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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 Some of the earlier pages of this topic are now out-of-date.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.

pdf files for printing

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David Beale

Thread starter
Location
Cumbria
This is a continuation of a discussion on the old website, where I have been enquiring about getting large trackplans (8m x 4m) commercially printed. I am still a bit confused about making the pdf. My problem is that the plan is a large oval with a correspondingly large empty centre. If I just enter a paper size of say 900mm wide by 8000mm long, I presume it will then print a series of strips. I shall then end up with the first with lots of track (Cranford East Sidings), followed buy two with just a little track crossing each extreme end, then two more with track all along, but with the join running right down the middle of the station track work. Now it could be re-arranged to do two longitudinal strips 900 x 8000 with most of the track work each side of the oval, and then two transverse strips 900 x 3600 which would contain the rest of the track, minus perhaps a tiny corner. But I am not sure if it is possible to specify this either before making the pdf or for the printshop to do it from the pdf?

An alternative, which might be a lot easier to manage physically, would be just to print it out on large format sheets, A0 or A1. If I specified that in the paper size on the pdf, does Templot neatly organise it into the "best fit" as it does with the A4 on my own printer - which is happily whirring away alongside me, printing out all 149 pages full size as an back up policy!

Many thanks for all the help so far,

David
 
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Hi David,

Sorry about the delay in answering your previous questions, things have got a bit hectic Templot-wise in the last few days. A couple of others are waiting for replies too.

I've just come in, and am now boiling an egg for my lunch. :)

I then have to deal with a supermarket order for an elderly neighbour.

After which I will try to make a proper reply. I was intending to write a Companion page or maybe do a video about laying out the pages for wide-format printing of roundy-roundy layouts.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 113
This is a continuation of a discussion on the old website, where I have been enquiring about getting large trackplans (8m x 4m) commercially printed. I am still a bit confused about making the pdf. My problem is that the plan is a large oval with a correspondingly large empty centre. If I just enter a paper size of say 900mm wide by 8000mm long, I presume it will then print a series of strips. I shall then end up with the first with lots of track (Cranford East Sidings), followed buy two with just a little track crossing each extreme end, then two more with track all along, but with the join running right down the middle of the station track work. Now it could be re-arranged to do two longitudinal strips 900 x 8000 with most of the track work each side of the oval, and then two transverse strips 900 x 3600 which would contain the rest of the track, minus perhaps a tiny corner. But I am not sure if it is possible to specify this either before making the pdf or for the printshop to do it from the pdf?

An alternative, which might be a lot easier to manage physically, would be just to print it out on large format sheets, A0 or A1. If I specified that in the paper size on the pdf, does Templot neatly organise it into the "best fit" as it does with the A4 on my own printer - which is happily whirring away alongside me, printing out all 149 pages full size as an back up policy!

Many thanks for all the help so far,

David
David,
It's a few years since I did my PDF prints so I've forgotten some of the details of what I actually did!!
But one thing that made things easier was splitting my final layout into separate .box files for each of two 900 x 9150mm segments. I just saved a copy of the main .box file and then renamed it (station, fiddleyard, whatever) and deleted those sections of the plan that were outside that segment. I then moved all the templates to close to the bottom LH corner (co-ordinates 0,0) which made setting a single large page easier. Obviously repeated the process for each required segment.
Apologies if you've got that far already, otherwise hope it may be of some help.
 
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Hi David and Stuart,

Do you both know about changing the page origin? It’s in the Output menu somewhere, or hit Ctrl-Shift-F10. That allows you to set the start point for printing without having to chop up the layout into small box files or move sections about. I do this frequently when wanting to print just a small section whilst making best use of the paper size.

Cheers,
Paul
 
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message ref: 116
Paul,
Yes I'm aware of the page origin function, but for me I found it clearer to have separate files for the sections to be exported to pdf. As always with Templot, more than one way of achieving what you want....
 
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message ref: 133
Hi Paul, Stuart and Martin,
Paul, that is a great tip, thank you.
At the moment I have printed out:
- the whole layout on one A4 - a useful overview.
- the whole layout at 10% on 7 sheets for baseboard planning
- the whole layout full size on 149 sheets! Amazing!

At present that is where I am going to stay, partly because the PC laptop on which it has all been done has been reclaimed by my daughter and carried off to London before she got marooned here when we (almost certainly) go into tier 4 at lunchtime! All the computers here are MacBooks. It will now be several months before I can consider making pdf files for large paper printing and I might just find that the multitude of A4 sheets easier to handle and manoeuvre even if it is a bit of a jigsaw.

Anyway, thank you all very much indeed for all the help, it has been hugely appreciated. Stuart, we should meet up sometime, once we have had the vaccine! But I am not quite sure how we do private messages on this new site, or even if they are possible. Either way, we probably have several months to sort that out!

Martin - many thanks for the messages, not to mention providing Templot - it is an amazing programme. You have quite enough on your plate with Templot at present, so please don't feel any need to respond to any of my past questions. I had a great time building the track plan for Cranford Station on the NLS/OS 25in map - I would never have contemplated it if I hadn't watched you do it at Scaleforum.

So now it is back to building those baseboards......!

Happy New Year everyone,

David
 
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message ref: 136
Hi David, I am building a similarly large layout, 7.5m x 4.5m. As i couldn't build it all at once, i decided not to print it all at once.
Also, i fed A3 paper through my printer that made life a lot easier.
I printed out each "side" at a time, in effect breaking the main circuit into 4 portions. To get the most out of the paper, i carefully positioned the page origins to avoid too much wastage. The two branchlines i did separately.
Once i had a pile of printouts for each section, they were carefully stuck together. Ending up with long and thin pieces, I found that the dimensioned grid on the plots was invaluable as i could use the intersections to position the printouts correctly in relation to the walls of the room.
Across the middle of the room I have a large diagonal station. this would have been very wasteful on my A3 sheets so i extracted this portion, pasted it into a new templot file then rotated it to keep it as parallel as i could to the paper edge.
I found all of this relatively easy if a little tedious printing and sticking the paper!
If youre interested, attached is my overall boxfile.
Ian
 

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