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TEMPLOT 3D PLUG TRACK - To get up to speed with this experimental project click here.   To watch an introductory video click here.   See the User Guide at Bexhill West.

  • The Plug Track functions are experimental and still being developed. Some of the earlier pages of this topic are now out-of-date.

    For an updated overview of this project see this topic.   For some practical modelling aspects of using Plug Track see Building 3D Track.

    The assumption is that you have your own machines on which to experiment, or helpful friends with machines. Please do not send Templot files to commercial laser cutting or 3D printing firms while this project is still experimental, because the results are unpredictable and possibly wasteful.

    Some pages of this and other topics include contributions from members who are creating and posting their own CAD designs for 3D printing and laser-cutting. Do not confuse them with Templot's own exported CAD files. All files derived from Templot are © Martin Wynne.
  • The Plug Track functions are experimental and still being developed.

    For an updated overview of this project see this topic.   For some practical modelling aspects of using Plug Track see Building 3D Track.

    The assumption is that you have your own machines on which to experiment, or helpful friends with machines. Please do not send Templot files to commercial laser cutting or 3D printing firms while this project is still experimental, because the results are unpredictable and possibly wasteful.

    Some pages of this and other topics include contributions from members who are creating and posting their own CAD designs for 3D printing and laser-cutting. Do not confuse them with Templot's own exported CAD files. All files derived from Templot are © Martin Wynne.

Admin Question -- Live screen demo sessions again

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Martin Wynne

Admin
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West of the Severn UK
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Enjoy using Templot?
Thanks.

Please do not send requests for help direct to me via email.

Post your questions on the forum where everyone can see them and add
helpful replies.
The last live Templot session was mostly a dismal failure, because so many folks suffered excessive video buffering. But those who did manage to watch it seemed to regard it as worth doing. So I need to think about where next with this idea.

edit: I have now set up an alternative streaming service on the Twitch system. Which is probably what I should have done in the first place, had I known about it. See later in this topic.

What time or day of the week would be convenient? No two people will agree, but we might reach a majority consensus.

If you didn't see the previous sessions, there are clips from a previous session at:

https://85a.uk/templot/companion/live_screen_archive.php

and the live screen page is at:

https://85a.uk/templot/companion/live_screen.php

cheers,

Martin.
 
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I know some of the electronic live streams I watch are on Twitch (I usually watch the archive on YouTube), but I've not looked into if you have to pay.

The quality is quite good i.e. I can easily see what they are doing in Kicad - electronics design software.
 
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I know some of the electronic live streams I watch are on Twitch (I usually watch the archive on YouTube), but I've not looked into if you have to pay.

The quality is quite good i.e. I can easily see what they are doing in Kicad - electronics design software.

Thanks Richard.

I'm going to have a look at Twitch next, even if it is supported by annoying advertising.

If/when I get Twitch running we can have a trial run. :)

cheers,

Martin.
 
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I seem to have got it working on Twitch:

https://85a.uk/templot/companion/live_screen.php

And so far the image quality looks reasonable, and I haven't seen any buffering.

Please have a look and see the red radius indicator flashing. Any buffering?

But I had to jump through so many hoops to get there, involving in-depth operations on my mobile phone, that I need to go and lie down for a while, and I've no idea whether I could ever get it going again. :(

But if it works, it's free!

cheers,

Martin.
 
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Hi Martin,
I went on around 21:15 and it buffered quite a bit for the first two minutes or so but has been fine since with the radius warning flashing at a constant rate, then it started buffering with the red/black staying on either colour for maybe 30 seconds before moving on.

Can you put the windows clock on top ?

Rob
 
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At least the link at my end is fast enough :)
Speedcheck.jpg

Rob
 
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Can you put the windows clock on top ?

Hi Rob,

Please could you rewrite that in words I can understand? :)

What windows clock? On top of what?

I have just enabled the time ticker on the trackpad if that's what you mean? It's so long since I last used it that I'd forgotten where it is in the menus.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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Sorry Martin, I use the Windows(7) clock gadget to save me burning my food if I am working away at something. It doesn't stay on top of the active windows though, you have to run Firefox or whatever in a smaller window and drag the clock back into view. Just thought it would maybe give a better idea of how long the pauses were.
clock1.jpg

Twitch seems to be running fine at present.

