Just ran into one of the Engineers I used to work with. Seems as part of the spending reductions that led the company to can 15 of us from engineering, try to restrict engineering, including software developers to a low end laptop, and do things like replace the $.72 LM340T5 regulators in our production products with the much cheaper (and delicate) LM7805 5 Volt regulators, they are still trying to get engineering to accept the current VISIO program as a desktop sketchpad program, rather than the Designcad that has become popular there. So far, intelligence is still winning out over bean counters. Nobody has found VISIO to be adequate even as a sketchpad. People prefer to use pencil and paper to using VISIO. Better accuracy, stability, and even quicker to draw manually than to use a flowcharting program.
Well...as a mechanical engineer / jeweler / draftsman with a whole lot of CAD experience (not to mention hand drafting for 10 years before CAD existed) I have to agree with the majority here. Visio cannot accurately draw anything. It can't because it rounds numbers off to 2 decimal places. As stated; it was not designed to be a drafting program, merely a very basic sketchpad for meant for business applications, flowcharts etc. I use AutoCAD release 14 which I acquired when I was a licensed AutoCAD developer . If you can figure out how to write simple macros in AutoCAD you can easily set it up to be an excellent (custom) model RR application. The tools and features have to be seen to be believed and best of all after a short time learning the basics it teaches you! Its intuitive to the umpteenth degree and very easy to use. It can draw on anything from a business card size sheet to a full size factory parking lot size piece of paper ( if such a thing existed) ! I recommend AutoCAD Light since its much more affordable and the 3D capabilities of a full version would hardly (if ever) be used in RR design.
Thanks so much for the tip. AnyRail is great! Very intuitive, Easy to learn and use. I've tried several others and decided I'd just make my own library in Visio. ( A search for existing libraries is what brought me to this site.) But now I will use AnyRail.
Thanks again, Al
As a side note; I am a long time Visio and AutoCadd user. I have bothe on my home/office computers. Visio can easily do any size project with absolute accuracy and precision. I've used Visio to design very complex parts and a 3000 Sq Ft shop/offic/garage with extreme detail. I've also converted Visio and AutoCADD drawings back and forth between the two programs. It takes a little bit of clean-up, but not bad.
Take a look at AnyRail, a free download demo is available and it works very well and is probably the easiest to learn. The demo version will only allow you to use 50 items and then stops. You can buy it for about $50 and is probably worth it if you want to do a lot of rr design. It has track libraries for all the major track manufacturers, but my favorite part is the use of flex track. you can do just about anything with this software. Try it before you brush it aside. www.anyrail.com
Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
If someone would rather use CAD software, Dassualt Systemes (Solidworks) has a free 2D CAD software for download. Its a "public beta" but it's free
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/#vid1
I did use VISIO at work for a number of years, but quickly abandoned it when I got a copy of Design Cad, originally written by a group of software people who left Autocad to go it on their own. Advertised at fully compatible with Autocad, it handles .DXF and .DWG formats. The version I have even came with a large assorment of HO track templates. Reason a number of people at work went over to it, we once were going nuts on a jobsite trying to figure out a wiring diagram that was drawn in Autocad. When I got back to the lab, we tried to get a print of the diagram, but the person familiar with Auto was on vacation, wo we decided to see if I could do anything with DC. I imported the .DWG into my package, and the Design Cad produced a drawing with corrected line values, enabling us to find wiring connections that hadn't shown up on the original AC plot. Corrected the original wiring and got the project working in less than a day after the site got the readable drawing. After that, severa techs and engineers got their own packages.
Don't intend to go back to using VISIO for anything.
I have taught AutoCad for over 15 years and use it frequently for both layout and structural modeling tasks.That being said, I know it well enough to draw at an appropriate level of precision for the task at hand.
If you want the same flavor, but a bit more new-user-friendly, the "LT" or light versions of AutoCAD are better for beginners. For my layout, I drew the track with extreme precision, measuring and then recreating each type of piece (Atlas HO) as an AutoCAD drawing, then just copied and connected pieces (including flex track 3' sections where needed to develop my plan. The drawing which resulted was within 1% of what I have been placing on my layout, allowing for slight curve variances with the flextrack.
For structural models, it is very useful for original work and for kitbashing, as I can blend "parts" drawn from real prints with scaled-up images of an existing model in order to test the result before I begin to do the actual modeling work. Any adjustments can be made to the virtual model before the real craft work begins.
Online, there are a number of resellers that sell AutoDesk (the parent firm) CAD products at discounts. Be sure to purchase a permanently-licensed version, not one which will expire after a set timeframe from the date you install the software. Also, check your local college/university bookstore- they often sell student versions at reduced prices.
I wouldn't call 90% CPU utilization on a 4 Gig, Dual-Core system "smooth as silk" ... or stable. When making a Simple Oval. Then crashing. It's still just a scaled up version of the free Atlas product, but not quite on par with RailCad or TrainPlayer. And no, it ain't my PC. CadRail and the rest run fine.
