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| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 02/05/2014 at 13:08 #59928 | |
maxand
1637 posts |
When a train divides or becomes a new service, its headcode changes. I frequently need to know and record the TTs of the newly created services in advance of the originating train's termination, and the quickest methods usually involve clicking the train to display its TT in the Show Timetable window, typing the new headcode(s) onto stickies or writing them down on paper. Alternatively I can look them up in the Timetable List, Simplifier, or arrdep.txt, but these require extra clicks and keypresses as well as consuming valuable screen real estate and time. Unfortunately the Show Timetable window does not permit highlighting and copying of text as some other windows do. Screen OCR applications enable one to select an area of screen containing text, capture the area as a small image and run it through an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine to translate the characters it recognizes into plain text which can be pasted into another application such as a text file. The first one I used, some 16 years ago, was the aptly named Kleptomania, and I remember v1.5 with great affection. It was still far from perfect and installation required reading all the fonts installed on my PC first, despite which there were many others it could not handle, so I was forever editing and correcting the text output. This is a hallmark of many inferior applications today. Unfortunately, anyone wanting a screen OCR program usually looks in the freeware section first, which is home to most of these mediocrities. Kleptomania is now up to v2.0; I haven't tried out the latest version. Kleptomania is payware. Hoping to find a suitable freeware app I trawled various sites (some links below) but was disappointed with what was on offer, particularly FreeOCR, which though recommended came bundled with RelevantKnowledge snoopware (pays to read the EULA). Nice to get something free and then find you've been sold a PUP. Then I stumbled upon a bonus offer from ABBYY, who make the highly esteemed FineReader for scanned documents. The offer was a free registered copy of ABBYY Screenshot Reader, v9.0.0.1331. Although the offer had expired I luckily was able to acquire this version, which works flawlessly with the Courier style monospaced font SimSig uses in its Show Timetable and other windows, and have no hesitation in recommending it. Simply open its selection window around a string such as "DEF:0A07 J:0A07 J:0A47 N:1A07-3" (no, I didn't make this up) and click the Capture Screenshot button in the small window which opens over SimSig's panel. ABBY's window closes and your selection is automatically converted to text and copied to your clipboard. Now all you have to do is create or open a sticky note and paste it in. Well, not quite all. The SimSig team did not include a space after each colon, so this string won't generate any blue underlined links in your sticky. Never mind, it isn't too difficult to edit the sticky manually after you paste, or pass the clipboard through a macro automatically each time which searches for colons and inserts the necessary space after it. ABBYY Screenshot Reader's installer is rather large at 153 Mb, as this sophisticated app recognizes many fonts and many other languages. But it doesn't turn SimSig's monospaced uppercase 0's into D's or 5's into S's, as its inferior rivals do! But...you might already have a suitable screen OCR application on your own PC without knowing it! Quote: OneNote is one of the overlooked gems in recent versions of Microsoft Office. OneNote makes it simple to take notes and keep track of everything with integrated search, and offers more features than its popular competitor Evernote. One way it is better is its high quality optical character recognition (OCR) engine. (OCR anything with OneNote 2007 and 2010) Caveat: I haven't got MS Office installed and with Screenshot Reader I have no need for it. So if any of you have OneNote, please try out its OCR on Show Timetable font and let me know how it performs. I know many of you will say this proves I spend my time just faffing around instead of playing SimSig like a machismo, but let me assure you that using screen OCR judiciously actually saves time and fingers. Now, if only Show Timetable had spaces after its coli (oops, colons - no bugs needed) and permitted us to highlight and copy text directly... To any who have never used screen OCR apps previously, they will turn out to have 101 uses. Uncopyable text, such as found in window titles, status bars, GIF images, etc., will magically turn into ASCII characters and result in a far more compressed output. Like aircon and sliced bread, once you've tried it you wonder how you ever got along without it. Best Free OCR Software (Gizmo) 4 Top Best Free OCR Software (PerfectGeeks) Last edited: 02/05/2014 at 13:18 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 02/05/2014 at 13:59 #59934 | |
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Danny252
1461 posts |
" said:I know many of you will say this proves I spend my time just faffing around instead of playing SimSig like a machismo, but let me assure you that using screen OCR judiciously actually saves time and fingersPlease, just to satiate my curiosity, record yourself playing Simsig and upload the video to Youtube or similar. I just cannot work out whether my interpretation of "fast" is very different to yours (and hence what I see as an acceptable time delay is too long for you), or whether you play Simsig in a manner entirely different to how I imagine people play it that requires the aid of OCR, coloured notes, phone calls asking drivers to shunt past signals, and so on. Last edited: 02/05/2014 at 14:01 by Danny252 Log in to reply The following users said thank you: y10g9, peterb, TimTamToe, slatteryc, Late Turn, robert, Josie, John, Finger, Forest Pines, Gwasanaethau, Signalhunter |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 02/05/2014 at 14:28 #59936 | |
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peterb
451 posts |