Rob
 
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Thanks Rob. I didn't know Windows had a clock gadget. :)

But in Templot there's a time ticker you can have on the bottom corner of the trackpad, if it helps. Amazingly it is showing only about 10 seconds delay on Twitch. I will leave the mouse on the menu so you know where to find it.

Twitch seems to be working much better than I expected. The buffering half-an-hour ago was due to a glitch on the Templot web site, not Twitch. I knew when we moved away from Jim's hosting that we were sure to get some occasional flakiness.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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At least the link at my end is fast enough :)
View attachment 747
Rob

Hi Rob,

I can't match your download, but my upload is better. Which is a good thing if I'm streaming Templot. :)

broadband_speed_results.png


But in my experience these speed tests are fairly meaningless and don't correspond to real-world usage.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1013
Thanks Rob. I didn't know Windows had a clock gadget. :)

But in Templot there's a time ticker you can have on the bottom corner of the trackpad, if it helps. Amazingly it is showing only about 10 seconds delay on Twitch. I will leave the mouse on the menu so you know where to find it.

Twitch seems to be working much better than I expected. The buffering half-an-hour ago was due to a glitch on the Templot web site, not Twitch. I knew when we moved from Jim's hosting that we would get more flakiness.

cheers,

Martin.
Thanks Martin, I found the ticker even though you had gone off line before I got back to the PC.

Concerning the live screen sessions - the content of the sessions is going to have a bearing on peoples interest in them in much the same way as the videos and documentation you make available. The times of the sessions will dictate who is available when they are 'live' but without the ability to enter into live chat on areas that maybe need clarification. Have you considered 'advertising' the sessions on other forums ( EM, S4, RMweb ) or is that likely to cause too much interest and become a burden?

Rob
 
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Rob must be connected over barbed wire :giggle:

It's working fine here.
Hi Andy,
No barbed wire here, just lots of rain and hailstones today. Even though we have fibre broadband that is just the bit from the junction box down the road to the exchange - the route into the house is via an old fashioned telegraph pole with the wire swinging in the breeze. Maybe the water gets in sometimes...... :(
Rob
 
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message ref: 1015
The times of the sessions will dictate who is available when they are 'live' but without the ability to enter into live chat on areas that maybe need clarification. Have you considered 'advertising' the sessions on other forums ( EM, S4, RMweb ) or is that likely to cause too much interest and become a burden?

Hi Rob,

Yes, I announced the sessions on RMweb, S4forum and the Gauge 0 Guild forum. See (both 2 pages):

https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7132

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/158426-templot-online-workshopdabble-session/

If folks want to cover specific subjects it's easy enough to say so in advance, here or the Chat, or on the other forums.

The main thing is we need to establish a regular weekly time slot, or maybe 2 alternating weekly slots. I asked earlier in this topic today for some suggestions, but only Charles replied. If I choose the time myself, everyone says afterwards that it wasn't convenient. Winning is not an option. :(

cheers,

Martin.
 
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Twitch says you are offline at the moment so can't pass comment other than to say that our son uses Twitch (I think it's something to do with some strange thing called Minecraft and mods), he hasn't mentioned any problems. We do have so-called Faster Fibre but the speeds at the sharp end (approx 70mb) fall well short of what arrives at the router(120mb so they say).
 
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I know some of the electronic live streams I watch are on Twitch (I usually watch the archive on YouTube), but I've not looked into if you have to pay.

The quality is quite good i.e. I can easily see what they are doing in Kicad - electronics design software.

I want to say a big Thank You to Richard for steering me towards Twitch. It seems that we have found a streaming service which is not only much better than the previous one, but is also entirely free. The Twitch stream was running for over 4 hours last night, during which time there was no buffering here, and I didn't see any advertising overlays or other interruptions.

When I originally looked at the Twitch site and saw all that computer gaming and social media blather, it didn't seem likely that hidden in a cupboard at the back of the web site would be the very stuff we needed for the live Templot demo sessions. :)

I'm getting all sorts of emails from Twitch about Clips and VOD and Channel Achievements and other stuff that means absolutely nothing to me but I can easily ignore them. They have told me that the stream last night lasted 4hrs 39minutes and received 11 individual viewers, with a maximum of 4 at any one time. So thanks to everyone for taking a look and reporting on the image quality.

