Adjusting the Grid

There are a few things you need to know before working with the grid:

• Grid must be on display.  Use View Grid. 
   
• Edit Tool must be active.  You cannot drag the grid with any other tool.
   
• Red lines are anchors.  One particular horizontal and one vertical are special, and colored in red.  When you drag to adjust the grid dimensions, these lines stay put.  You don't usually see these red lines when you open a layout; they're often along the left and top edges, just out of sight.
   
• Drag by corner is different from drag by line.  If you press and begin dragging at the intersection of two lines, then the grid stays square and resizes as you drag.  If you press at some other point on a vertical or horizontal line, the grid does not stay square -- you resize either the horizontal or the vertical spacing.
   
• Drag resizes, shift-drag moves.  Press and drag on a line or intersection, and the grid resizes relative to the origin (intersection of the red lines).  Hold down the shift key while you drag, and the entire grid moves without resizing.  The cursor changes to a four-headed arrow when you have the shift key down.

With that background, here's how to use the grid to set up a layout.  We'll start with the easiest case, where the image has grid lines spaced according to the Westcott conventions (12" apart in HO, etc.; see About Sizes and Scales for the complete list).  If the spacing is different on your image, or it doesn't have any grid lines, see below.

	1.  Open the image file. The program grid comes up automatically, not quite aligned with the image grid. In this example, we're using the Reddy River & Piedras RR, plan #4.  If you have this layout and want to follow along, open the file L04.tpg in your TrainPlayer\Layouts\Images directory. How well the default grid lines up with the image depends on several factors, the main one being the resolution of the image.  If you start with a low-resolution image (72 dpi), then the initial alignment will be way off.
	2.  Select the Edit Track tool. 3.  Hold down the shift key, point to any intersection point on the grid, press and drag toward the lower right. The entire grid moves, and the red origin lines become visible. 4.  Drag until the red lines are superimposed on two lines in the image, then release.  This establishes the origin point.
	5.  Without holding the shift key, press and drag a grid intersection point. The grid resizes while it remains square.  Red lines do not move. 6.  Release when the grid is aligned with the image. If the grid on the image is not square, you can get a better fit by adjusting horizontal and vertical spacing independently, dragging lines instead of intersection points.
7.  Check your work.  Right-click the layout, choose Properties, Layout tab, and see if the indicated size is what you expect.  In this example, the dialog says the layout is roughly 4x6 in HO, which corresponds to the size in the book. 8.  While you're in Layout Properties, choose a modelling scale, and take a minute to enter a name and a few comments describing the layout. 9.  Save the file. The file you started with was an image (jpg, bmp, gif, etc.), but once you've set up the grid, you have a layout, and must save it as a TrainPlayer (.rrw) file.

Once the grid is adjusted, you can use View Grid to turn it off and forget about it.

What if there is no grid on the diagram?

If your image does not have grid lines, you will need to set up the program grid by some other criterion.

• If you know the overall size of the layout: set the origin at the upper left, and drag until the number of grid lines matches the dimensions you want.  For example, if your image represents a 10' x 6' layout, adjust until the first grid line is at the left, the tenth at the right, and there are nine in between, for a total width of ten feet.  If your image is drawn to scale and based on a square grid, then the height should take care of itself and come out to six feet.
   
• If you know the horizontal or vertical distance between two points on the layout: adjust the grid spacing so it matches that distance.  For example, if your picture shows a doorway you know to be 3' wide, adjust the grid so that three squares just fit the doorway (or six in N scale, etc.).

The placement of the grid doesn't matter, the separation between grid lines is the important thing.  And even that is not terribly critical -- the only consequences of having the grid adjusted wrong are (a) the sizes of the cars will not be accurate relative to the layout, and (b) the Layout Properties dialog will show the wrong overall size.