Tools
In order to manipulate an object in the scenario, you must first select it with a click. You can drag it around and change its position, or rotate some of them by right-clicking and dragging them.
Lines and arrows have control points that you can move individually.
You can move the whole Boat Track around by selecting the Track.
Menu actions
Some actions are available only throug menu items:
Edit
- Duplicate object
View
- Show all hidden boats
- Reposition scenario to center
- Toggle zone for all marks
Toolbar
Yellow group serves to:
- start a new scenario,
- open an existing Sail Replay scenario or import a TSS or Boats scenario,
- save your current scenario,
- export the scenario to an image or a video.
Blue group is for adjusting the zoom scale.
Gray group allows you to access current scenario settings and description.
Red Animate button serves to switch to the Animation view.
The rest of the toolbar are tools, that allow you to create new scenario objects. These objects' properties are managed via Property panels.
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Common properties
- Color
- Customize the object color. There's an extra color panel with commonly used color for diagrams.
- Show from
- A boat track can have multiple individual steps. If you want for a specific object to appear only at a specific step, related to boat tracks, set the Show from value to that step number. If a Flag has a Show from value of 3, it will appear in animation only when boats reac the position 3.
- Show to
- Same logic as for Show from applies, but the object disappears when the boats reach the value.
Boat tool
- Boat type
- Pick the boat type for the selectd boat/track, plenty to choose from.
- Boat visible
- If you do not need a boat to be visible in a specific step of the animation, uncheck this value and only a reference circle will be drawn.
- Display track
- A track is draw between the boats to follow the boats movement. Uncheck if you do not want it.
- Show rudder
- Some boat types have a rudder protruding from the stern, which might affect some situations. Enable it if you need it.
- Boat is drifting
- The boats' track between two steps, position and direction, is shaped automatically into a smooth curve. If a boat is marked as drifting the track becomes a straight line and the boat "slides" between two steps.
- Size factor
- A RC boat has roughly 7.5 meters. A Keelboat 8 meters. A RC44 is 3 boat lengths of a Finn. The rest of the boats follow the same idea, to represent their lengths.
- Overlap
- Need to confirm the overlap between two boats? Draw an overlap line at the very back of the boat. The line extends for two boat lengths from the boat.
- Start position
- If you need to sync two tracks for a specific step somewhere in the middle, you can set a Start position for one of them and make boats meet without extra clutter.
- Ladder rungs
- Choose a single or more ladder rungs to depict the exact boat position relative to the wind.
- Boat direction
- Use the arrow-buttons to change the boat direction. You can also use shift + left / right to do the same.
- To layline
- Find the nearest layline relative to the current direction and snap to it. Same is achieved pressing the space.
- Manual sail trimming
- Sail trim is automatically adjusted according to the boat direction relative to the wind. Check Manual sail trim to adjust the sail trim to your wishes. You can set main sail/jib individually, but locking the padlock makes jib follow the main sail angle.
- Spinnaker
- Some boats might fly a spinnaker.
- Gennaker
- Other boats might have a gennaker. Or both. But not at the same time. :)
- Flag on boat
- If you need a flag attached to a boat, moving with it, being animated with it, use this button to create a flag.
- Text on boat
- If you need a text balloon attached to a boat, moving with it, being animated with it, use this button to create the text. Text balloons linked to boats cannot change the border, background color or shape.
RC boat extra options
- Draw zone
- Draw a zone around the RC boat.
- Line to RC boat
- If there is another RC boat on the diagram, draw a line to the closest one.
AC75 extra options
- Inner border
- Outer border
- Both settings allow for drawing an inner/outer border of the boat space, which counts for assessing the room it needs and is used in the evaluation of room it needs or occupies.
- Foils
- Set the foils position, whether a single or both are submersed.
Adding a new boat
Add a new boat / track:
- make sure no boat is selected,
- click the B toolbar icon,
- place the new boat in position and click or drag and...
- move the mouse to set the direction of the boat,
- click / release the mouse button, boat is in place,
- continue placing new boats,
- press backspace to delete the previous boat,
- double click or press escape to stop adding new boats.
- double click anywhere on the scenario to create a new track!
