Track Designer — AART Slot Car Track Directory

Tracks

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Several tracks can share the room. Work on one at a time: click it on the plan, here, or in the tabs along the bottom, or press [ and ]. The others are shown dimmed. Each has its own pieces, lanes, rostrum, panels and saved track, and their boards and rostrums mustn't overlap.

Designs lists blank tracks of each type, the standard designs (the sample figure of eight, a King track and Indy at 1:100) and the designs saved in the directory. Load puts one in place of the track you're working on; + Track adds it to the room as another track. Either way you can then edit it, and Undo goes back.

Room

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Draw the room the track goes in: its walls, doors and anything on the floor. The checks then make sure the board fits with room to walk round it, and marshals can reach every bend from the floor.

Drag the grey corners on the plan to reshape the room. Drag a door or window along the walls: it stays docked on whichever wall is nearest. Drag an obstacle to move it. Click a door, window or obstacle (on the plan or in the lists here) to select it: drag a door's or window's white end handles to make it wider or narrower, and an obstacle's corners to resize it. A window also has its height above the floor and its own height, which you set here.

A selected obstacle can be turned: drag its orange knob (Shift for 15° steps), twist two fingers on the plan, type its angle, or Turn 90°. It can also be lined up: ∥ Wall (or W), then click a wall to turn it square to that wall and move it flush against it, or click another obstacle's side to turn it square to that. Square up (X) squares it to the plan. Each obstacle's name is shown on it.

Give the room its ceiling height, and each obstacle its height: floor to ceiling (a pillar, the default) or its top above the floor (a cupboard, a table). The checks use them for the drivers' sight lines: each driver must see their own lane past the obstacles, from their space on the rostrum (set its platform height and the drivers' eye heights under Settings).

Move the circuit with the orange grip in its middle (or by dragging the board). Select any piece and an orange knob appears above it: drag it to rotate the circuit (Shift for 15° steps), or twist two fingers on the plan. Positions are in mm. Each track's drivers' rostrum is under its Settings.

Compass: the rose on the plan shows which way north is; drag it anywhere out of the way, or tap it to come here. Set it by typing north's angle, or from a wall: choose the wall (or Pick it on the plan) and the side of the room it's on (a north wall's outside faces north), then Set the compass. Turn the plan so north is up turns the room, its obstacles and every track together (Undo to go back).

Layout generator

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Proposes finished layouts that fit the room: a main straight with the start line at its start, bends and shorter straights, and a tight bend back onto the main straight. It uses the lanes, spacing, border and minimum radius from Settings. Open one, then refine it.

Pieces

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The pieces drive the track's centreline in racing order from the start line. Lengths and radii are in mm, angles in degrees; radius is the centreline's; left and right are as the car sees them.

Each new piece goes after the selected one. Type exact numbers here, or select a piece on the plan and drag its handles: the white one at its end sets a straight's length or an arc's angle, the blue one in an arc's middle its radius. Drag empty floor to pan; scroll, or pinch on a phone, to zoom.

To line the circuit up, select a piece and press ∥ Wall (or W), then click the wall, or the side of an obstacle, it should run parallel to: the walls light up while you choose, and clicking anywhere else (or Esc) calls it off. Horizontal (X) and Vertical (Y) line it up with the plan instead. The whole circuit turns about its middle, by the smaller way round; an arc is lined up by the line from its start to its end.

Leave the last section out and join the two loose ends: click one red end, then shift-click the other (or press J), or use Auto-close.

Make organic turns the selected arc into a corner of varying radius (Reroll for another version); Change radius makes it tighten as it goes round (Swap reverses it). + Ess adds arcs alternating left and right as one unit; expand a group (▸) to make its arcs different, and Ungroup to make them ordinary pieces.

A loop's left angles minus its right angles add up to 360°; a figure-of-eight's cancel to 0°. With 4 lanes the tightest bend is about 400 mm to the centreline.

Start line & bridges

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Drag the start line's white handle along the track; this shows which piece it's on and how far along. Where the track crosses itself, choose which piece goes over on a bridge. An unbridged crossing shows as a red circle.

Auto-close

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Close with new pieces adds an arc, a straight and an arc from the open end back to the start line. Hover an option to see it dashed on the plan, then Add it. Pick by the total turn: 360° for a plain loop, 0° for a figure-of-eight.

Close by adjusting: tick the boxes in the piece list next to exactly three values you don't mind changing (say the back straight's length and two bends' angles); they're changed until the loop meets itself.

Checks

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Sight lines: each driver, standing in their space on the rostrum, must see their own lane all the way round. Checked from the shortest and the tallest drivers' eye heights (Settings) to the lane at the board's height, past every obstacle up to its height. A stretch hidden from everyone is marked in solid purple on the lane, one hidden only from shorter drivers in dashed purple.

Work down the list until it says no problems; click a problem to select its piece. It covers the loop not closing, bends too tight (red dashes on the plan), crossings without a bridge, the board overlapping itself (red circles), bends a marshal can't reach (orange dots), and obstacles standing in a door's swing (red circles). The notes give each bridge's ramp lengths and gradients, and bends that can only be reached from an infield.

Readout

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Does the board fit your room, and how far apart are the lane lengths? Everything here follows from the pieces and the Settings.

Save to the directory

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Saves a proposed track in the directory: the picture as its diagram, the layout DXF (once it's split into panels), each lane's line as its geometry, and this design so it can be opened here again.

Panels & export

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The maker cuts the board from MDF sheets on a machine, so it's split into panels with joints square across the track (on straights where possible), and the panels are packed onto sheets.

Settings

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Track type: a loop or a figure of eight (up to 8 lanes), or a drag strip (up to 4 lanes, straight, with a finish line and a shutdown run after it). Changing type starts from a template (Undo to go back). A drag strip can stand against a wall.

The drivers' rostrum is the raised platform this track's drivers stand on, with a space and a controller panel for each driver and steps up at each end. Drag it to move it. Tap it to select it and show its handles: its orange knob rotates it (15° steps with Shift), the end handle changes the width per driver, and the side handle its width.

Keys

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No keyboard? Everything the keys do is also in the action bar along the bottom of the plan, which shows what can be done to whatever is selected. On a touch screen, pinch to zoom, twist two fingers to turn the circuit (or the selected obstacle), and press and hold the plan for the design's details.