Precise lengths of track

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to recreate the Riverview Bobs from the blueprint in the back of the book "Laugh your troubles away: the complete history of Riverview Park" by Derek Gee and Ralph Lopez. The problem is that all the curve radii are clearly marked as is the precise height and bank angle of each individual bent. For example, the lift hill rises at an angle of 4 in 10. I could calculate the angle and do it that way, but it doesn't really help me with the first drop, or the horseshoe curves. How do I build precise pieces of track like that? In NL1 I tried using Newton 2, but abandoned it when I discovered that the mathematically semicircular bunny hops in Newton 2 had bumps on every vertex in the simulator when they should have been perfectly smooth. Is there some way to put all the info in manually or something instead of guessing where the vertices and/or roll points should go?

[TheArchitect]

Have you since upgraded to NL2? If so, I recommend you use FVD++ instead of Newton 2, as it doesn't have these issues when exporting, and you can be more precise with it. For example, you can work your track on a distance based logic, as you seem to be.

Other wise, you could use supports for your distance. For example, you could lay a support which goes along ten units, then up 4 units, to give you your positions. I'm glad that you are being so precise and logical with your recreation, I look forward to seeing it.

^^ Thanks for mentioning. This is also what I've cared so far.

TheArchitect wrote:

Have you since upgraded to NL2? If so, I recommend you use FVD++ instead of Newton 2, as it doesn't have these issues when exporting, and you can be more precise with it. For example, you can work your track on a distance based logic, as you seem to be.

Other wise, you could use supports for your distance. For example, you could lay a support which goes along ten units, then up 4 units, to give you your positions. I'm glad that you are being so precise and logical with your recreation, I look forward to seeing it.

I have indeed upgraded! I bought it the day it came out.

Thanks for the recommendation, I've downloaded a copy of FVD++ to play with. Hopefully I won't need to engineer the entire ride first. One compromise I will have to make is using wood magic to generate the supports. I have it from a civil engineer who worked on the restoration of the Belmont Giant Dipper (himself a Fred Church fan) that in general Church spaced the bents 10 feet apart on the straight sections and 9 feet apart on the curves. The bents themselves were also wider on the curves than on the straight sections (to accommodate the banking). The horizontal ribbon braces were spaced 5 feet apart on centre, making it easy to work out how tall his hills are when looking at photos. As far as I can tell that can't be done with the supports generator, but it shouldn't matter too much as long as I can get the track heights correct.