But ... to each their own. (It's funny how people get religiously defensive about these things ... about as bad as club "rivet counters")
But getting back to the main topic ... Visio Templates. I was surprised that no one had made any, since Visio has templates for everything.
I guess it breaks down to what you want. If you want accurate scaling and 3D - CADRail is it. If you want a mix between cad and a 3d simulator - 3rd Planit (if it doesn't crash). 2D views ... XTrackCAD and RightTrack. If accuracy is not the main goal and you just a visual representation of ideas that you can play with ... TrainPlayer or even Auran Trains/Microsoft Train Simulator.
Or, as one old timer put it, just get some real track and lay out a design on the floor. Modify it until it looks right to you. Then build it.
HO Scale Model Railroader3rd PlanIt are, to me anyway, just scaled up versions of Atlas' freebie Right Track. 3rd PlanIt locks up too much for my taste - a lot of memory leaks.
Absolute baloney. 3D Plan-it runs smooth as silk. I've had it for over 6 years now. It's extraordinarily stable. If you think it's just a scaled up version of the Atlas product then you obviously don't know anything about the application.
Well it looks like it's time to play contrarian. Visio works just fine thank you. I too use it for work and have used it "on the side" for network diagrams, full house structural blueprints, flowcharts, mechanical drawings of parts, circuit diagrams, and yes track plans. It will do any size drawing and do so accurately. I think some of the above responders are confusing it with another program, perhaps a free one.
Sure, it has some idiocyncracies, but so does autocad - a far more costly product. BTW: It is possible to exchange drawings between Autocad and Visio.
I created my own library of track templates. Easy enough to do from segments of curves and measurements of actual turnouts, etc. Easements were trickier but doable with the spline tool. The grouping tool is your friend. Also great for control panel diagrams (scale down a track plan to single line, color and modify).
Trying to get a 33" radius eased curve and larger turnouts with the Atlas tool (and already owning Visio) is what pushed me into trying it. No regrets.
Karl
The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open. www.stremy.net
"I also think you'd have a hard time with anything that was over 8.5x11"
VISIO can handle any size "page" that you want to define. I use it for banners and such at work; it tiles pages nicely for printing.
If you were doing modular layouts, check out the office space planning templates for benchwork. I also created some "track" using the curved line function - adjust the width to match track width.
Co-owner of the proposed CT River Valley RR (HO scale) http://home.comcast.net/~docinct/CTRiverValleyRR/
HO Scale Model Railroader I have and use AutoCAD and UniGraphics ... which would be, IMHO, way overkill. CadRail and 3rd PlanIt are, to me anyway, just scaled up versions of Atlas' freebie Right Track. 3rd PlanIt locks up too much for my taste - a lot of memory leaks. Wasn't looking for exact scale, but just to graphically play with track designs and do "Model Railroader-ish" overhead layout graphics. Too many times my napkin sketches of segments just don't look in real life what I imaged in my head. You're right, Visio is *not* a CAD package. :^) That made me laugh a little. Looks like I'll be taking Atlas track segments, scanning them in, and playing with those. :^) But I can't believe someone hasn't done that already after all these years. :^)
I have and use AutoCAD and UniGraphics ... which would be, IMHO, way overkill. CadRail and 3rd PlanIt are, to me anyway, just scaled up versions of Atlas' freebie Right Track. 3rd PlanIt locks up too much for my taste - a lot of memory leaks. Wasn't looking for exact scale, but just to graphically play with track designs and do "Model Railroader-ish" overhead layout graphics. Too many times my napkin sketches of segments just don't look in real life what I imaged in my head.
You're right, Visio is *not* a CAD package. :^) That made me laugh a little.
Looks like I'll be taking Atlas track segments, scanning them in, and playing with those. :^) But I can't believe someone hasn't done that already after all these years. :^)
Done what ? Chosen to not use one of the many track drawing programs that are out there, and made templates in Visio instead ?
You can try e.g. XtrakCad to draw plans, if you like - it has plenty of track libraries.
Here: http://www.xtrkcad.org/Wikka/HomePage
Yes - you will need to read the manual to learn how to use it. Up to you if that is worth your time or not.
There are several other track drawing programs out there. For any given program, you will find some people who swears by it, and some people who swears at it
Smile, Stein
I agree. Use almost anything but VISIO. The IT Gurus at work provided our engineering department with VISIO instead of a real CAD program when we needed one for writing our test reports. I did manage to get a few useful sketches from it, but they eventually had to provide us with ORCAD for schematics, and a couple of us got DesignCAD, after a lot of complaints from the department and a lot of complaints from IT and management about cost. VISIO might be a mediocre sketchpad for simple drawings, but it is primarily a flowcharting tool for programming and business reporting, and not very good for real work. I also found the version we had to be a bit unstable as far as having a tendency to lose or modify parts of drawings done with it.
I really don't think it exists.
I also think you'd have a hard time with anything that was over 8.5x11"
AND Visio is not nearly accurate enough.
I've tried CadRail, 3rd PlanIt, and Right Track ... all nice, but overcomplicated for what I want ...I just was wondering if there was a Microsoft Visio Template for HO scale track.