Section 3.1 - Software Description

Section 3.2 - Required Support Programs

This program runs using the Qt environment primarilty on Windows or Linux. Attempting to run this program on even a Raspberry Pi 5 is likrly to provide poor performance depending o nthe complexity of the program being run.

To run this system, the following programs must also be installed on the system running the program "terrain_editor":
(1) MariaDB (or MySQL) database.

Section 3.3 - Basic Operation

This program takes the height arrays of each region and allows it to be manipulated to simulate various terrains. Because the terrain is stored in a 2D array, it is not possible to have terrain that would require more thaon one point to describe the terrain at any location. FOr example, while it is possible to describe a vertical walled and flat bottomed channel, it is not possible to describe a terrain where the terrain have a surface layer, a void under it and the another layer under it. As an example of this would be a tunnel.

If the program is run by a person with acess to database holding the all of the simulator's Region information, it is possible to download each Terrain array from the database table using the datbase. If the operator of this program does not have access to the simulator's database, the array describing the array of the table must be downloaded individually unless the regions are named so that this program can determine the regions and download the data from the local database. For this to happen, the regions must identify their name and position in the Region Name. The data in the region name must in the following format:

Brigadoon13 (1008,9960) "Text Friendly Name"

where:

Brigadoon13 is the Unique Region Text identifier, containing only letters and numbers;
(1009,9960) is the Unique Location of the region on the simulator's world map; and
"Text Friendly Name" is name of the Region. This name does not need to be unique and may simply identify the Estate to which the Region is connected.

Once the Region Terrain data data has been loaded into the program, the program allows the use to manipulate the terrain heights to make the desired profile.