Current Design Software???


I just checked and I'm using 3.1.4, which I got from the file library of the group you mentioned. I like the program, it's easy to use and works well, but at least for me it's not stable. I'll have to try it on my desktop, my laptop may not have enough resources. It does run 3rdPlanIt just fine though, so I don't understand why XtrkCad is giving it fits.

Nice looking layout, you should post some images of your plans to the photo gallery. I'm trying to get the layout design area to be more active.
 
I just checked and I'm using 3.1.4, which I got from the file library of the group you mentioned. I like the program, it's easy to use and works well, but at least for me it's not stable. I'll have to try it on my desktop, my laptop may not have enough resources. It does run 3rdPlanIt just fine though, so I don't understand why XtrkCad is giving it fits.

Nice looking layout, you should post some images of your plans to the photo gallery. I'm trying to get the layout design area to be more active.

Will do. You want the progression or the finished product?
 
Will do. You want the progression or the finished product?

If you have the finished product, that would be what I'd post in the gallery.

As for the progression, that would be cool to post here, along with some step by step discussion of what you did and how you got there.
 
Sorry Bob, misunderstood.

No problem. I can see where if you read my post on it's own, without the context of what I was replying to, it could easily be read as saying you have to do that in a model railroad CAD program. I didn't exactly word it in the best manner. (I've since cleaned it up a bit...)
 
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well I just use ACAD 2007 and draw all of it in 3d including benchwork, the room etc..I have been doing this for years. I am a retired Architect and well I work for the government now but on my free time its MRR and designing that ultimate layout for me. :) I remember drawing on the o'l board.. gosh I be o'l timer LOL.
That's what I was thinking (I have '02 at home, '04 and '05 at school, and '07 and Inventor 11 at the machine shop). My mechanical drawing class is the one of the best classes I have all day :) . We did do board work for the first half of last year, to learn the basic concepts, but I'm partial to the computer now :rolleyes:
 
I would not let that get in my way. You are thinking in terms of how long it took you to draw it in 3rd Planit.

I have complete basement drawings in 3rd Planit that I have abandoned. Plans that took days with 3rd Planit take hours to replicate with XtraCAD. There is also a good tutorial that takes maybe 4 hours to run. But once you do, you can do about anything. I learned it a lot faster than I did 3rd Planit and 3P was my third layout design program.

That is a very good point, Chip. After thinking about it, I have made many many changes that have either been roughly added to the plan or not at all. This may be a good time to make the switch. Thanks for the thought.:)
 
I've just about made up my mind to redraw my layout from scratch on XtrkCad, since [as in Rex's case] many facets of the current trackage differ from the original plan.

However, I'm a bit concerned after reading about Bob's experiences with it crashing his computor. Has anybody else here ever run into that problem?
 
Nope. Never has crashed my computer. I loaded it originally on the one I'm using now, a win98 desktop. I also loaded it on an XP laptop I rebuilt and an old win95 laptop. Works on them all without problems.
 
However, I'm a bit concerned after reading about Bob's experiences with it crashing his computor. Has anybody else here ever run into that problem?

To be fair, I was running it on my laptop, which is 3 or 4 years old, and not exactly state of the art. It's usually pretty stable, but I think I may have been hitting a memory problem.
 
To be fair, I was running it on my laptop, which is 3 or 4 years old, and not exactly state of the art. It's usually pretty stable, but I think I may have been hitting a memory problem.
Bob, did you ever hibernate that computer?
 
To be fair, I was running it on my laptop, which is 3 or 4 years old, and not exactly state of the art. It's usually pretty stable, but I think I may have been hitting a memory problem.

I had the program crash when I hit parallel track. But it only happened one night and it stopped after i rebooted and refreshed my memory.
 
I only got the demo version of 3Rd Planit, i must admit it's confusing to use but i have not tried anything else
 
XtrkCad more memory intensive than 3dPlanit? That doesn't seem right. :confused: Maybe it just doesn't handle the memory usage as well.

So as not to be misunderstood, 3dplanit is an excellent program that will do anything and everything you could possibly want with accuracy for an MR software program. More so than what I am learning about XtrkCad, but that lengthens the learning curve and makes it more time intensive to do work. It has more than what many of us need and is far from being as user friendly as what Xtrkcad seems to be. I believe a matching comparison would be like ACAD vs. TurboCad.

My consideration for using Xtrkcad is solely based on its apparent ease of operations and the time needed to redraw my track plan without all the frillies.:)
 
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...My consideration for using Xtrkcad is solely based on its apparent ease of operations and the time needed to redraw my track plan without all the frillies.:)
...plus, being able to share [modifiable] trackplan files with a multitude of other XtrkCad users!:D
 
I never use hibernate, since it does tend to make things a lot more unstable, at least on this model.
Thats good, cause I killed a computer that way. I have yet to ask Microsoft if there's anyways to alteast get a free copy of XP to reinstall when I get a new HD.
 
Xtrakcad vs 3PI

Interesting thread. My personal experience is that Xtrakcad was very difficult for me to learn and 3pi was very easy for me to learn.

See my blog entry on this subject where I evaluated these two pieces of software.


Only my opine

Joe
 



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