" said:When a train divides or becomes a new service, its headcode changes. I frequently need to know and record the TTs of the newly created services in advance of the originating train's termination, and the quickest methods usually involve clicking the train to display its TT in the Show Timetable window, typing the new headcode(s) onto stickies or writing them down on paper. Alternatively I can look them up in the Timetable List, Simplifier, or arrdep.txt, but these require extra clicks and keypresses as well as consuming valuable screen real estate and time.How far in advance?! If you wanted to simulate what happens in real life, the headcodes of new services are actually input into the corresponding 'train describer' berth. Signallers have these written down in front of them if they don't have ACI. Otherwise, in Simsig I like to remember the new headcode, or headcode(s) if the train is merging or splitting, and then enter them into the berth(s). It's quite easy to memorise four numbers and letters and I don't need to use any other software or anything to help me, which after all does require extra clicks and keypresses as well as consuming valuable screen real estate and time. Log in to reply The following user said thank you: Noisynoel |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 02/05/2014 at 16:43 #59942 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
" said:I'm not sure anything in SimSig requires machismo - just a good short-term memory. Now, working a mechanical box with a couple of 1000yd wire-worked distants on the other hand...;-) Your 1A07 example: I don't know what timetable or sim it's from, but (assuming the arriving train is also 1A07) I don't understand why you would need to make any notes or use anything other than the describer berths available. The only risk which might cause problems is if you got the train and pilot locos the wrong way round, which would require you to edit the timetable of the main train to get it to join the pilot first. Log in to reply The following user said thank you: Finger |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 02/05/2014 at 16:51 #59943 | |
GeoffM
6282 posts 
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" said:Simply open its selection window around a string such as "DEF:0A07 J:0A07 J:0A47 N:1A07-3" (no, I didn't make this up) and click the Capture Screenshot button in the small window which opens over SimSig's panel. ABBY's window closes and your selection is automatically converted to text and copied to your clipboard. Now all you have to do is create or open a sticky note and paste it in.I would never have thought of doing that. Yes we can add a space easily: first thought is that it'd stretch the output horizontally but I'll see what we can do. Actually I was thinking the "Show timetable" window should get the HTML treatment one day. Much more pretty and user-customisable. SimSig Boss Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 02/05/2014 at 17:10 #59945 | |
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peterb
451 posts |
It's just occured to me, Max since your admission of how you change headcodes in the manner above, that it may well have been the causal factor with your four-hour-late train in Exeter thread. I can't begin to think, with it being a longwinded approach how much more prone to mistake it is.
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| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 04:40 #59954 | |
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Hawk777
386 posts |
This is not a dismissal, but an honest question. Please take it as such. Do you type very very slowly? Here’s why I ask. If I were faced with 1A07-2 (let’s say—you didn’t mention what the existing train actually is) approaching the station where it did the working described above, there are two possible ways I would approach the problem. First, if the station platform in question has two berths (as some, but not all, do), then I would wait for the train to arrive, click its TD to read the timetable, and notice the DEF 0A07. I would then hit I, type 1A07-2, and click the signal to interpose into the rear berth (assuming the incoming TD had stepped into the forward berth, as it tends to do). Then I would hit I again, type 0A07, click the forward signal, and that would be all. At that point, all the information that SimSig would take away from me in future (namely, the identity of 0A07) would be recorded in an appropriate place. I don’t need the “J:0A07 J:0A47 N:1A07-3” on a sticky note, because the first two operations I will also notice by opening the timetables of 0A07 and 0A47 respectively as they approach the station and I try to figure out what they’re supposed to do, and for the new working, after routing 0A47 into the platform, I will then open the 1A07-2 timetable, read off the new working, and interpose 1A07-3 into the relevant berth, along with cleaning up any other TDs that are no longer needed (such as 0A47). Now, if the platform in question has only one berth, this is obviously not possible. In that situation, I would use a sticky note. The text I would put on the sticky note is “1A07-2 | 0A07”. Just the two TDs, separated by a pipe character. That’s my style, which I use whenever I need to basically “make more berths”. Again, everything else I would handle as above—by reading the timetables as other trains approach the area, and then, eventually, by interposing 1A07-3 into the TD berth and destroying the sticky. See that text I quoted above as what I would enter in the sticky? It’s a grand total of 13 characters long. This is why I asked if you type very slowly: for me, 13 characters is two or three seconds. It would take much longer to bring up a separate program, use the mouse to carefully manipulate a rectangle over the exact piece of timetable window I care about, commit that operation somehow, then open a sticky note and paste the OCRd text. If typing 13 characters requires a serious time investment from you, then I think I can understand some of your complaints quite a lot better than I did before! However, I wonder if you might enjoy SimSig more if you were to practice typing a bit until it no longer posed a bottleneck, rather than coming up with elaborate workarounds to reduce the amount of