Aligning an existing object to track, TSRE, like a bridge for example

[landnrailroader]

Colleagues,

I have two more large bridges to fine-tune the alignment of in my MCOA2
route which is coming nicely, looking like a late fall release.

At one point, there was an effort by Goku to provide a method where a
bridge (as example) could be aligned to the track around the vertical
axis, but not tilted to conform to gradient of the track. This is desirable
in the case of one of my bridges, actually a large double track trestle
because it is on a 2% grade, and this grade is built into the bridge.
The bridge or trestle is also in more than one part account of poly
count.

In the case of the other, the gradient is much less and so I would like
to align the bridge vertically, and also match the gradient angle of the
track. Supposedly there was a way to do this, but I cannot for the life
of me figure it out.

Any thoughts, or perhaps an addition to the "tips & tricks". I.e how to
align only in vertical axis, or align in vertical and to track gradient.

J. H. Sullivan

[Rick-MONON]

Place your shape and save it.
Go to the world file for the bridge.
Get the position info for the track piece under the bridge, you need the "Position and QDirection" info's.


Then replace the bridge placement info "Position and QDirection" with the track placement info "Position and QDirection" and save the world file.

Now it has the position and gradient of the bridge track, just position it where you want it exactly if it is not there already.

[ebnertra000]

Jerry,

There are some buttons on the left side of the screen when you have an object selected that copy the position, rotation, or both of the selected object. To line up the bridge to the track:

Select the track track piece,
Click the appropriate button to copy the data you need,
Select the bridge piece, and
Click the 'Paste' button next to the copy button you used (only that one will work).

You will see the results immediately, so you'll know if it worked

[landnrailroader]

Yes, that is what I am doing (using TSRE) but this appears to rotate only around the
vertical axis and I thought Goku was working on a way to do either around the vertical,
or the horizontal axis, or both.

Jerry Sullivan

[tooltroll]

I've used the copy/paste method described above for TSRE, and it worked the first time: The bridge lined up to both axes, and all I had to do was nudge it into place with the transform function. You're using the latest version, yes?