As many people know (especially the NAM team, and especially those who've worked on the current Traffic Congestion View), Maxis didn't seem to finish the job completely when it comes to traffic volumes and their display. A prime example is the whole problem that led to the creation of the new Traffic Congestion View. But other problems still remain. The "Morning Commute" and "Evening Commute" buttons in this view do nothing at all; the view appears to represent total daily traffic. Meanwhile, the route query tool will show different routes depending on whether you select Morning or Evening Commute, as it should. But if you use it to find the current volume on a particular path, it always reports the volume of the Morning Commute, regardless of the setting of these buttons. As far as I know, there's no way to get the exact volume for the evening commute, and therefore for the total daily commute.
Theoretically, the Traffic Volume View could help a lot here. It shows networks on an individual basis, and it differentiates properly between morning and evening commutes. But the way it's currently implemented, its value is somewhat limited. What capacity does a particular shade of blue represent? Can you really tell the difference between that and the next shade of blue? And what scale is being used?
Poking around in SimCity_1.dat reveals some of these answers. The top of the scale is 120% of the capacity of the network being viewed. But here we're talking about the original Maxis capacity of the network, not the capacity implemented by whatever traffic simulator you're using. So that's why for people who use higher capacities for their networks, this view tends to max out very early in terms of usage. At a minimum, different versions of this view should be available with different capacity simulators, so that it's possible to get a decent amount of information from it.
But if we're going to modify this view at all, there's actually a lot more we can do to make it useful. First of all, even a novice GUI designer knows that gray scales (which is what this view really is) convey a lot less information than color scales. So let's change the color ramp to make use of this knowledge. (Fortunately, there's only one color ramp for all networks; it's duplicated in each exemplar.) And if we're going to use a range of colors, why not coordinate this view with the traffic congestion view? For example, right now the traffic congestion view can only tell you if there's congestion on a certain tile. Since tiles can contain up to three networks (subways plus two others), it's not always immediately apparent where the congestion is. Furthermore, the Traffic Volume View has the advantage that the Morning and Evening Commute buttons actually work, so you can see at what time of day the congestion actually occurs. Put that together with the very useful moving dots of this view, and you can usually tell which travel direction the congestion is in.
So here's what I propose: We change the color ramp for the Traffic Volume View, while still keeping the current color ramp as part of that view. The current color ramp would be used to describe traffic volume from 0% to 50% of network capacity. From 50% to 100%, the color would gradually change from blue to the solid green found in the congestion graph. Above 100%, the colors would match those in the congestion graph.
Among other things, using the same colors in both graphs would allow for easy comparison when switching between them. (However, it is not possible always to guarantee that the colors will match up; see the following post for details.) The additional colors available in the Traffic Volume View would also allow the user to get a much better idea of what traffic levels were, and even where congestion was, and what time of day it occurred. In fact, these changes in total should make the Traffic Congestion View much less necessary. Its main advantage over the Traffic Volume View would be that it would show data from all networks at once, which is certainly very useful, and its congestion data would be more accurate, for reasons explained in the following post. But to get more detailed information on traffic congestion, or on traffic flow in general, the Traffic Volume View would be extremely useful.
So what do people think of this idea? All it would take is making a file of all the Traffic Volume Views (there's one for each network), building the color ramp, and setting the capacities for each network properly. Piece of cake. ::) I've played around enough with the Traffic Congestion View so that I should have no trouble doing this myself, but I thought it would be a good idea to get some feedback before I started. So here's your chance...
The following is a technical note on the implementation details of the above proposal, for those who are interested. (Yes, both of you.)
When I say "network capacity," exactly what am I referring to in this context? Do I mean the nominal network capacity, or do I mean the network capacity for one commute period, which is half the nominal network capacity?
It turns out that neither number will give you the results you want all the time. Nor will any number in between. The problem has a lot to do with the way that the traffic simulator algorithms implement congestion, which is overly simplistic. This is very much connected to the reason why jplumbley and mott had to create a new Traffic Congestion View.
In the real world, congestion is determined by cars per lane, and varies from minute to minute. In SC4, congestion is determined by cars (actually Sims) per tile, and is determined on an average daily basis. This leads to several interesting anomalies.
For the sake of simplicity, for the following examples, assume a road capacity of 1000 cars, each containing one Sim. Then if you have a road where the total daily traffic consists of 900 cars in one lane and no cars in the opposite lane, that road is considered not to be congested. Yet if you have a road with a total daily traffic of 700 cars in each lane, for a total of 1400 cars, that road is considered to be heavily congested. This clearly does not correspond to the real world; the "congested" road has less traffic per lane than the "uncongested" road. Yet that's how SC4 works.
Here's a second example: Consider a one-way road, also with a capacity of 1000. Now if that road carries 900 Sims in the morning and none in the evening, it is considered uncongested. But if it carries 700 Sims during each commute, it is considered heavily congested. Again, this does not make sense in real world terms.
For the Traffic Congestion View, which displays data on a day-long basis, these differences are averaged out, and it's possible to have a reasonably consistent (though not completely accurate) view of traffic congestion. For the Traffic Volume View, it's much harder, since you're only dealing with one commute period. And coordinating the two views perfectly becomes impossible. No matter what number you pick for network capacity, some networks will appear congested in the Traffic Volume View that don't appear congested in the Traffic Congestion View, or vice versa.
So what to do? ()what() I've decided to define "network capacity" as half the nominal network capacity for the Traffic Volume View. For networks that are used about equally during both commute periods, this will be the correct choice, and they will show up with the same colors on both the Traffic Volume View and Traffic Congestion View. For networks with asymmetrical traffic flow during the two commute periods, it's a little more complicated. Networks which are congested over a day-long basis may not be congested during a particular commute period, and will therefore show green or blue. This is perfectly correct, since there is no real congestion during that commute period. The problem comes when you networks that are over half capacity during one commute period, but carry little or no traffic during the other, so that the total traffic is under 100% capacity. Although these networks are not congested, and do not show up as congested in the Traffic Congestion View, they will show yellow or orange for the higher traffic period in the Traffic Volume View.