Add a boat to an existing track:
- select an existing boat,
- click the B toolbar icon,
- move the mouse to set the position of the new boat (which is inserted after the one you selected),
- another click and the boat is in place,
- continue placing new boats,
- press backspace to delete the previous boat,
- double click or press escape to end adding new boats,
- double click on the track, a new boat will be inserted at the spot you clicked,
- double click on an existing boat, and a new boat will be added right after it.
Mark tool
- Mark type
- A mark can be either round, triangular or a mark rib.
- Leave on port/starboard arrow
- Attach an arrow to the mark, that can show the way a boat should round it. It moves and resizes with the mark. You can change the arrow angle (right click drag) and distance from the mark, and its style properties.
- Label
- A mark can usually accomodate up to 2 numbers/characters, that help identify it.
- Draw zone
- Toggle between drawing the zone around the mark or not. Zone size is determined by the number of boat lengths and the Main track setting in the Scenario Configuration. Double click the mark or press space to toggle it.
- Line to RC boat
- If there is a RC boat on the diagram, draw a line to the closest one.
- Top/bottom laylines
- Draw laylines according to the wind, toward the wind, with the wind or in both directions.
- Size factor
- Resize the mark to a desired size.
Flag tool
- Flag type
- Select the flag you would like to display. It can be a custom color flag or one from the following groups:
- RC / organisation
- match race
- IMS letters
- IMS other flags
- class flags
- country flags
- Size factor
- Resize the flag to a desired size.
- Draw handle
- A handle can serve as a marker for the starting line.
- Custom color
- If Custom color flag type is selected, you can selects the color here.
Line tool
Lines are used to draw different shapes, delimiters or two-headed arrows on your scenario. Set a course boundary, depict an exclusion zone or draw a pier or an island!
- Line patern
- Choose between different line patters: solid, dotted, dashed, mixed.
- Closed
- When checked, the line drawn is automatically closed, to form a closed shape.
- Fill shape
- When checked, the shape is filled with the color and treated as a solid object.
- Smooth line
- Smooth the line passing through the control points.
- Arrow head/tail
- Add an arrow head at the beginning or end of the line.
- Width
- Set the line width.
Adding a line
- make sure no other line or point is selected
- click the toolbar icon
- place the first control point by clicking on a scenario
- repeat for all other points
- press backspace to delete the previous point
- double click or press escape to end adding points
Adding a control point
- select another point and click the toolbar icon, then add the point by clicking at the desired location,
...or...
- add a point to the line by double clicking the line
Editing the line
- delete a point by selecting it and pressing backspace
- click the line and drag it to move the line
- click the control point, press command and drag with mouse, to move the whole line
Text tool
- Text type
- A Frame has a square border and background color the same as the scenario, Rounded text has white background and rounded corners.
- Transparent
- When checked, it is a see-through text bubble.
- Border
- Adds a border to the text bubble.
- Text size
- Scale the text to the desired size.
Arrow tool
- Arrow line pattern
- Choose between different line patters: solid, dotted, dashed, mixed.
- To line
- Take the current end-points and make a straight arrow between them.
- Reverse
- Arrow head becomes the tail and the tails is now the new arrow head.
- Width
- Set the line width.
- "Straight line" arrows
- Similar to to line button, but puts the arrow in vertical or horizontal direction.
Wind tool
By default, wind is figuratively blowing from the top of the scenario, from direction 0°. If that works for you, no need to employ the Wind tool.
You can define a new direction for the whole scenario or define individual wind directions for each of the boat steps. In this case you need to place the Wind object somewhere on the scenario, which gives you access to the wind settings.
Not all steps need a value - those empty will be interpolated. When a boat is selected, the Wind indicator is adjusted to the wind direction for that specific step.
If you need to reorder the entries, you can drag-and-drop them around the table.
- Step/wind
- Match a wind direction with a specific step.
- Add entry
- Add new entries, to add a wind directio for a later step. You can also achieve this by selecting a boat for that specific step and rotate the wind dial with the right mouse click. The steps inbetween will be automatically added.
- Wind dial size
- Choose from three predefined sizes.
- Wind direction
- Select or modify the current step wind direction value with the arrow-buttons.
- Clear entry
- Press this button if you want to reset a value for the current step and set it to empty.
- Remove entry
- If you removed a boat step from the scenario and need to sync it with the boats again, remove the matching wind entry.