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FLEX Turn Lanes (FTL) and Related Projects - Development and Support

Started by Tarkus, August 01, 2009, 09:36:25 PM

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Fredrik001

Quote from: Tarkus on January 02, 2017, 05:09:30 PM
Thanks, Ryan B., j-dub, and MushyMushy for the kind words and feedback (and to all who hit "Like" on that last one).

The left lane connection on the wear lines was bugging me a bit, too, so I've fixed it, and made a few other little changes.



To add to Ryan's explanation for the island, it is basically an implementation of an engineering technique known as channelization.  In other words, the inclusion of that island helps enforce the directionality of traffic.  As emphasized by the replacement of the crosswalk markings with stop lines, it's actually intended to be a partial seagull intersection.  As the through lanes on the outer part of the intersection have no real interaction with the cross street (being an OWR heading out of the intersection, there's actually no need for them to stop.

These partial seagull designs are actually in use a fair bit in Eugene, Oregon--Franklin Boulevard (Oregon Highway 99) on the north side of the University of Oregon campus is littered with them.  The one at the intersection of Franklin and East 11th Avenue was actually the main inspiration for this design.  You'll actually be seeing quite a few Eugene designs showing up in this thread here soon, particularly with regards to FTL and SITAP setups.

It's also worth noting that this particular design also has an eye toward continuous-flow intersections (CFIs), which are something that's been part of the long-term gameplan for the whole NWM/FTL/TuLEP ecosystem since very early in planning.

-Alex

This is an amazing addition that will definately start showing up in my downtowns. I'm a little bit concerned about the turn radius though, especially of the left turn lane. Would it be super labor intensive to move the stop line and end of the center line back a few feet to the lower edge of the square, thereby allowing for a much larger radius?

_Michael

Some really exciting work with all of these possibilities!

Tarkus

Thanks, Gugu3, Frederik001, and _Michael! 

Quote from: Fredrik001 on January 10, 2017, 12:58:49 PM
I'm a little bit concerned about the turn radius though, especially of the left turn lane. Would it be super labor intensive to move the stop line and end of the center line back a few feet to the lower edge of the square, thereby allowing for a much larger radius?

I had kind of started to wonder about it myself, so that's definitely something I'll be looking into adjusting.

Busy couple of weeks here, but I'm back at it with FTL.  I've compiled an LHD controller so I can start doing a bit of testing with the RUL-based flipping method that memo devised, back when he was active.  My initial test was to try out the code he started for the Type 110 Road FTLs, and it's working far better than the old tediously painful method for handling LHD conversion on items with RHD/LHD asymmetry, which required some mental gymnastics with partial path flipping and reversal, and redoing all the T21s.



I've done a little bit of a base on the LHD code for the other FTL types . . . more on those soon.

-Alex

matias93

While not so bombastic as your previous peeks, this one seems to mean the team will have more time to make beautiful things and less on tedious fixes, which is great for you and for us all users  &apls &apls &apls

"Lets be scientists and as such, remember always that the purpose of politics is not freedom, nor authority, nor is any principle of abstract character,
but it is to meet the social needs of man and the development of the society"

— Valentín Letelier, 1895

Jimmyson

Quote from: Tarkus on January 23, 2017, 05:15:02 PM
Thanks, Gugu3, Frederik001, and _Michael! 

Quote from: Fredrik001 on January 10, 2017, 12:58:49 PM
I'm a little bit concerned about the turn radius though, especially of the left turn lane. Would it be super labor intensive to move the stop line and end of the center line back a few feet to the lower edge of the square, thereby allowing for a much larger radius?

I had kind of started to wonder about it myself, so that's definitely something I'll be looking into adjusting.

Busy couple of weeks here, but I'm back at it with FTL.  I've compiled an LHD controller so I can start doing a bit of testing with the RUL-based flipping method that memo devised, back when he was active.  My initial test was to try out the code he started for the Type 110 Road FTLs, and it's working far better than the old tediously painful method for handling LHD conversion on items with RHD/LHD asymmetry, which required some mental gymnastics with partial path flipping and reversal, and redoing all the T21s.



I've done a little bit of a base on the LHD code for the other FTL types . . . more on those soon.

-Alex

Hopefully the tests prove solid. It should help speed up the LHD path generation and fix-up a couple of LHD paths that have either been missed, or aren't aligned to other ajoining pieces.

Tarkus

Thanks, matias and Jimmyson (and all who "liked" the last update).

I've gotten into wrangling with the Avenues . . . things haven't been quite as clean here, due to the two-tile layout, but it's still easier to do this RUL-side rather than the old method.  I had to do a bit of manual S3D editing in order to get the Maxis mast arm assembly to mirror . . . it looks a little bit funky as a result of that, but it's an improvement over not having one at all.



-Alex

Gugu3


AsimPika3172

Nice making TULEP here!  &apls Keep moving forward!  :thumbsup: I will waiting for this one SOON™!  :bnn:
I loves Sim City forever!

Tarkus

Thanks, Gugu3, AsimPika3172, and everyone!

I've gone back to mostly doing some "gator wrestling" on the RHD setups, though I do have a little more to share on the LHD-ification process as well. 