You can see the stream surrounded by a lot of unintelligible stuff at:

https://twitch.tv/martintemplot/

But the actual video will be embedded in this page on the Companion:

https://85a.uk/templot/companion/live_screen.php

That page now needs updating with a few changes.

Twitch provides its own Chat service which I'm not going to try to fathom or provide screen space for. While running a live session we have our own Chat box at https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?chat/ which is the one to use to for comments and questions.

So -- when to try the next live session, and what would you like it to cover?

cheers,

Martin.
 
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Hi Martin.
I haven't commented thus far as for the most part I am available most times except for the first Thursday evening of the month. So it is up to others who are time poor to ask, I think. As for the subject matter, that's difficult as I can usually achieve what I need to (not always by the most economical means it has to be said) so I shall leave that to others with difficulties.
Regards
Tony.
 
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message ref: 1019
Thanks Tony.

It's running now, and I will do a short Templot demo later this afternoon, about 4.30pm.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1020
Hi Martin,

I have been tuned in for a short while and one thing I have noticed is that your commentary is a lot clearer on this format than the previous Scaleforum one and no buffering like the last version.

Thanks

Phil.
 
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message ref: 1021
Thanks to everyone who joined me this afternoon to test the new streaming. :)

As suggested I am now testing it at 16:9 ratio instead of 4:3. I didn't want to reduce the height because it makes it difficult to show all the menu items. So I have increased the width accordingly, and it is now streaming at 1664 x 936.

That has meant a 33% increase in the stream data. I expected that to cause a reduction in the image quality, but so far it seems mostly ok. It takes a bit longer than before to settle down, but then seems to do ok. It's showing now at:

https://85a.uk/templot/companion/live_screen.php

The best way to view it is probably to hold down the SHIFT key and click:

https://player.twitch.tv/?channel=martintemplot&parent=85a.uk

It will then open in a separate window which you can resize for the best fit on your screen. With or without the Chat alongside in this window.

I'm not doing a demo just now, but please watch the flashing red indicator for a while and report any glitches or buffering. Thanks.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1022
Hi Martin,
Just viewed the current livestream and it looks fine, quality is OK and no buffering seen.

As to the timing of the sessions, I really don't know what to suggest as best for me. I can be available most times ( along with Tony ) but interest in the session is likely to be greater if the session covers operations that I am not familiar with.

Is it possible to take peoples requests and announce that the session this week will cover catch points, stub turnouts and making the most of DXF output ( just examples ) so that people know in advance what is being covered. If something then happens last minute and anyone can't join in they can always catch up later.

If I had to give some times/days then maybe Saturday/Sunday starting at 19:00 :) I usually stay home weekends reserving the weekdays for my shopping, fishing and trips to Wales ( after the 12th of April...)

Rob
 
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I just thought I’d have a look using Safari on my iPad, and it works really quite well. Although obviously a small screen, the video is crisp and clear, with text clearly legible (with my reading glasses on!)

Oh, 68Mb/s download, 18Mb/s upload, on a nominally 80/20 package. I make extensive use of cloud services so fast upload is important.

Cheers,
Paul
 
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message ref: 1024
Thanks Paul.

The mystery to me is how it manages to catch up. When it starts it is about 40 seconds behind on the time ticker. The delay gradually reduces, it is now only 10 seconds behind. I suppose that's one way to be sure the system is coping with the data rate -- if the delay is increasing, sooner or later it is going to fail and start buffering.

Is that 80/20 broadband ordinary ADSL from the cabinet, or do you have cable?

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1025
Thanks Paul.

The mystery to me is how it manages to catch up. When it starts it is about 40 seconds behind on the time ticker. The delay gradually reduces, it is now only 10 seconds behind. I suppose that's one way to be sure the system is coping with the data rate -- if the delay is increasing, sooner or later it is going to fail and start buffering.

Is that 80/20 broadband ordinary ADSL from the cabinet, or do you have cable?

cheers,

Martin.
That’s from the cabinet which is only a couple of hundred yards away, if that.