I think that this is one of those problems that just can't be solved. To some extent, though, we can define it away. After all, this is the Traffic Volume View, and as such, is not supposed to represent congestion exactly. It can't. So here, yellow simply means heavier traffic, possibly (but not necessarily) congested. (If you see red in this view, though, you can be quite sure that that network is congested.) And wherever your map is blue or green, you can be assured that there is no congestion during that commute period. But to see congestion the way the game sees it, you need to use the Traffic Congestion View. The Traffic Volume View is designed to give you a very good idea of what the traffic volume is for a given commute period, and that it will do. In many cases, the colors displayed in both views will correspond, but that cannot be guaranteed. $%Grinno$%
I think its a great idea...
And I agree with all the necessary changes as you articulated them in your post..
i have found myself in recent games rarely using the traffic volume graphs..
i think the main reason for this as you pointed out .. is that there has been many recent changes
with the nam and all the new traffic sims that have come out.. To me, virtually making the traffic volume
graph irrelevant really.. However i for one would use the new volume graph quite a lot... if your able to
implement all the necessary changes you suggested in your well explained posting..
Having received a 100% positive response to my proposal ;D, I am ready to ahead. &hlp
However, the plot has thickened. %confuso
The more I look at the Traffic Volume View, the more it looks like an unfinished product. I think that by the time Maxis created this view, they knew there were inconsistencies in the way they handled traffic volume and congestion, but they didn't know how to address them. So they didn't.
In my first post, I said, "The top of the scale is 120% of the capacity of the network being viewed." I based this statement on looking at the parameter Dataview: Maximum Scale, which appears in each traffic type exemplar. I saw it set to 1200 for cars, buses, and road traffic, so I thought, "OK, they're using 120% of network capacity here." This seemed to be the obvious conclusion, since it was a parameter that could vary with each traffic type.
Unfortunately, it was wrong. That parameter is set to 1200 for every single traffic type. So Maxis put in a parameter that it didn't bother to adjust appropriately for each traffic type - it didn't bother to adjust it at all. Highways, subways, it doesn't matter - the scale tops out at 1200. It was easy to verify this in the game. This means that if you're using Simulator A or B on the Easy setting, the Traffic Volume View tops out at less than 10% of a subway's capacity, and only a little better than that for highways.
Meanwhile, there's a problem that the Traffic Volume View displays traffic types, but a number of these run on networks of different capacities. Specifically, you have cars, buses, and freight trucks, all of which can run on streets, roads, or highways. Maxis just ignored the problem, setting every capacity to 1200. I don't think I can solve this particular problem, but at least I can do better than Maxis; I'll normalize everything for the true capacity of road traffic. As long as the user knows what's being done, the data can still be interpreted usefully. That's as opposed to the current situation, where everything above 1200 is essentially infinity.
The other thing I've been thinking about is the scale for this view. One thing you have to credit the current view with is that it's good at showing gradations at low volumes. As I expand the capacity of the graph, I don't want to lose this ability. For example, a user is going to be much more interested in seeing a change in volume from 100 to 200 than a change from 5100 to 5200. So some sort of logarithmic scale seems to be in order here. This would only be needed until the network capacity is reached; after that, a linear scale that matches the Traffic Congestion View (and the colors of that view as well) would be sufficient.
Oh yes, then there are pedestrians and ferries. Any suggestions as to what "capacities" should be used for these?
Z....
Thanks for explaining what your limitations are with the traffic volume view..
I can still assure you all of us will be most appreciated whatever improvements your able to make..
Brian
good idea, in fact you wouldnt need the congestion view at all really as congestion is based on percentage over capacity....
Quote from: z on August 07, 2008, 12:31:12 AM
Having received a 100% positive response to my proposal ;D, I am ready to ahead. &hlp
ROFL ur funny :D
I do like the sound of your ideas :)
Quote from: mightygoose on August 07, 2008, 04:03:59 AM
good idea, in fact you wouldnt need the congestion view at all really as congestion is based on percentage over capacity....
I was wondering the same myself as I read through the changes..
if you able to make all these changes would the current "congestion view be sorta like a sub set of the traffic
volume view.. or do you think there would be reasons for using both Z ?..
thanks Brian
Quote from: jplumbley on August 07, 2008, 04:47:08 PM
About the "Congestion" Data View... You propose to use it between Morning and Evening Commutes. Well in the simulator there is no difference between Morning and Evening, it doesnt exist. Congestion is determined based on the physical number of trips that pass through any given tile (morning and evening are calculated together in the same calculation). This means, no matter whether the sims are travelling in the morning or in the evening they are still counted towards congestion. There is no possible way to separate this.
Just a quick note now...
I don't propose to modify the Traffic Congestion View at all. I had discovered exactly the facts you state here, and I am in complete agreement with them. Some people have responded in recent posts that they thought that my Traffic Volume View would make the Traffic Congestion View obsolete, but of course it won't (as I did indicate in earlier posts), for exactly the reasons you describe (among others). I had planned to detail this more in a later post.
As for the colors, I'll just have to try it out. If I can't get additional colors in the ramp, I'll have to do something along the lines of what you suggest.
More later... (And sorry about writing too much. ()sad() )
Quote from: jplumbley on August 07, 2008, 04:47:08 PM
What I gather is that you want to change the colorof the "Traffic Volume" Data View. This is not entirely possible, given the current research that I have done and to my knowledge I am the only one who has modified (successfully) the "Traffic Congestion" Data View. I had attempted to add more colors to the original "Traffic Congestion" Data View, when I did so I broke it entirely andit would not show anything on the map. Im not exactly sure why, but for some reason you *must* use the colors already determined in the ramp as far as I am aware and remember.
I agreed with everything you said in my last message. This time I have to disagree.