typing you have to do. Note also that I’m efficient with what I write in the sticky. I don’t include the joins, nor the new working. Why not? Because I don’t need to! If I want to know what 1A07-2 is waiting for, I can just click on 1A07-2 and look in its timetable. What if it forms a new working and I forgot to update the sticky, so I don’t know what it’s called? No problem: click 1A07-2, observe that it has “no history” (and thus must not exist in the sim), scroll down to the bottom of the timetable (a second or two of spinning a mouse wheel for even the longest timetables), and read off the new working from the last line—done. The only thing I write on the sticky note is information that is about to be taken away from me otherwise: the identity of 0A07, which vanishes from 1A07-2’s timetable window as soon as the detach completes, encoded in a way that lets me look at the note and answer the basic question “who’s in this platform and in what order?”. Of course, the above description is not 100% accurate because in this specific example, clicking on 1A07-2 would actually open 1A07-3’s timetable because only the first four characters have to match, after which “the train is in the sim” is more important than “the rest of the characters match”. Imagine we were talking about TDs that differed in the first four characters and this would be fully accurate. I think that’s an academic point though, for the sake of this topic. Log in to reply The following users said thank you: lazzer, Josie, Forest Pines |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 09:51 #59960 | |
lazzer
605 posts |
" said:The text I would put on the sticky note is “1A07-2 | 0A07”. Just the two TDs, separated by a pipe character. That’s my style, which I use whenever I need to basically “make more berths”. Great minds think alike - I use the equals sign to split headcodes when using stickies. It uses one fewer keystroke too (no need to press shift). :lol: Log in to reply |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 14:28 #59986 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Thanks guys for your responses and helpful suggestions. Maybe I should have explained more in my original post. The TT from which I quoted was Exeter Summer Sunday 1980 v2.227, which has turned out to be a real test of my ability to keep track of trains which divide and join, as there are so many of them. Danny252 wrote: Quote: I just cannot work out whether my interpretation of "fast" is very different to yours (and hence what I see as an acceptable time delay is too long for you), or whether you play Simsig in a manner entirely different to how I imagine people play it that requires the aid of OCR, coloured notes, phone calls asking drivers to shunt past signals, and so on. If you watched me play, I think you would find it very boring and not all that different from the way you do it, simply because IMO IECC panels and therefore SimSig allow for very little variation from the standard way of doing things; conformity is simpler and safer. So what slows me down? Peterb and Forest Pines both suggested memorizing the headcodes before entering them directly into the berths, without needing to copy them to paper or a sticky note. I consider my short term memory reasonably good for my age group but certainly not as good as 20 years ago. That I guess is why I've been interested in ways to copy headcodes directly between berths/Show TT Window and stickies. Fewer keystrokes/clicks, automatic and more accurate. Other factors implicated in short term memory loss include cannabis (not guilty) and stress. When under stress I find myself forgetting more that I've just read, double- and even triple-checking each train's TT before I set its next waypoint. It would be nice to see its TT appear in a tooltip simply by hovering over a train just as in air traffic control, but that would anger the god of realism. It boils down to how much I can trust my own mind. I have tried many memory improvement tricks, but what works best is to slow down the game a bit or choose a quieter timetable that I can really enjoy, where the waypoints on the TT do correspond to the labels on the panel! One thing I am not very good at is remembering what destination the second character in a headcode refers to, as they sometimes differ from TT to TT within the same sim. This probably slows me down more than I realize. My jury is out on whether knowing the distant destination helps, as my knowledge of UK geography is so hazy that it wouldn't make a great deal of difference. I'd be better off making my own notes on this. Peterb asked how far in advance did I need to know the new headcode. When the train is about to terminate and before its headcode changes in its berth and/or vanishes from the Train List. One of my rants unposted till now is that when a train's new service is a subset of its original headcode, such as 1A43 becoming 1A43-2 and then 1A43-3, SimSig won't show me 1A43-2's timetable if 1A43 is still in service, even though I faithfully type 1A43-2 into the sticky. No, I have to look it up on the TT List (hint: select list, type the first character (1) and a Find window opens to enable you to type the remaining characters without having to scroll down a massively long list). Surely this could be improved. Hawk777 asked whether I type very slowly. A good question. Actually, I'm quite a fast touch typist (using both hands), but revert to a left-handed hunt-and-pecker when I decide to keep my R hand on the mouse, which is most of the time! That's why simply being able to copy current TD and termination TDs is such an attractive proposition, realistic or not. Unless I leave the CAPS LOCK key on, my usual stickie string ends up looking like this: "1A07 def xxxx j xxxx n 1A07-2". SimSig capitalizes the TDs. I don't bother with colons or dividers. Note I always include the headcode of the terminating (current) train as the first headcode. As long as I'm not rushed off my feet by phone calls or other disasters I can type this in single-handedly without losing too much time. Thanks also Hawk777 for the rest of your thoughtful and detailed comments. As far as colourful stickies go, my two-tone suggestion did turn out to be a bit of a