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[railML3.1] applicationDirection and placing of elements [message #2469] Fri, 26 June 2020 11:28 Go to next message
Peter Vancsa is currently offline  Peter Vancsa
Messages: 2
Registered: June 2020
Junior Member
Hi everyone,

My name is Peter Vancsa, I am a software-engineer with Siemens in Braunschweig and working on importing a railML-3.1 file into an integrated engineering solution.

I am still somewhat a railML beginner, so i inspected the provided 'Simple Example' file from this site in detail to deepen my understanding of railML-3.1.

I believe I understand already several parts of railML, though it is not yet with 100% confidence that my understanding is correct.


So, here are a few questions regarding the 'Simple Example' file:

In the example file all bufferStops that are placed at the beginning of a netElement (so pos=0.0 or basically intrinsicCoordinate=0) have the appicationDirection set to "reverse". I was expecting this to be the same for all switchesIS as well, however switchIS "swi03" (69W04) is placed with applicationDirection="normal". Is this a mistake or why is that so?


Application direction "normal" corresponds to "up" and "reverse" corresponds to "down". Does "normal" mean the direction of the edge (from intinsicCoordinate 0 to 1)?


And lastly, the netElement ne_b05 has a length="200", and two intrinsicCoordinates "0" and "1", but no linearCoordinate on any of the two intrinsicCoordinates. Was this forgotten here? I expected an edge to be always defined between two points, either 2 linearCoordinates so that the difference on measure corresponds to the length, or 1 linearCoordinate and the length (which allows the computation of the other one).
Re: [railML3.1] applicationDirection and placing of elements [message #2482 is a reply to message #2469] Fri, 03 July 2020 12:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
christian.rahmig is currently offline  christian.rahmig
Messages: 436
Registered: January 2016
Senior Member
Dear Peter,

Peter Vancsa wrote on Fri, 26 June 2020 11:28
Hi everyone,

My name is Peter Vancsa, I am a software-engineer with Siemens in Braunschweig and working on importing a railML-3.1 file into an integrated engineering solution.

Welcome to the railML forum!

Quote:

So, here are a few questions regarding the 'Simple Example' file:

In the example file all bufferStops that are placed at the beginning of a netElement (so pos=0.0 or basically intrinsicCoordinate=0) have the appicationDirection set to "reverse". I was expecting this to be the same for all switchesIS as well, however switchIS "swi03" (69W04) is placed with applicationDirection="normal". Is this a mistake or why is that so?

The switch 69W04 is located on NetElement "ne_b02". And it "functions" as switch (with choice of way) for trains that pass this NetElement in reverse direction. Therefore, you are right: applicationDirection of the switch element need to be corrected from "normal" to "reverse". Thank you!

Quote:

Application direction "normal" corresponds to "up" and "reverse" corresponds to "down". Does "normal" mean the direction of the edge (from intinsicCoordinate 0 to 1)?

Yes, "normal" refers to the orientation 0 to 1 and "reverse" refers to the orientation 1 to 0 from a intrinsicCoordinate point of view.

Quote:

And lastly, the netElement ne_b05 has a length="200", and two intrinsicCoordinates "0" and "1", but no linearCoordinate on any of the two intrinsicCoordinates. Was this forgotten here? I expected an edge to be always defined between two points, either 2 linearCoordinates so that the difference on measure corresponds to the length, or 1 linearCoordinate and the length (which allows the computation of the other one).

The NetElement "ne_b05" is not linked with the line kilometer positioning system described by the linearPositioningSystem "lps01". However, the provided attribute @length="200" gives an information about the physical dimension of this NetElement. Consequently, locations on this NetElement "ne_b05" can only be described with intrinsic coordinates in the range of 0..1.

Best regards
Christian


Christian Rahmig – Infrastructure scheme coordinator
railML.org (Registry of Associations: VR 5750)
Altplauen 19h; 01187 Dresden; Germany www.railML.org
Re: [railML3.1] applicationDirection and placing of elements [message #2491 is a reply to message #2482] Mon, 13 July 2020 18:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Vancsa is currently offline  Peter Vancsa
Messages: 2
Registered: June 2020
Junior Member
Hi Christian,
Thank you for the time you put in for the reply,

I would like to add a few more questions to the simple example.



Since the NetElement "ne_b05" is not liked to the linearPositioningSystem "lps01", I should use intrinsic coordinates. However, intrinsic coordinates are linked to positions, so an intrinsic coordinate of 0.5 would directly correlate to a position of half of the length of the net element. With this knowledge, 'pos' always correlates to an exact 'intrinsicCoord', right?

Also, since i know the linearPositioningSystem through one of the netRelations ("nr_b02b05" or "nr_b04b05") of this netElement at intrinsic coordinate 1, i can compute the other one (intrinsic coordinate 0) with the edge direction and the length.
I am not sure what advantages 'intrinsicCoord' have over 'pos' since they always have to correlate to the edge length.

Is there a rule to use 'pos' when the net element is linked to a linearPositioningSystem and 'intrinsicCoord' when it's not?