First of all, in conjunction with the new traffic simulator I'm developing (which I assume you've spotted on this board), I created my own color ramp for the Traffic Congestion View. (It was tricky, I'll give you that.) I modified this view for two reasons: 1) I use a different congestion vs. speed curve, so I need my colors to cover a different range; and 2) I liked the greater number of color gradations that were present in the original color ramp. However, since the basic premise behind your color ramp is correct, I was careful to conform to that. It was this success in modifying the Traffic Congestion View that encouraged me to tackle the Traffic Volume View. I didn't announce this before now, so that's why you thought you were the only one who was successful in modifying the Traffic Congestion View.
Second, your research on the Traffic Congestion View was apparently incomplete, and this led you to erroneous conclusions. I had no trouble adding a new color to this view on the first try. I changed the uncongested pure green to a dark blue. (The yellow congestion really stands out this way. ;) ) If you want to duplicate my results, all you have to do is change the second color in the color ramp from 0x9900FF00 to 0xBB2E37F9.
Third, it appears that there will be no problem adding a full-spectrum color ramp to the Traffic Volume View. For a quick test, I copied the color ramp from the Traffic Congestion View to one of the entries in the Traffic Volume View, trimmed off the last ten entries so that the size was right, and fired up SC4. Sure enough, when I clicked on the network I had changed, I got a range from green to dark orange, which was exactly what I was expecting, since I had chopped off the red end of the spectrum. Furthermore, it appears that I may not need a logarithmic scale after all, as the program interpolates the colors very nicely. On a network with a capacity of 14,000 the scale tops off at half of that, since this is just one commute period. Yet I could see color changes for about every 50 Sims of capacity, which is probably fine enough.
So everything looks good for completing this project according to the (excruciatingly long) specification I posted above.
Hi Z....
First let me congratulate on your work with the color ramps and also your modifications of the traffic congestion
data view.. i have a question for you though .. In time, once you have finished all your changes to both the traffic
volume and congestion maps will it be possible to dl these as separate downloads or will you have to dl and use
your new traffic sim in order to use these ? As i stated in the other thread , in time I would very much like to try
your new traffic sim, but i think with my existing region and cities I'm planning on staying with mott's traffic sim..,
thanks for all the time and work you have put into all this research and development and also to
Jplumbley as well...
Brian
Quote
11223344
First 2 Digits are Red, 2nd two are Green and 3rd two are Blue... i forget what the 4th pair is, but if i remember correctly it is Transparency.
Hm. I wonder if the fourth pair can be manipulated to create maps (as in, creating overview maps of the entire region)? :P
As far as I know, the colour overlay isn't entirely opaque, it's more translucent. It could affect how well it shows up on the game view rather than the map view?
Quote from: b22rian on August 08, 2008, 03:25:50 AM
In time, once you have finished all your changes to both the traffic
volume and congestion maps will it be possible to dl these as separate downloads or will you have to dl and use
your new traffic sim in order to use these ? As i stated in the other thread , in time I would very much like to try
your new traffic sim, but i think with my existing region and cities I'm planning on staying with mott's traffic sim..,
It will certainly be possible to use the new Traffic Volume View with any simulator, including Simulators A and B. However, in order to do so, the Traffic Volume View will need to be modified for each simulator (although A and B will use the same settings). The main reason is that network capacity for each network has to be coded into the Traffic Volume View for each simulator, and the simulators tend to use different network capacities. This also means that there needs to be a different Traffic Volume View for each of the levels Easy, Medium, and Hard in Simulators A and B. Finally, I have my color ramp topping out at 150% of the nominal network capacity. Since this is for a single commute period, it corresponds to 300% of the daily network capacity. This is perfect for my simulator, but it is larger than the range for the color ramps being used in Simulators A and B. However, volumes for a single commute tend to vary more than for the daily commute as a whole, so jplumbley may find that this range works for him also. If not, he'll have to change it to what he thinks is best.
My Traffic Congestion View is designed specifically for my traffic simulator, and at this point I see no need for distributing it separately.
As for the Traffic Volume View, I'll have to consult with the Powers That Be to find out what is the proper way to distribute this, both for testing and for general use. Ditto for my traffic simulator. It may be necessary to get permission, in the same way it is in order to be able to upload to the LEX. And it may be that uploading to the LEX is the proper way to distribute these anyway. I'll keep you all posted on this.
Quote from: z on August 08, 2008, 11:51:25 AM
As for the Traffic Volume View, I'll have to consult with the Powers That Be to find out what is the proper way to distribute this, both for testing and for general use. Ditto for my traffic simulator. It may be necessary to get permission, in the same way it is in order to be able to upload to the LEX. And it may be that uploading to the LEX is the proper way to distribute these anyway. I'll keep you all posted on this.
Ok Z, thanks for explaining all that..
When your ready to test the volume graph, I can be a tester for you if you want..
I have a pretty large city with a varied and well balanced transport system..
Brian
Quote from: jplumbley on August 08, 2008, 12:42:36 AM
I assume you have figured out what the HEX code for the colors:
It is a HEX RGB code.
11223344
First 2 Digits are Red, 2nd two are Green and 3rd two are Blue... i forget what the 4th pair is, but if i remember correctly it is Transparency.
Actually, it's not RGB, it's BRG:
11223344One clue is that the last entry for all red has 0xFF in the second position, not the first.
The fourth pair probably is transparency; I haven't really checked that out.
The new Traffic Volume View graph is now done, and is attached at the bottom of this message. It has everything I mentioned in my orignal proposal, plus more. I had originally planned to include a full description of what I put in and why I did it the way I did, but that's going to take a while. So in the mean time, feel free to try this out. It should be quite self-explanatory. I've tested it extensively, and there are no known bugs. Let me know if you find any, or what you think in general.
EDIT: The exact way I implemented the transition from blue to green in the color ramp differs slightly from what I described in the first post in order to make the color ramp work better. Details to follow.
What do I think ?
well, i haven't had the time to look at it in detail yet..cause i have to be off for work soon..
But my first impression is, its totally awesome ! &apls..
I'm sure it must have been a lot of work to do all this ??