chore, but there aren't many satisfactory reminder alternatives. It was suggested putting a collar on the nearest signal, but collars stop me from setting routes, so that's no good. Or I could use a vacant berth as a reminder, but it doesn't stand out as much as an unusual colour. I'd love to have the option to create a sticky that stays put relative to the screen when the sim is scrolled, but I'm thinking of working around this by installing a freebie text editor that can be made to stay on top in a tiny window and opens only files with .nfo extension (another form of text file). Then I can use it as a scratch pad instead of creating 50 stickies (have you noticed how much that slows SimSig down when you edit one?), search for and delete expired data faster than writing it down. Or another method I bet some of you guys use is create a set of tiny cards labelled with names of level crossings and trouble points, lay them out next to your mouse and move them out/back when that LC is active/inactive. Remembering to raise barriers at manual LCs before incurring a time penalty is a real pain. I still use pairs of coloured stickies for this. GeoffM, thanks for your offer to consider some of these suggestions more closely, particularly adding a space after the colon. Quote: Actually I was thinking the "Show timetable" window should get the HTML treatment one day. Much more pretty and user-customisable. Yes, a proportional font would take up less room and look nicer, but I'd be just as happy with an 8pt monospaced font such as you use in, say, the Description field in the General tab of the Timetable window. Any text in this window can be highlighted and copied. The background should be white (or a very light grey to reduce glare), not the mid grey used in this window. Monospace text is self-aligning, so you wouldn't need to bother with tables and grids, which require extra space. Maybe there should be a Copy selection button at the bottom of this window so any highlighted text such as the TDs of new trains is automatically prefaced with the TD of the current train (in the window title), without having to copy it separately. Likewise, the r-click menu of a TD berth should include a Copy TD to clipboard option. Then I wouldn't think about using a screen OCR application. 
Last edited: 03/05/2014 at 14:40 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 17:50 #59997 | |
dmaze
88 posts
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" said:when a train's new service is a subset of its original headcode, such as 1A43 becoming 1A43-2 and then 1A43-3, SimSig won't show me 1A43-2's timetable if 1A43 is still in service, even though I faithfully type 1A43-2 into the sticky. No, I have to look it up on the TT ListOn the one hand, yes, this is a pain; on the other, I don't feel like I usually need to know that much about a train's next working until it's getting ready to leave. Do you do this often? (It does happen that timetables have various sorts of minor errors -- this Trent TT I'm running now just got two trains in the wrong half of platform 5 at Nottingham, and I wanted to sanity-check that if I put them in "backwards" according to the platforming, they'd leave in the right order -- but that tends to be the exception.) (Also, any "1980s" TT seems to have a lot of dividing and running around and joining, and especially on KX I tend to find that there's one more piece of train than I have a TD berth for, so there does tend to be the one giant sticky of "here's what's where".) Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 18:41 #60000 | |
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Muzer
718 posts |
" said:" said:It's often useful to know whether or not the train is reversing, so as to know which moves will and won't be conflicting with the train leaving. This is especially useful if the train is delayed and so you don't know exactly when it might leave. As you say, this does count as "getting ready to leave", but often if the train isn't reversing, the actual "getting ready to leave" stage won't take very long at all.when a train's new service is a subset of its original headcode, such as 1A43 becoming 1A43-2 and then 1A43-3, SimSig won't show me 1A43-2's timetable if 1A43 is still in service, even though I faithfully type 1A43-2 into the sticky. No, I have to look it up on the TT ListOn the one hand, yes, this is a pain; on the other, I don't feel like I usually need to know that much about a train's next working until it's getting ready to leave. Do you do this often? Log in to reply |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 19:15 #60003 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
" said:You're probably right, because (especially on 1980s timetables) the letters depend as much on railway history and organisation as on physical geography. Taking Exeter as an example: on an 80s TT a London train will (I assume) probably be 1Axx via Bridgwater or Castle Cary, 1Oxx via Honiton, but theoretically you could have a 1Oxx train heading to Bridgwater or Castle Cary if afterwards it was heading via Salisbury, and a London Paddington train diverted via Honiton would presumably be a 1Vxx (can any people from The Real BR confirm that?) The biggest flaw in the old "pure" lettering system was that if you were already in the train's destination division or region it gave you no help at all! At Exeter, an xVxx train will nearly always enter from Bridgwater or Honiton, but could be going to absolutely any destination in the sim! Nowadays a lot of regular interregional services will have a special letter of their own (such as 1Fxx in the Westbury sim: in the 80s they would have been 1Vxx or 1Oxx) but you're still best off learning the patterns as you find them instead of using "common sense geography". Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 19:19 #60004 | |
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Muzer
718 posts |
I find that you have to be careful when routeing trains based on the headcode. The number of times I've wrong-routed 1O98 (I think it's called?) in the Southampton sim is testament to that... the 98 should really clue me in, but I always think it's a Newcastle train when actually it's a Brighton one.
