Download links for VE Track Starter and Lofy?

[R Soul]

Download links for VE Track Starter and Lofty?

A Google search doesn't find anything for Lofty, and the only thing found for VE Track Starter is the rfactor central announcement, which frustratingly directs us to a thread on racesimcentral. So can someone provide download links for these two programmes please?

 

[Tim Robinson]

There ya go, although last time I tried VE track starter didnt work

 

[R Soul]

Thank you \o/

 

[42Cliff]

there also is the apply heightfeild script

I had to split the archive because of attachment limits

 

[R Soul]

I appreciate that, but I don't have the necessary things to run python scripts, but I don't think I'll need that level of precision. I'm not trying to make an accurate recreation of a street layout, just a mostly genuine street layout with believable gradients.

I'm thinking of taking some country roads, which tend to have nice corners (e.g. not all 90 degrees) and varying gradient, and making a race track based on those.

Obmit, VETS doesn't work for me either, but it's main advantage over making the kml in Google Earth was that I only needed a few clicks to get the layout. A mistake I'd been making with GE was that I was trying to stick to an exact road layout, meaning lots of points were needed, but the GPS data isn't precise enough for such small scales. In GE I just tried using as few points as possible, and that seemed better when the heights were applied. I can always add more points in BTB if I really want a corner to be an exact shape.

At least Lofty works, which is good because it's quicker than nearby.org

 

[42Cliff]

the python scripts...

Requires Pyhon scripting language and the Python Image Library to be installed:
http://www.python.org/
http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/

its simple to install and free, but I have yet to get everything working the way I think it could. I think there is great potential in this script if it could be made to work with gdal instead of the imaging library, also it would be amazing if someone could get that script to work with surfaces as well as nodes and terrain. :thumb:

 

[R Soul]

I must be doing something wrong, because the new xml file stops at node 0:

<nodes count="77">
<OnlyOneNodeSelected>67</OnlyOneNodeSelected>
<LineType>BezierSpline</LineType>
<node NodeId="0">

And that's the end of the file.

In the same folder I have:
applyHtFld.py, heightField.py, test0000.png and Venue.xml

I even put these in my python installation folder to be sure of being able to run everything.

If I double-click applyHtFld, I get the above broken xml file. If I run it from the command prompt, I see this:
Opening Venue.xml
Will write to new_Venue.xml
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "applyHtFld.py", line 6, in <module>
btb. writeNewFile()
File "C:\Python26\heightField.py", line 201, in writeNewFile
y = self.htFld.getElev(x,z)
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'getElev'


When I installed the Image Library, it found my python 2.6 folder, and put it's files in C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\PIL\

Any idea why it's not working?

edit: OS = Windows XP, SP2

It doesn't seem to matter which XML file I use.

 

[42Cliff]

Using Notepad or another text editor, edit applyHtFld.py to point to the file you want to use as source.

did you remember to do this bit?

this is the line you put the file name in:

btb = btbFile('roughTerrain.xml', htScale = 1./1024.)

also, your venue has to have the heightmap as the first background image in your venue

I havn't played with this script lately, so it May have to be tweaked a bit if there were changes to the way the xml is written now vs when it was written (many versions ago)

 

[R Soul]

I did set the venue filename, but I didn't set the background image. I thought the file just had to be in the same folder as the .py files.

A further adjustment was needed to get it working:

When the background image is set in BTB, a <Path> element gets created:
<Path>Common\Textures\test0000.png</Path>

But the script didn't like that, even if I put the file in that relative path.

I then compared it to the same element in the included example:
<Path PathType="Absolute">test0000.png</Path>

After making that change to my own xml file, it worked, but I had to change it back to the previous format to get the track to load in BTB. It's nice to have another means of setting the heights.

A problem for the script and for Lofty is that soon BTB will be saving files in a different format :/

 

[42Cliff]

so, is this the line that needs to change?

re_pathbg = re.compile(r'<Path PathType=".*">([^<]+)</Path>')

is this what it should be now? (I know nothing about scripts)

re_pathbg = re.compile(r'<Path>([^<]+)</Path>')


and yea its a bit of a bummer on the xml change, but the performance is totally worth it, maybe get the track layed out and elevated in a older version of BTB, then import it into the newer version for final tuning, objects and export. bet that would work