But compared to the maxis volume graph .. which lately I had been hardly using,, this is a VAST
Improvement and im sure i"m understating things.. The colors you used are great.. there quite easily
distinguishable from 1 another.. And I really like what you did in general which was to simply take the different
network capacities and Half them, to try and represent the different commutes (morning and evening) or
(too and from work) if you will..Quite easy to understand for about everyone I should think..
As I said I haven't had time to really look at a lot of detail yet,but it seems to report the volumes spot on
in accuracy from what i can tell so far.. No problems at all ..
I like how you used the road capacity for all the car travel too , as for most people Like myself I'm sure roads
would be used the most often in people's cities.. it was logical to me to use that capacity as sorta the base
volume for all road traffic..
I have one question for you though, and I know your very busy so answer this when you can..
I'm curious as i read in another post of yours , exactly how you were able to estimate the evening commutes
within about 10 % of their actual values.. i think you stated that only the morning commute numbers are
actually available in the games programming right ?
I can see I'm going to be late for work LOL.. this is utterly fantastic Z what you have done with this !!
You should feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment .. the enjoyment you have added playing this
game ,to the people of this community..
Ill try to give you more feedback on this later after work..
I can't thank you enough,
regards, Brian
I downloaded the new Traffic Volume View graph last night and have been running it in my city since then, so far no problems to report and it is giving me a very clear idea where my traffic problems are, as you can see from the picture
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm4.static.flickr.com%2F3248%2F2761023326_4b69a610b0_o.jpg&hash=a2e66ba7f6aac2c4202a44277c8bc8dcda3164f1)
Z....
Now that Ive had a chance to relax and have a better look at your new traffic volume View , I see what
you mean about still making use of both this and the congestion graph.. and how both will still be valuable to
us.... You can now look at overall congestion..but also broken down into both the evening and morning
commutes with your new volume graph ( I'm trusting in your 10 % error or less formulas for the evening
commutes as being accurate).. i think your volume graph though gives far more information now for city
transportation planning.. as amongst other things it will give you quite specific and accurate information
for all the different transport systems in the game.. its harder to do anything with that as you know with
our current congestion views.. but for a player like myself who likes to make use of a variety of transport
options.. this is quite valuable to me now that you have totally over hauled this from what maxis ended up
with..
Brian
@b22rian: Glad you like it! And thanks for the kind words.
Quote from: b22rian on August 13, 2008, 04:25:38 AM
I have one question for you though, and I know your very busy so answer this when you can..
I'm curious as i read in another post of yours , exactly how you were able to estimate the evening commutes
within about 10 % of their actual values.. i think you stated that only the morning commute numbers are
actually available in the games programming right ?
I simply tested out the morning commutes, for which I can get the actual numbers, and found that after a while, by looking at the Traffic Volume View colors, I was able to estimate the morning commute volumes within about 10%. Since evening commutes work exactly the same as morning commutes in terms of color vs. volume, I know that I can make an estimation of the evening commute with the same accuracy. I would think that other people will quickly find that they're able to do this as well.
EDIT: In a very informative exchange with jplumbley, I discovered that I was wrong about the availability of the evening commute volume numbers. It turns out that both are available with the route query tool after all, depending on which commute period is selected in the legend box. I remember trying this and getting the same result from both buttons; since the numbers were in the thousands, I interpreted this as meaning I was getting the same number regardless of the setting. Instead, the roads I tested simply had identical traffic volumes during each commute period. My fault for not doing better testing, and thanks to jplumbley for pointing out my mistake.
--------------
@catty: I'm glad this is working for you. And thanks for the very nice picture upload! I was planning to do this eventually, but your picture is as good as anything I would have shown.
A word of caution, though. I notice that you have the "Road Traffic" view selected. As the name implies, this shows
all road traffic - specifically, cars, buses, and freight trucks. Buses don't count toward congestion, though, so this is not the best view to determine where your road traffic problems are (unless you don't use buses). Instead, generally the "Car" traffic view is best for this purpose, with maybe a quick look at freight trucks to make sure that they're not contributing a significant amount of traffic (they usually aren't). If you do this, then by averaging what you see in the morning and evening commute views, you can get a very accurate idea of what road congestion is.
I can't change the radio buttons or their captions, but I can change the graph headers. I think that to help avoid confusion on this issue, I'll change the header "Road Traffic Volume Data" to "Car, Bus, and Freight Truck Volume Data." The radio button will still say "Road Traffic." When I make this change, I'll replace the upload with the new files, and I'll add a note to the bottom of this post to indicate that that's been done. This should happen within the next couple of hours.
EDIT: OK, the modified files have been created, tested, and uploaded. You can still download them from the same place on the previous page. The only thing that's changed is the title of the Road Traffic view. Functionality is identical.
Z...
thanks for pointing this out to catty and I about road traffic..
Until you did i was thinking also that road= car traffic.. !
Now of course I see how you have itinerized them ..
and that Car is a separate button...
And if you want to make a change with that to avoid confusion I can understand this..
but sorry it was still more work for you &cry2
Brian
Quote from: z on August 13, 2008, 04:33:50 PM
@catty: I'm glad this is working for you. And thanks for the very nice picture upload! I was planning to do this eventually, but your picture is as good as anything I would have shown.
A word of caution, though. I notice that you have the "Road Traffic" view selected. As the name implies, this shows all road traffic - specifically, cars, buses, and freight trucks. Buses don't count toward congestion ....
I was in a hurry this morning a lot going on in RL, but did want to take the time however briefly to show you how it looking in someone else's city &apls, so just took a very quick picture of the Road Traffic" view, but yes I do sometimes forget that view shows everything not just cars.
I having been following this topic and your posts in other places with interest :thumbsup: as I say a lot going on at the moment, so not posting as much as I should, hopefully that should change in the next couple of weeks, but till then I will be ()lurker().
Cathy :)
Quote from: z on August 13, 2008, 04:33:50 PM
EDIT: OK, the modified files have been created, tested, and uploaded. You can still download them from the same place on the previous page. The only thing that's changed is the title of the Road Traffic view. Functionality is identical.