As the Avenues are proving a bit more challenging on that front, and I do want to get something out there with this project at long last (the FTL idea dates back to memo's first experiments after NAM 32, about 3 years ago), it's likely that the initial phase that sees public release won't include the TLA-7/AVE-6 setups.  Those will instead become part of the "DRIPfeed" paradigm for future releases beyond NAM 36.  (And yes, as is the NAM way, DRIP is an acronym for Diffused Release of Incremental Progress :D)

-Alex

Ryan B.

That's so weird, seeing US road textures flipped for LHD.  Looks good, though!

Tarkus

Quote from: Ryan B. on February 01, 2017, 09:29:46 AM
That's so weird, seeing US road textures flipped for LHD.  Looks good, though!

Thanks!  And yeah, it's been pretty strange working on it.

RL has been pretty crazy the past week, but after finding even more interference between different NWM and FTL setups on the larger intersections, and getting stuck in a swamp where the gator wrestling never ended, I finally broke down and made FLEX pieces to cover them.



The intersections themselves don't spout FTLs out their ends--doing so would mean a ton of wrangling (the new FLEX triple-tile x triple-tile T in and of itself took a fair bit)--but different FTL types can be plugged into the various ends, and affect the configuration of the intersection, similar to the new version of FlexSPUI.  Going about it this way also simplifies the LHD flipping considerably, and removes quite a few other complications.

There's also some other beneficial side effects of these new FLEX pieces, which will be revealed in due course.

-Alex

Tarkus

More LHD development . . .



Going to the FLEX setup for the larger intersections made things a lot easier, and means LHD support has gone a considerable distance forward from where it was before.  Most of what I have left on that front is with intersections involving single-tile networks, and fixing the offset on the preview models.

-Alex

_Michael

Looks great Tarkus. I'm curious though, how do these work, as in how are they used?

Tarkus

Thanks, _Michael, and that's a fantastic question.

I am hoping to have a video at some point--there's actually going to be two new ways to build turn lanes when FTL goes live--but this diagram should hopefully explain things with one of the ways in the interim.



For smaller intersections (anything where one of the cross networks is only a single-tile wide), the only FLEX component needed is the FTL Transition itself.  In those situations, the Multi-Tile FTL FLEX Intersection would not be required, and the overridden base network can simply form the intersection through draggable means.

In further development news, here's more progress on LHD conversion.



-Alex

dyoungyn

Alex,

Wow, is there anything your cannot do.  This is totally AMAZING and cannot wait to use FTL Intersections.  Still hopes for RHW8S cable-stayed bridge :D

Seaman

Thx Tarkus. The Flex pieces are used for both, LHD and RHD, right? I just got the impression the need for them came by introducing the LHD support.

:thumbsup:

Tarkus

Thanks, dyoungyn and Seaman--and all who "liked" the last update.

One of the trickiest things I had left to wrangle were the OWR intersections with the FTLs . . . here's a peek at the Type 130 x OWR options.





Quote from: Seaman on February 15, 2017, 02:56:06 AM
The Flex pieces are used for both, LHD and RHD, right? I just got the impression the need for them came by introducing the LHD support.

Indeed, they are used for both.  The LHD support factor wasn't the main reason for doing it, though it was arguably the last straw.  There were just way too many strange deconversion cases that kept popping up with the RHD versions in their pure draggable form--I had been playing whack-a-mole for many months with them, only to find more moles appearing. 

I also discovered there were some other rather nice advantages to going to the FLEX intersections.  For instance, the US-style far-side placement of the signals was inoperable if the Type 120/220 intersections were built such that both the turn lane setups were Avenue-based.  Either we left it as is and had a tech support issue hanging over us, or we went to near-side setup and gave a good portion of our userbase the reason to "hold out" and keep using the soon-to-be-obsolete puzzle-based TuLEPs.  The trick CheckType work under the FLEX intersections, however, solves this issue.

It also gives us a more stable base from which to construct more exotic setups, and solves the implementation problem with multi-tile intersections for OWR-4 and OWR-5 signalization/arrow (SITAP) setups:



The OWR-4 x FTL Type 120 setup shown above won't be in NAM 36, but its prospective addition is much, much closer than it would have been without this development.

-Alex

dyoungyn

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just what is desired for One way roads with more realistic T and cross traffic with turning lanes.  Great job :bnn:

Still hoping for that RHW 8S cable-stayed bridge &Thk/(

Seaman

Ahhh.. thank you Tarkus, for the enlightenment. Can't wait to see this secret weapon of mass transportation revealed ;)




Quote from: dyoungyn on February 16, 2017, 09:52:12 PM
Still hoping for that RHW 8S cable-stayed bridge &Thk/(

If I were you, I would be cautious not to pique the NAM team by continuing questions about that.

Tyberius06

Oh, very-very nice! These OWR intersections are fantastic. I love them! :)
&apls &apls &apls
You may find updates about my ongoing projects into my development thread here at SimCity 4 Devotion: Tyberius Lotting Experiments
or over there on Simtropolis into the Tyberius (Heretic Projects) Lotting and Modding Experiments.
I'm also member of the STEX Custodian and working on different restoration projects on behalf of non-anymore-active custom content creators.
Current projects: WMP Restoration and SimCity Polska Restoration.
Member of the NAM Team and RTMT Team.