible track which didn't end up quite right a lot faster.

 

Longer term, it would help to have the piece of flexible track you're laying automatically snap and align to an open endpoint if brought close enough (in distance and alignment). Unless there's a way to do this already? I realise this isn't trivial, but like the "join tracks" command in XTrkCAD it would make freeform layouts a lot easier to complete.

 

[edit: just realised this *is* possible if you get things perfectly lined up, but I still think it could do with a bit more auto-align tolerance]

 

Cheers and thanks for producing such a neat tool!

 

Will

[Mixy]

Thank you, Will,

 

The tolerances in current versions are very small – 1 mm and less than 1 degree – just because I want to be sure in precision of track geometry of different libraries when I test them. In some of the next versions I will make tolerances to be user editable, so flex-track snapping will be much more easier. About Undo and deselecting of last free endpoint – I will try to fix this in the next versions.

 

Check the FAQ section of SCARM website – there are all tricks and hints for the user interface and layout modeling with flex-tracks.

 

Mixy

 

 

 

[Black Sheep]

Hi,

 

I appreciate that you've done this in your own time, does SCARM support Peco N gauge or is there an N gauge library on there that is similar enough to get an idea of the plan thats in my head?

 

thanks

[Mixy]

@Black Sheep: Peco N gauge is not supported yet, but I will try to make it soon, hope till end of the month You can switch to another of the N-scale libraries included in SCARM, using drop-down menu in the top of tracks selection panel.

 

Mixy

[Black Sheep]

I'll have a play when I have my windows machine up and running (it's sulking again) and need to transfer some stuff to it

 

i mainly use a mac due to my work, download things I need on the PC and when it warrants burning a CD I put it all on and transfer it

[Mixy]

Dear firends,

 

I am happy to announce the new version 0.5 of SCARM - my free railroad modeling software

 

The new features are free shape baseboard drawing, continuous flex-track modelling (using repeat function with Spacebar), zoom-to-mouse and recent files list. See Version history and FAQ section at http://www.scarm.info for more details.

 

I am searching for Atlas turnout dimensions and geometry data. If you know other track producers and track systems that are not included in current library set, please let me know. I accept any ideas, comments and requests regarding SCARM’s interface and features.

 

Thank you for using SCARM – I hope that it works well and will be useful to you

However, it is still in the beta development stage, so if you found some bugs, let me know to fix them.

 

Mixy,

from Bulgaria

[Mixy]

Dear firends,

 

New version 0.6.0 of SCARM is ready and released on http://www.scarm.info/index_en.html.

 

New features are Parts list, Libraries grouping, Extended multilanguage support, new track libraries (Atlas, Bachmann, Bemo) and some other minor improvements. See Version history and FAQ section in the SCARM web site for more details.

 

Mixy,

from Bulgaria

[Mixy]

Hello again,

 

I am happy to announce releasing of new version 0.7.0 of SCARM

 

The most important new features are Print and Print preview mode for WYSIWYG layout printouts. See how below:

 

To print the whole layout in SCARM, just press "Print" button from the toolbar – the program will automatically fit the track route onto the page and will print it on the default printer.

 

If you want to see the page with your layout before printing, press "Print Preview" button from the toolbar – this will activate Print Preview mode.

 

If you wish to print given part from the track route, make sure that Print Preview mode is active ("View" > "Show as Print Preview" must be checked), move and/or resize the drawing to get desired layout part into view and then press "Print" button - SCARM will print the page exactly as it is viewed on the screen. Remember that you can edit your project and make all other things no matter whether you are working in normal mode or in Print Preview mode.

 

If you make changes while working in Print Preview mode, so layout orientation is no longer optimal, toggle off and then on again "View" > "Show as Print Preview" – SCARM will set the page orientation according to current layout orientation. Press "Fit to Page" button from the toolbar if you wish to fit the layout on the page. Actually, switching off and on the "Print Preview" button does the same thing for you.

 

If you wish precise control over the printing process, select "File" > "Print" and set desired options in the print dialog box.

 

Note: If the layout has a baseboard defined and there are tracks outside baseboard contours, those tracks will not be taken into account when SCARM calculates layout position and size in the printable area.

 

I hope that print features in SCARM will be very useful, but if you have suggestions or other ideas about better printing, please let me know.

 

Mixy,

from Bulgaria

[Mixy]

Hello again,

 

The new version 0.8.0 of SCARM is ready

 

Most important new features are standalone installer, support for turntables and baseboard editing. There are also many corrected and updated libraries, due to some errors like doubled track names, doubled item numbers and some new parts. If you are using a turntable that is missing from SCARM library files, let me know and I will add it in the next update.

 

Mixy

[emac]

For those Mac users out there I Downloaded The new version 0.8.0 of SCARM on my iMac, a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 8GB of memory ran the install wizard and opened the program through Parallels which runs Windows 7 and seems to run OK now I just have to learn how to use it!!

[Rammy]

Hi Mixy

I have just been using Scarm to create a new plan. I must say the software was really easy to use.

Now that I have the trackplan down, I would like to have marked where a shed and fuelling point would go, but I can't see any way of doing this. Is this supported?

Dave

[Mixy]

Hello Dave,

 

Creating of custom shapes is not supported for now, but I am hard working over 3D objects and I hope that they will be ready soon

When completed, it will be possible to add platforms, signals, buildings and all other things, needed for realistic representation of the layouts in the program.

 

Greetings,

 

Mixy

[Mixy]

Hello again

 

The new version 0.8.6 of SCARM is ready

 

The most important new feature is automatic 3D terrain generation. It will allow realistic 3D representation of the layouts, which have defined heights, bridges and/or tunnels. For example, here is a simple layout with shape of the digit '8' with two stations and with predefined heights of the tracks:

 

 

If the tracks in the lifted middle section are set as bridge, the layout will look as follows:

 

 

 

If the tracks in the other (lowered) middle section are set as tunnel, the layout will look as follows:

 

 

 

 

To look through terrain, you can switch to “Wireframe†mode, using View > Terrain > Wireframe from menu bar in 3D viewing mode. To make terrain invisible, use View > Terrain > Invisible.

 

Quality vs. Speed of terrain generation is controlled from Tools > Settings > 3D View. It is recommended to keep Automatic setting, which is default – the program will automatically adjust quality/speed of terrain calculations according to your layout. Large layouts with complex track development will require more time for rendering of the terrain. You can turn off terrain generation if you prefer old, flat baseboard view or if terrain calculations are too slow for you.

 

Terrain engine will help for better visualization of multileveled layouts and is cornerstone in SCARM development, because all future 3D objects with assigned heights depend on the terrain shape. I will create terrain modeling interface so you will be able to create your own mountains and valleys in SCARM.

 

Also, some bugs were fixed and now it is possible to zoom while modelling flex-tracks. Check also the Portable page in the Settings - it will be useful for those of you who prefer to use SCARM from USB memory sticks.

 

Hope that you will enjoy the new features – more will come soon

 

Download the new version from http://www.scarm.info/index_en.html

 

Mixy