Ok, Thanks Z...
i think I have the hang now of using the original uploaded graph..
So im going to just stay with that...
But new people downloading it will be able to avoid the confusion I'm sure...
Brian
In this post, I will explain in detail the changes I made to the Traffic Volume View and why I made them, the purpose of this being that it may help people to better utilize this view. In the second part of this post, labeled "Technical Details," I will describe those technical aspects of the changes that will be useful for people who want to adapt this view for additional simulators, or who simply want to modify it further. The motivation for these changes has already been described in the first post of this thread, so I will not repeat that information here.
One of the biggest challenges was to choose a color ramp that would preserve fine granularity at lower volume levels, while still scale all the way up into higher volume levels. I chose 300% for full red because that is a volume level that will certainly be seen occasionally, as you can tell from the picture at the bottom of the previous page. Although this number is higher than typical congestion volumes you will usually see in Simulators A and B, congestion volumes are based on the total traffic of both periods, so the traffic simulators may allow a lot of traffic in one commute period if there is little or none in the other, which happens not infrequently. Also, the base number I used was half the network capacity of the underlying network for the travel type selected; this way, the colors and numbers, when averaged (for the colors) and totaled (for the numbers) for the two commute periods would give you a good idea of total daily volume, as well as, in certain cases, the congestion level. The cases in which the congestion level can be estimated are those where the travel type contains no non-congestion producing types (i.e., no pedestrians, buses, or ferries), and where either it is the sole user of the underlying network (such as subways, as long as you don't have an elevated train running directly overhead), or you sum the travel types that use the underlying network (such as cars and freight trucks for roads, or passenger and freight trains for rail.) Clear? ???
Turning back to the color scale, the Maxis color ramp has a maximum of 256 levels, which means that a top number of 300% implies a bottom number no lower than 1.17%. In order to keep things reasonably simple, in my implementation I made certain choices that resulted in this number's being 1.5%, which is why you see 1.5% as the first level in all the views. The first three colors of legend correspond to the earlier colors in the old Traffic Volume View. There are actually two intermediate colors in the color ramp, and in addition, the program interpolates colors, so up to the 10% level, different color shades are separated by about 1.5%. It's important to note here that all numbers are approximate, including the numbers shown in the legends table; I did my best to make them correspond to the beginning of the range of the color displayed.
After 10%, the next color in the color ramp is actually the pure green shown for 100%. All intermediate colors are interpolated, including the two shown in the legend, which were calculated manually. Between 10% and 100%, there's an interpolated color about every 5%. This 5% range for each color continues up to the pure yellow at 130%. Between the pure yellow and the pure red, gradations are less important, and color shades are about 10% apart.
For each travel type, I had to decide which network capacity to use for legend colors and volume numbers. For most travel types, this was quite simple; subways used the subway capacity, etc. However, since some people might be confused by the difference between travel type and network, I added a little subtext at the bottom of some of the legends. For example, for passenger train and freight train, I indicated that the percentage numbers referred to rail capacity. I did this so that people wouldn't think that there was a separate passenger train capacity and a separate freight train capacity.
Roads were trickier, though. Anything that can travel on roads can also travel on streets and highways, which, just to confuse things, are also shown in the road view, along with the car, bus, and freight truck views. Since roads are the intermediate capacity network, and since in many cities they are the overwhelming choice for motor vehicles (with streets coming in second), I chose to use road capacity for the car, bus, and road views. Freight trucks have much smaller traffic volume than cars or buses, so to get meaningful visual data for them, I used street capacity. Each of these choices is indicated in the subtext below the legend of each view.
Now we come to pedestrians. Although for many cities, pedestrians are the highest volume travel type, their travel patterns tend to be the most spread out. As a result, there is relatively little pedestrian volume in any given area. For this reason, I used street capacity as their volume benchmark; it seems to work out well.
Finally, there are ferries. There is no underlying network for ferries, there is no capacity limit on them, and they don't contribute to congestion. For this reason, they are the only travel type not to have percentage numbers in their legend. Instead, I picked reasonable numbers based on my experience, and plugged them in. If anyone who uses ferries extensively thinks these numbers need to be changed, please let me know.
In the current simulators, the percentage levels (from 1.5% to 300%) are the same for all travel types. However, if you ever use a traffic simulator that has networks with capacities above 43,000, then due to limitations in the core SC4 program, it is not possible to display scales all the way up to 300% for those networks. Exactly what the limit will be depends on the capacity of the network. Further explanation of this is given in the "Technical Details" section.
Notice that for every travel type, most transit stations are lit up. This has nothing to do with their usage; this is simply so that you can locate them easily. If a certain type of transit station doesn't light up, it simply has to do with the way it was designed.
Technical Details - First, I'll tell you all what you're dying to know most: What's that fourth number really mean in the color code for this view? First, jplumbley said that the color code was RGB, with the fourth number transparency:
11223344
But it was clear from looking at it that this wasn't correct, for reasons I described on the previous page. Instead, I said it looked to me to be a BRG (BRG? ???) code, with the fourth number once again transparency:
11223344
Close, but no cigar. $%Grinno$% (Besides, who ever heard of BRG? ::) ) Instead, it actually is RGB, with the first number being some sort of transparency factor. Like this:
11223344
This makes a lot more sense, as you can see that the first number is fairly similar across all colors.
Now on to more mundane topics. There are only two more items in the exemplar that need explaining. The first is the "DataView: Highlight mode" property, with which many of you may be familiar. In this case, setting it to 9 causes all the transit stations to light up in the current view.
The second item is "DataView: Maximum scale." I have scaled the color ramp and the legend color in such a way so that in order to get proper results, this property should be set to exactly twice the nominal capacity of the relevant network. There's nothing special about two; it just allows me to make greatest use of the color ramp range while using an integral multiple of the network capacity here.