I wonder if there’s some frames dropping somewhere, so it appears to catch up?
 
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I wonder if there’s some frames dropping somewhere, so it appears to catch up?

Yes, there's a trail of them across my carpet from the computer to the TV. :)

I wish I'd thought of using the TV to watch the streaming earlier, it's much easier than having them side-by-side on the screen.

My cabinet is not much further, but no-one is offering me those speeds.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1027
Is it possible to take peoples requests and announce that the session this week will cover catch points, stub turnouts and making the most of DXF output ( just examples ) so that people know in advance what is being covered.
Hi Rob,

Sure. I just need to know what's wanted.

Ideally each session would contain something for beginners, and also something more out of the ordinary for more experienced users.

Or maybe alternate between beginner sessions and the more complex stuff.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1030
Hi Martin,
Just had a look.
I can see much more of the screen now.
I'll attach a screen shot to this, I have fibre to cabinet which is just up the road provided by ZEN which gives me 75Mb/s download and 20 Mb/s upload.
Whole_Screen_Grab.png
 
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message ref: 1031
It turns out that Twitch keeps a recording of a broadcast live stream, which is available on demand for 14 days afterwards.

The upside of this is that it saves me the considerable time and effort of editing the recorded clips into a sensible video and putting them online.

The downside is that you get a raw recording of the session with no opportunity to edit out all the breaks, pauses, mis-clicks and mistakes.

So if you want to watch the session which we did on Saturday, you can find it here for the next 14 days:

https://twitch.tv/martintemplot/videos

I did enter some notes and information about what it contains, but how you get to see them I don't know. No doubt all will become clear as we get used to using this system.

edit: several Twitch users complaining that the description notes don't show anywhere. So I have added them to the video title, which you can see by hovering the mouse over the video thumbnail image.

Being a raw recording it starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in the middle of nowhere about 90 minutes later. To hear the audio you may, or may not, need to unmute the loudspeaker icon. To confuse you, there is no sound for the first few minutes of the recording.

The wide black column is caused by a mismatch in the aspect ratios. That won't happen on future recordings.

I will scrap the Live Screen Archive page and provide the above link instead.

Because the recordings remain online for 14 days only, I will also keep a recording of each session here. But I won't do anything with it unless I get a specific request for it after the 14 days are up.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1034
Hi Martin,

I have this afternoon managed to watch the entire broadcast and I can say that I have learned a few more tricks from it, how long I manage to remember them is another matter.

Thanks.
 
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message ref: 1035
Hi Martin.
As I managed to miss the beginning of the live session I have just watched the first part of the recording through my better laptop (64bit rather than 32) with a wide screen. The result is much clearer and I have a bit more volume to play with. I like the occasional bird song in the background. Like Phil, I have learned a few things too.

Thanks
Tony.
 
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message ref: 1036
I like the occasional bird song in the background.

Thanks Tony.

Sorry to disappoint you if you imagine I'm broadcasting while sitting in the garden in the sunshine. :)

The bird song is from the clock on the wall behind the computer. It plays a different bird song on the hour. I didn't realise it was being picked up by the microphone!

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1037
It turns out that Twitch keeps a recording of a broadcast live stream, which is available on demand for 14 days afterwards.

The upside of this is that it saves me the considerable time and effort of editing the recorded clips into a sensible video and putting them online.

The downside is that you get a raw recording of the session with no opportunity to edit out all the breaks, pauses, mis-clicks and mistakes.

So if you want to watch the session which we did on Saturday, you can find it here for the next 14 days:

https://twitch.tv/martintemplot/videos

I've had a change of heart on this. 14 days isn't very long for those who might have missed the live demo. And it's possible I may want to refer back to something in a previous demo. But mainly because the Twitch web site is so clunky to use.

So I shall continue to keep an archive of the demo sessions. But unlike the first few clips I did, I won't make any attempt to clean up the recordings or add title cards, etc. With the size of files involved it just takes too long.

Which means last Saturday's live session is now in the archive, labelled Demo 001:

https://85a.uk/templot/companion/live_screen_archive.php

and will remain there indefinitely.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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Hi Martin,

That's great news, I can refer back when I forget something that I learned from it, the same as the old video tutorials.

Many Thanks.
 
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