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If you watched the Making of a Coaster special that was aired on the Discovery Channel mid July, you would have seen that it varies from designer. The people at Morgan used a CAD type program, while the Great Coasters designers used a spreadsheet program, similar to Microsoft Excel.
The best way to find out would probally be to contact certain coaster companies themselves, and ask.
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"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
Intamin2k said:
the Great Coasters designers used a spreadsheet program, similar to Microsoft Excel.
Actually, it looked to me like it WAS Excel, probably with tons of custom macros (Excel has a rather powerful macro language and Visual Basic for Applications support, it's quite possible to write very complicated apps under it. Once while I was still working at Microsoft I wrote an Excel program that generated mazes and their solutions, using cell borders for the "walls" and shading for the "path", just to show it could...)
I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that every company has their own approach -- some in-house, some off-the-shelf with appropriate mods.
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--Greg
"Beat the rush, sign up for your post-Mean Streak MRI now..."
My page My other page And my coaster page
*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 9/30/2001. ***
*** This post was edited by IL_MForce_Junkie on 9/30/2001. ***
*** This post was edited by Jim Fisher on 10/1/2001. ***
sethman said:
"An artitect friend of mine, was telling me that to design facades and buildings, he uses Paint shop for windows. I told him about how CAD programs are much more complex and he completely agreed. He said it would take him a while to master the program. It is amazing how complex the CAD programs but they are the best programs for the job. That's why almost every coaster company uses them."
I find it hard to believe that anyone could use Paint to render with. It's close to impossible, because it gives no way to measure, dimension, connect, ect.
I found AutoCad R14, and 2000, which I currently use, were actually quite easy to learn. All I needed to be taught were basic commands to create objects, and dimension them. 3D solids on the other hand, are a much different story...
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"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
*** This post was edited by Intamin2k on 10/1/2001. ***
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Mayday - Memorial Day Weekend - Nonpoint, Nickelback, Oleander, Staind
Ozzfest - June 8 - Drowning Pool, Papa Roach, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Black Sabbath
Awake Tour- June 15 - Darwin's Waiting Room, Puddle of Mudd, Deftones, Godsmack
Intamin2k said:
"I find it hard to believe that anyone could use Paint to render with. It's close to impossible, because it gives no way to measure, dimension, connect, ect."
He said Paint Shop. I assume he is referring to Paint Shop Pro, which is a low cost competitor to Photoshop. It's actually come a long, long way from earlier versions and is an excellent program, doing almost anything that Photoshop can do, at about 1/4 the price. It's especially great for doing simple tasks, as Photoshop actually makes it harder by complicating things.
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Current favorite coasters:
Wooden: 1) Beast 2) Raven 3) Son of Beast 4) The Boss 5) Timber Wolf
Steel: 1) Raging Bull 2) Millennium Force 3) V2 4) Wild Thing 5) Mr. Freeze
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