So that's about it... except for the notorious (and very obscure) Network Volume Cap. (Boy, was this a pain to find and fix. ::) ) As you know, you can set your network capacities to whatever you want, since they're Float32's. But what many people don't know is that network volume is a whole different story. It turns out that the game stores network volume per commute period per tile internally as a Uint16. This means that you will never see a network volume go higher than 65,535. The total daily commute figures are not subject to this 64K limit, however, so you'll still see congestion where you'd expect it. In fact, it appears that the total daily commute figures have the actual traffic volume incorporated in them, even if it exceeds 64K during a commute period. ()what()
What are the practical applications of this? As long as your network capacity is no higher than 43,000, you won't run into any trouble. Even though the "DataView: Maximum scale" number for such a network would be 86,000, this is actually an artificial number, as explained above, and causes no problems. If your network capacity is 64K or higher, though, problems can arise. If you use the standard 300% upper limit in the volume views with such a network, then as soon as a commute period volume reaches 64K, the cute little moving white dots disappear from that particular volume view (and only that view). If the volume drops back below 64K, they come back.
The solution here is simple, and only slightly draconian. In such a case, the "DataView: Maximum scale" number should be set to 0xFFFF, and the top of the legend color scale needs to be set to no more than 64K. All the percentages in the legend need to be adjusted appropriately. The color ramp for that network then needs to be redone so that the index for pure red is 255, instead of the standard 195 for this view. So you can have network capacities higher than 64K, just not too much higher. For example, if you used 128K, the Data Volume View would never show anything higher than green. In practice, I find that 80,000 is a reasonable maximum. And yes, I've actually tested all this out - it's in my default simulator.
Earlier, I mentioned a limit of 43,000. This number comes up because it's the Network Volume Cap times two (for two commute periods) divided by three (because the default scale goes up to 300%). If you use a network capacity between 43,000 and 64K, I believe you run into some problems that need to be fixed, but I've never tried this out, so I can't say any more than that.
So that's it. Any questions? :)
Quote from: z on August 15, 2008, 03:06:18 AM
Earlier, I mentioned a limit of 43,000. This number comes up because it's the Network Volume Cap times two (for two commute periods) divided by three (because the default scale goes up to 300%). If you use a network capacity between 43,000 and 64K, I believe you run into some problems that need to be fixed, but I've never tried this out, so I can't say any more than that.
So that's it. Any questions? :)
No questions so far Z.. You have done your usual through job of explaining everything.. And its much
appreciated with all the time you have already put into this..
I do have one network which is quite congested with a reading over 30 K in my city ( one commute- evening)..
Believe it or not a monorail line using the double high new puzzle pieces from the nam.. ( I tried to build my
largest city using monorail and a lot of hsr and ghsr is why..) But i will let you know if anything strange happens
if i eventually get any network lines over this 43 K figure you mention.
Thanks Brian
The 43,000 refers to network capacity, not volume. Nothing unusual happens if a network happens to pass that volume, regardless of its capacity. The volume is affected only at the 64K limit. So the only time you'll see an anomaly is if your network volume for a given commute period hits 65,535 (which is extremely unlikely in the current simulators). And even if that happens, the only thing unusual that happens is that the volume on that network will never appear any higher than that number. The little white moving dots don't go away, because the network capacity for all networks in Simulators A and B is under 64K.
As for what's really going on in a network where the volume appears stuck at 64K, it's hard to say definitively, but it appears that everything is working OK except for the volume number that is reported. It does not appear that Sims are waiting to enter the network because it's full. I've briefly seen a network with capacity of 80,000 hit full red on the Maxis congestion scale, which would imply a total daily traffic volume of around 200K. This implies that part of the program is still accurately keeping track of every Sim that enters and leaves the network.
OK, Thanks for explaining that Z..
Ya, I doubt I will ever have a network over 64 K too.. I generally try to avoid congested networks in my
city.. I dint try to cause them to get congested..
Thanks Brian
Wow nice improvement! ;D
Z, .. I just wanted to give you an update, because i've been using the traffic volume view for awhile now..
But its working great.. no problems at all, and a wonderful new addition to the game ! &apls
Brian
Hi Z...
i was reading all the wonderful comments and reactions that your Volumes graph got over at simtropolis..
and there all so well deserved too..
I think for a single modification in the game, its really 1 of the greatest improvements from the original game
which maxis put out 5 years ago.. Its right up there with the new traffic sims, with the rural highway ect..
I think its that significant of an improvement to this game.. and I strongly encourage everyone out there reading
this to dl it from simtroplis exchange , and try this out .. you wont be disappointed i will promise you !!,
Thanks again Z for all the work and time you put into this , although i suspect now you think it was worth it..
Regards, Brian
This looks like it was extremely difficult to do. I guess it was so hard Maxis couldn't figure it out (maybe they eventually could of, if EA wasn't in such a rush all the time). Your very smart Z. This is a major improvement. Good job.
Quote from: j-dub on August 21, 2008, 01:22:26 PM
This looks like it was extremely difficult to do.
That's the funny thing - it wasn't. I got the original graph working with all the current colors in about two hours. Getting the legends done properly was harder - I had to learn about LTEXT (I'm still a real novice in most areas here), and the two interpolated colors in the legend below the green had to be essentially figured out on a brute force basis. But the most time consuming thing is something that doesn't even show up in the current version, and this was figuring out how to make it work with networks whose capacitiy is greater than 64K. (This is actually necessary for my new traffic simulator, which is what I use all the time.) Still, with everything put together, I've spent more time writing about this view in this thread than working on it, which seems somewhat ironic.
The original Traffic Volume View was introduced with Rush Hour, and as you point out, it looks like a rushed job. My guess is that Maxis had very little time to do this, and what they did was certainly a lot better than nothing.