Considering that the switchIS id="swi03" ("69W04") should have the spotLocation with applicationDirection="reverse", should the continueCourse for this switch not also have be defined as "left"? In the visualization (pdf) of this sample, it looks like the continueCourse is the branchCourse. I am not sure if the visualization is not correct here, or if the definition in the railml file is not precise.
See the attachment "continueCourse.jpg"



And lastly,
The trainDetectionElement id="tde13" has a spotLocation withouh a 'pos' or 'intrinsicCoord' defined, it has however a linearCoordinate with a 'measure'. Is that a valid definition for a spotLocation? Or should I in such a case compute the 'pos' or 'intrinsicCoord' from the linearCoordinate's 'measure'?



best regards,
keep in touch,

Re: [railML3.1] applicationDirection and placing of elements [message #2503 is a reply to message #2491] Fri, 24 July 2020 14:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
christian.rahmig is currently offline  christian.rahmig
Messages: 436
Registered: January 2016
Senior Member
Dear Peter,

Peter Vancsa wrote on Mon, 13 July 2020 18:40

...
Since the NetElement "ne_b05" is not liked to the linearPositioningSystem "lps01", I should use intrinsic coordinates. However, intrinsic coordinates are linked to positions, so an intrinsic coordinate of 0.5 would directly correlate to a position of half of the length of the net element. With this knowledge, 'pos' always correlates to an exact 'intrinsicCoord', right?

Also, since i know the linearPositioningSystem through one of the netRelations ("nr_b02b05" or "nr_b04b05") of this netElement at intrinsic coordinate 1, i can compute the other one (intrinsic coordinate 0) with the edge direction and the length.
I am not sure what advantages 'intrinsicCoord' have over 'pos' since they always have to correlate to the edge length.

Is there a rule to use 'pos' when the net element is linked to a linearPositioningSystem and 'intrinsicCoord' when it's not?

From railML schema perspective there is no rule when to use @pos and when to use @intrinsicCoord. The only rule is that the location of the element should be unambiguously defined. You are right: the intrinsic coordinate (0..1) can be calculated from a pos value knowing the total length of the NetElement. It is also possible to calculate the pos value from an intrinsic coordinate. There may be different use cases requiring different implementations of locations. So, the idea is: we define the "leading information" (pos value or intrinsic coordinate) in the use case and since the other information can be always calculated from the leading one, there is neither a loss of data nor conflicting values.

However, it is a good questions for the community: do you use (relative) position values or intrinsic coordinates as leading information in your systems and export interfaces?


Peter Vancsa wrote on Mon, 13 July 2020 18:40

Considering that the switchIS id="swi03" ("69W04") should have the spotLocation with applicationDirection="reverse", should the continueCourse for this switch not also have be defined as "left"? In the visualization (pdf) of this sample, it looks like the continueCourse is the branchCourse. I am not sure if the visualization is not correct here, or if the definition in the railml file is not precise.
See the attachment "continueCourse.jpg"

You are right considering a "geometric" perspective: The switch's "straight branch" ends in track 21, the "branching track" leads to switch 69W03. If we define "trackContinueCourse" on an operational basis (the branch with the highest traffic / operational main track), selecting the right branch is correct. Following this approach, the "branchCourse" is the straight track leading to the track 21.

This is again a question to the active community: How shall be @trackContinueCourse and @branchCourse be interpreted?
a) operational view: trackContinueCourse = track which is mainly used by railway traffic
b) geometric view: trackContinueCourse = track with the higher radius or which is straight

How did and do you use these attributes in railML 2.x in your exports? What is best practice? We need your feedback to improve our documentation in wiki (https://wiki2.railml.org/index.php?title=IS:switch).


Peter Vancsa wrote on Mon, 13 July 2020 18:40

And lastly,
The trainDetectionElement id="tde13" has a spotLocation withouh a 'pos' or 'intrinsicCoord' defined, it has however a linearCoordinate with a 'measure'. Is that a valid definition for a spotLocation? Or should I in such a case compute the 'pos' or 'intrinsicCoord' from the linearCoordinate's 'measure'?
...

Yes, the location of "tde13" is correctly defined. The attributes @pos and @intrinsicCoordinate can be directly calculated from the <linearCoordinate>@measure. As mentioned before, there is no rule when to use which notation, but it must be guaranteed that the other values can be calculated from the given one.

If you (and the rest of the community) have different opinions or further questions regarding this topic, please let's continue the discussion. We need solutions that you can practically work with...

Best regards
Christian


Christian Rahmig – Infrastructure scheme coordinator
railML.org (Registry of Associations: VR 5750)
Altplauen 19h; 01187 Dresden; Germany www.railML.org
Re: [railML3.1] applicationDirection and placing of elements [message #2506 is a reply to message #2503] Mon, 27 July 2020 10:41 Go to previous message
Dirk Bräuer is currently offline  Dirk Bräuer
Messages: 311
Registered: August 2008
Senior Member
Hi Christian,

> However, it is a good questions for the community: do you
> use (relative) position values or intrinsic coordinates as
> leading information in your systems and export interfaces?

We (iRFP) use relative and absolute positions, in an already redundant way. I could imagine that applies to all use cases linked with timetables.

We see no use case for intrinsic coordinates since they would only be one more redundancy.

Best regards,
Dirk.
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