Sara_GO wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:18 pm
So far, I have installed the Trails and Transportation workbenches (are they similar, complementar?).. hehe sorry a bit lost here. So, in need of your expertise.
Great! Welcome to the community!
At this point there are several small tangents that this project has. First is @hakanseven's 'Geomatics' workbench. He has a thread devoted to that which you may wish to peruse if surveys / topology is an interest for you.
Another element is a swept path analyzer based on Ackermann steering which @microelly2 put together some time ago. I've been meaning to build a UI for that, as that's the most critical element at this point to making that functional.
The core portion I'm working on is horizontal design tools in Trails. Right now, I'm developing (albeit slowly) a user interface for editing horizontal alignments.
At this point it is capable of importing / exporting LandXML and has support for clothoid spirals, assuming one radius is infinite. Two non-infinite radii is a bit tricky to work through as it requires numerically integrating Fresnel integrals (though I'm working on that
). Right now, though, I'm focused on developing a UI tool for manipulating horizontal alignments by dragging PI's, curve centers, etc. Following that, I plan to implement a vertical design tool and finally 3D alignment composition for 3D highway design. I've actually done a small amount of 3D highawy design development (much like you can do in Microstation or Civil3D), but I really need to get the 2D toolchain in place first, so I've left that aside for the time being.
All of our work is Python-based, of course. Trails is the active project - I forked Transportation and rebranded it just because sometimes we all need a fresh start.
Anyway, you want to pull from the freecad.trails 'dev' branch for the latest code. I only update master when the dev feature I'm working on seems stable and complete.
Anyway, what you focus on is really about your expertise and personal interests. I also have several other ideas for other transportation-related projects and tools if you feel striking out on your own better suits you.