Thanks for the kind words, and also those from Brian, as always.
very nice addition to the game :thumbsup:
Been using it no probs whatsoever , excellent work. &apls
thanks for sharing this with the community :thumbsup:
well worth this
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg337.imageshack.us%2Fimg337%2F7329%2Fimagescuppasw1.jpg&hash=efdacee2041023f74d752089f45ebd46f271b3c6)
:satisfied:
TTC
Quote from: z on August 21, 2008, 02:01:51 PM
That's the funny thing - it wasn't. I got the original graph working with all the current colors in about two hours. Getting the legends done properly was harder - I had to learn about LTEXT (I'm still a real novice in most areas here), and the two interpolated colors in the legend below the green had to be essentially figured out on a brute force basis. But the most time consuming thing is something that doesn't even show up in the current version, and this was figuring out how to make it work with networks whose capacitiy is greater than 64K. (This is actually necessary for my new traffic simulator, which is what I use all the time.) Still, with everything put together, I've spent more time writing about this view in this thread than working on it, which seems somewhat ironic.
Yes, that was thing that really amazed me Z, was how fast you did all this.. I think to some of us..who obviously
don't have your technical know- how with this stuff.. it looked very impressive how fast you overhauled this
important graph we have been using for the better part of 5 years and u did it seemingly fast too !
And also I sensed much of this was all new to you as you have been saying in some of your posts..
You have some very special abilities Z, and i dont think im overstating it to say you are one of the smartest
and most talented modders this board has ever seen before.. And as long as you enjoy what your doing here
and the game ect.. nothing you can accomplish with any of this would surprise me any more..
it also very nice of you to give some of the detailed explanations ( and I realize takes time to write them),
such that those who dont share the gifted abilities you have can enjoy some of the learning processes of this
game..
Brian
There is now an updated version of the new Traffic Volume View. It contains support for additional traffic simulators, as well as a bug fix. You can find it here (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5444.0;attach=4068).
The new traffic simulators supported are all the remaining ones in the current NAM, as well as the original Maxis traffic simulator. This means that this view can now be used on machines that don't have NAM installed. Full details are in the Readme file.
While testing the view for the additional simulators, I discovered a bug that was present in all versions of the Traffic Volume View. The colors displayed in the subway view (and only that view) were off by a little bit; this is now fixed in the current version. I also adjusted the two interpolated colors in the Legend to be more accurate; these are the two colors above bright green.
So there are no serious problems in the original version, but for greatest precision and ease of use (due to the improved Legend), I would recommend the new version.
ok, thanks Z..
I don't think I even bothered to check the subway out much before.. but your improvements are
appreciated..
Thanks, Brian
Does anyone know if this new traffic volume view mod is compatable with:
1. Tropod's Graph Mod v2.0
2. Tropod's Dataview Mod (RushHour Version)
3. Thalassicus's DataView Detail Mod
These are the three I have always used. I'd hate to break anything. Thanks.
Oh and also.... this new mod says I have to choose the correct one to complement my choices from when I installed the NAM. However I'm still not sure (from the readme.txt) which file to use. I can tell you that I use NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_D_BetterPathfinding.dat - It mentioned A and B but did not mention D in the instructions. Can anyone shed some light on which I should be using? Thanks.
The plug-in is compatible with everything except Tropod's Dataview Mod. However, like that mod, it does have the station-highlighting feature on the main map.
The C and D traffic plug-ins are named differently in the installation than in the actual files, which is where the confusion lies. But the basic rules in the ReadMe still apply. Since your plug-in doesn't end in 2x or 5x, you are using a standard capacity plug-in, and should choose the Standard file.
I am pleased to announce that my Traffic Volume View has been approved for the LEX, and is now available for downloading from there at this location (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1856). Although the Traffic Volume View was originally submitted in August, there were some snafus in the evaluation process, but now they have been completely resolved. So if you were waiting for the official LEX seal of approval before downloading this file, it's here! And if you download the Traffic Volume View and use it, I would appreciate it very much if you would rate it.
Q: What do you get when you cross the Traffic Volume View with the Subway View?
A: This:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F6294%2Fzsubwaytn.jpg&hash=315cf729a3841a6dc2e59704c51c61c66b4ef8d8)
For quite a while, I've been considering extending the Traffic Volume View to include the Subway View. The results would look like what you see above, with the colors being the standard colors for the traffic simulator you're using. The standard legend would also show up on the minimap, showing the various numeric and percentage levels, as long as the minimap was open and any of the Data Views were selected before entering the Subway View. When you left the subway view, the minimap would return to showing whatever it had been showing previously.
The pros for such an addition are simple: If you're building new subways, you get to see what current subway usage is while you're building the subways. This can be very helpful in deciding where to place your new subways.
There's only one downside to this addition, and that is that it becomes a permanent part of the Subway View. Whenever you entered the Subway View, the colors would be there. There would be no way to turn them off.
So considering the pros and cons, would people want this feature or not?
For me it would be nice as I don't work with sub all that often and having the color even when plopping sub will help me in the long run... That way I could figure where my sub is being used less and get rid of the rudundant with out having to guess on the other data view. So it being permanent I like.... but that is my oppinion...
Quote from: z on May 18, 2009, 12:16:24 AM
Q: What do you get when you cross the Traffic Volume View with the Subway View?
The pros for such an addition are simple: If you're building new subways, you get to see what current subway usage is while you're building the subways. This can be very helpful in deciding where to place your new subways.
There's only one downside to this addition, and that is that it becomes a permanent part of the Subway View. Whenever you entered the Subway View, the colors would be there. There would be no way to turn them off.
So considering the pros and cons, would people want this feature or not?
This is something I would definitely use and the permanent colour changes wouldn't put me off, the benefits of being able to see what subways are being used and how much, especially with the cost of subways these days .... outweigh any cons to it.
:)
You can now find the Combination Subway Volume View (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2083) on the LEX. It works with all the current traffic simulators.
The Traffic Volume View has now been added to the NAM for all traffic simulators, along with the Combination Subway View and a new version of the game's Subway Building View. A new version of the Zones Data View is also optionally available. Support for all of these data views, as well as for Traffic Simulator Z, can be found in the NAM Traffic Simulator Z and Data View Help (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=6812.0) thread.