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| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 03/05/2014 at 19:20 #60005 | |
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Muzer
718 posts |
I find that you have to be very careful when routeing based on the headcode alone, especially in areas where almost all of them follow the same pattern, but not quite all. The number of times I've wrong-routed 1O98 (I think it is?) in SimSig Southampton is testament to that - the 98 should clue me in, but I always think it's a Newcastle train when actually it's a Brighton one.
Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 05/05/2014 at 03:58 #60051 | |
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Hawk777
386 posts |
Exter provides another lovely example of why headcode letter routing doesn’t work: I have seen Bs heading for Barnstaple and other Bs heading for Bridgwater!
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| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 05/05/2014 at 07:00 #60053 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
I was looking up the official list of Exeter-relevant headcode letters, and discovered there's actually a substantial list of letters flagged as "avoid using for trains within or passing through the Exeter Panel area", which means presumably you're far more likely to come across that sort of letter clash on Exeter. The letters you should never see are: D G H J K L N P R S T U W Y.
Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 05/05/2014 at 07:17 #60055 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
And for completeness, here's the list you will see: A: Barnstaple, Exeter or Exmouth to Newton Abbot or Paignton; Paignton to Newton Abbot. Trains to the London Area. B: trains to Barnstaple; trains from Barnstaple that aren't A or F. Trains to the Cardiff Area. C: regional trains to or within the West Of England Area not covered by other letters E: Torbay or Plymouth to Exeter; Class 2 Cheltenham, Gloucester or Bristol to Taunton or Exeter. Trains to the LNE Region. F: trains to Exmouth; Exmouth to Exeter. Light loco movements between GW Region depots L: London Waterloo or Salisbury to Exeter, Plymouth or Penzance (both directions) M: Class 2 Exeter or Taunton to Bristol, Gloucester or Cheltenham. Trains to the Midland & NW Regions O: trains to the Southern Region that aren't L S: trains to the Scottish Region V: inter-regional trains to the GW Region X: trains carrying exceptional loads Z: excursions, military trains, royal trains or other specials Note that this is the current list. 1980s timetables will be subtlely different. Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 05/05/2014 at 07:35 #60056 | |
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AndyG
1834 posts |
Q? - normally used for trains to be kept on booked route/path?
I can only help one person a day. Today's not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look too good either. Log in to reply |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 05/05/2014 at 08:03 #60058 | |
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dwelham313
139 posts |
I would say the 'not to be used' letter list needs updating as half of those letters are now found regularly on trains passing through Exeters area! D- Trains to Bristol Parkway J- trains terminating at St James' Park (a handful a day) L is listed as not to be used although all the SWT services use this P- local to Plymouth R- Trains terminating at Exeter Central T- Locals to Paignton Log in to reply |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 05/05/2014 at 08:07 #60059 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
" said:Q? - normally used for trains to be kept on booked route/path?Not listed in the WTTs I looked in - the current PC and PF - which surprised me. Section PC does also list the headcodes of the Serco recording trains which must be kept to their booked path in their own table in the introduction; they are all either 1Zxx or the appropriate normal destination letter. Log in to reply |
| Hint - Using Screen OCR software with SimSig 05/05/2014 at 08:11 #60060 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
" said:I would say the 'not to be used' letter list needs updating as half of those letters are now found regularly on trains passing through Exeters area!I hadn't spotted the contradiction with L! My posts were basically copied from the current WTT; the lettersto be avoided, it says, do not get picked up by Smart Auto-Trust at Exeter. Log in to reply |