STISIM Drive (SDL) - SIGN - Roadway Signs

Displays roadway traffic signs. The type of sign and any special properties associated with the sign are specified with event parameters. This event supercedes and should be used in place of all the other original sign events (D, IA, L, Q, R, SA and T). The original sign events can still be used but this event will be used in the future and therefore any additional functionality will be included here instead of for each individual sign event. The sign event allows you to specify whether or not United States signs will be used or if generic European signs will be used. The models for the US signs are found in the Data\Signs directory and the generic European signs are found in Data\Eurosigns. It should be noted that the European signs are generic because of the differences from country to country. You can create your own sign and have it replace an existing sign by simply renaming your sign model with the same name of the sign model you will be replacing.

Since road signs are an important part of driving and differ from country to country, it is impossible for STI to include all the road signs that you may desire. Therefore we have prepared a simple road sign creation guideline that can be used to help you create your own road signs.

EVENT PARAMETERS:

PARAMETER 1:	Sign type: 1 - Generic diamond sign 2 - Full intersection ahead sign 3 - Generic speed limit sign (no speed values) 4 - Left curve ahead sign 5 - Right curve ahead sign 6 - Generic rectangle sign 7 - Stop sign 8 - Signal light ahead sign 9 - Yield sign 10 - Pedestrian crossing sign 11 - Road narrows sign 12 - Right intersection ahead sign 13 - Left intersection ahead sign 100 – User defined specialty sign (see parameter 3)
PARAMETER 2:	The longitudinal distance, in feet, that the sign is away from the driver when the sign initially appears. Because the roadway is more flexible in STISIM Drive than it was in the DOS version of STISIM, we have added some additional functionality to this parameter for the stop sign. If this parameter is specified as a negative number, then the program will automatically figure out (to the best of its knowledge based on the current roadway) where the stop signs will be placed. Otherwise, it will act as specified. This option was added because it is now easy to have the roadway transition from a set number of lanes to another set number of lanes and if you are trying to use a PDE that has stop signs in it and the roadway is a different size, you may have trouble. The longitudinal distance is still the same, it just has a minus sign (-) in front of it. If you are using this option, you must make sure that the stop sign event lines up with the intersection event, otherwise the signs will be mis-aligned. For example if you have an intersection that is 1200 feet away, you want the stop sign event to be -1200 feet away.
PARAMETER 3:	Specialty parameters for any signs that require them: Stop Sign (Parameter 1 = 1): 1 - Single stop sign in driver's direction 2 - Two way stop in the driver's direction 3 - Single stop sign in cross traffic's direction on right 4 - 4 way stop 5 - Two way cross traffic stop 6 - Single stop sign in cross traffic's direction on left Special signs (Parameter 1 = 100): Full name (including path) of the sign that will be displayed. This option lets you specify the sign, but the program takes care of placing the sign in the roadway. This way if you change the shape of your road, the sign will be placed just like all of the other STISIM Drive signs.
PARAMETER 4:	Sign source: 0 - United States road signs 1 - Generic European road signs
PARAMETER 5	Flag specifying if the sign should be displayed on the opposite side of the road: 0 - Sign displayed on driver’s side of road 1 – Sign displayed on opposite side of road
PARAMETER 6	Sign heading rotation value, in degrees. This allows you to display road signs whose faces are rotated relative to the roadway. For example a sign on the other side of the road facing in the other direction.

EXAMPLE:

1000,SIGN,7,1000,4,0
2000,SIGN,10,1000,0,1
3000,SIGN,100,1000,C:\STISIM\Data\Signs\RgtCrv30.3ds,0

In the first example shown, a stop sign will appear after the driver has traveled 1000 feet down the road (1000,SIGN,7). When the sign is initially displayed it will be 1000 feet away from the driver. Since this is a stop sign (sign type #7), it requires an entry in the specialty flags parameter. In this case, since the value of 4 was specified, a four way stop will be displayed. Finally, the last parameter is set to 0 so United States stop signs will be displayed.

In the second example, a pedestrian crossing sign will be displayed after the driver has traveled 2000 feet (2000,SIGN,10). Once more the sign will appear 1000 feet in front of the driver, however in this case there are no additional parameters required for the sign and therefore parameter 3 is set to 0. Finally, in this example the generic European pedestrian sign will be used because parameter 4 has been set to 1.

In the third example shown, a right curve ahead sign with a speed placard underneath it will be displayed. The sign will initially appear at 3000 feet and since the sign type is set to 100, the program will look for the sign specified in parameter 3. Since parameter 3 is set to C:\STISIM\Data\Signs\RgtCrv30.3ds, the program will load and display the contents of this file. Like the other examples, the sign will appear 1000 feet in front of the driver when it appears.