Could "Percentage refers to xxx capacity" that follows "300%(NNN)" be separated? It was troublesome to create locales for each simulator version of VDV plugins. Although there were not many LTEXT files compared with main NAM locale. If it could be separated into single LTEXT file then translating the same description again and again would not be needed, and LTEXT files for VDV plugins can be merged into main NAM locale file. It would be very convenient for users for they don't need to choose a correct file manually.
Apart from that, letter position should not be adjusted by spacing because not all language versions use the same font and font size.
"Network and Zone Data Subway Volume Levels:" in Japanese version without using Japanese locale. "Volume Levels:" has been hidden by map.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg181.imageshack.us%2Fimg181%2F5456%2Fvolumedataviewglitch.jpg&hash=677206c2799ae105cf6ec57394d41943208375f6)
To prevent that effect I changed the header to "Zone Data / Subway Volume Data" in Japanese locale. Other language versions might have the same glitch. Please consider these points if you will update VDV plugins.
You have made good points here, Ebina. The Traffic Volume Views were actually my first released custom content, and at that time, I didn't know how the translations worked. But now that I do, and now that these views (and the others) are part of the NAM, they should be fixed to work properly with all languages. I will be looking into this in the near future.
When preparing the NAM installer, I already added German LTEXT files into the individual DATs, but I agree that the repetition of those captions made it harder to translate than necessary. It wasn't that bad, since per DAT, it was only a handful of files, where basically only the numbers were different, but that system doesn't work for including the captions into the locale files indeed.
BTW, I also noticed that the LTEXT file for "Transit Station" isn't used, since your modified map view doesn't allow displaying the stations as orange dots anymore, since you've used all nine "slots" for percentage values. I'm not sure if it is possible to add more "slots" in order to show the mass transit stations in the same way as Tropod's mod does, but maybe there's another solution to this.
Quote from: Andreas on June 26, 2009, 11:59:11 AM
BTW, I also noticed that the LTEXT file for "Transit Station" isn't used, since your modified map view doesn't allow displaying the stations as orange dots anymore, since you've used all nine "slots" for percentage values. I'm not sure if it is possible to add more "slots" in order to show the mass transit stations in the same way as Tropod's mod does, but maybe there's another solution to this.
Unfortunately, it's not possible. The game crashes if you use more than nine slots. If you look at Tropod's mod, you'll see that he never uses more than nine. And in the one case where nine slots were already taken, he leaves out the Transit Station legend. So it seems that he ran into the same situation that I did here. The orange dots are a completely separate issue, though; I left them out of the transit views because on large tiles with a lot of stations, they tended to obscure too much of the data. But they're present in the Zones view, where there's much less data to be displayed.
Meanwhile, I left the Transit Station legend in, hoping that eventually I'd find some sort of workaround so that I could use it. But it doesn't make sense to waste effort translating it at this point, and I'll take it out if that's more helpful.
Quote from: z on June 26, 2009, 02:14:36 PM
Unfortunately, it's not possible. The game crashes if you use more than nine slots. If you look at Tropod's mod, you'll see that he never uses more than nine. And in the one case where nine slots were already taken, he leaves out the Transit Station legend. So it seems that he ran into the same situation that I did here. The orange dots are a completely separate issue, though; I left them out of the transit views because on large tiles with a lot of stations, they tended to obscure too much of the data. But they're present in the Zones view, where there's much less data to be displayed.
Yeah, I kinda figured that after having a short look at the files. I agree with you that it's probably better to reduce the amount of information in the transit views, as they tend to get pretty cluttered anyway.
QuoteMeanwhile, I left the Transit Station legend in, hoping that eventually I'd find some sort of workaround so that I could use it. But it doesn't make sense to waste effort translating it at this point, and I'll take it out if that's more helpful.
Well, I guess we could modify the UI file that builds the legend, but at the moment, I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.
Love the view redesign.. very helpful.. though I feel that buses are weighted VERY HEAVILY.. since in sc4 1 sim=1 bus, its clear to me why it was originally counted as essentially nul.. if for example a roadway can carry 1200 units/unit time, then a bus.. even rather ordinary ones.. not modern at all, would take say 40 passengers/"big bus" and thus would be about 30 buses..basically nul.
I expect this is why basic SC4 practically ignores buses. Similar arguments for trains.. I mean a train can easily carry hundreds of sims per "big train".. but of course there isn't a "big train" or "big bus" so they resolve it by significantly reducing the count of these toward "congested"
I opened my old cities to screaming warnings of "congested" this or that, but when I checked they were almost all due to bus traffic.. or even worse pedestrians on a sidewalk.. :)
I suppose these are really arguments against the simulation modeling rather than the view.. if so, move this to a more appropriate thread...
Nonetheless.. love the view.. especially the "volume view"
I'm glad you like the new views! As you guessed, the change in bus behavior is a traffic simulator issue, and occurs only in Simulator Z, which I gather you're using. Here's a brief explanation of what's happening, taken from the middle of a much longer post over at ST:
QuoteIn Simulator Z, buses don't reduce road traffic at all. However, road capacities are set to take this into account. You're right in that a bus passenger causes the same amount of road congestion as a car passenger. This is obviously wrong, but the only other alternative is to bring back Singularity Services, who run the Black Hole Bus Company in all the other traffic simulators. You can stuff an infinite number of Sims into their buses and have no effect on traffic at all. This seems far worse, and produces some very unrealistic traffic patterns. I think that the only reason that other simulators don't let buses contribute to traffic, based on my experience, is that if you let them, the pathfinder isn't smart enough to prevent huge congestion problems on the roads.
Basically, the traffic simulator works much better if you're able to let it count buses as contributing to traffic.
If you're having way too much congestion using Simulator Z, there are two ways to alleviate it: You can either use a higher capacity version of the simulator, or you can build [more] subways. In any case, it should be possible to reduce congestion to any level you like.
BTW, pedestrians never contribute to congestion, even though the volume view for them may show red. This is one place where it's important to keep in mind the difference between volume and congestion.
If you have any further questions about Simulator Z, I'd be happy to answer them, but you're right, they would belong in another thread, specifically the
NAM Traffic Simulator Z and Data View Help (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=6812.0) thread.