Colin
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My preserved fire engine!
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Post by Colin on Jan 26, 2011 20:42:46 GMT
Is it me or have the platform DMI's (dot Matrix Indicators) been modified?
I've been meaning to ask this for a few weeks but keep forgetting by the time I get home. It may also be a District line only thing.....
Has anyone clocked that all the DMI's have gone from all capital letters to upper & lower case?
Is this a deliberate change and if so, why?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2011 20:43:57 GMT
I read an article about history of roadsigns and how they made the opposite change for readabilitiy. Are they lowercase or small caps?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2011 21:04:19 GMT
Another part of LU going to Upper/Lower case rather than the traditional all upper case, it wont be long till all train desto blinds go the same, the C stock got new ones a few years ago and with the digital ones on D stock they are
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Post by norbitonflyer on Jan 26, 2011 21:21:12 GMT
I read an article about history of roadsigns and how they made the opposite change for readabilitiy. No, roadsigns have been upper-and-lowercase since the Worboys Report of the late 1950s adopetd the designs by Kinnear and Calvert. They arec supposed to be easier to read at a distnace because the greater variation in height of lower-case gives individual words more distinctive shapes. |
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Colin
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My preserved fire engine!
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Post by Colin on Jan 26, 2011 21:29:37 GMT
Are they lowercase or small caps? Roughly, they have gone from: 1 UPMINSTER 2 TOWER HILL 2min 3 CIRCLE LINE 4min to: 1 Upminster 2 Tower hill 2min 3 Circle Line 4min |
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North End
Beneath Newington Causeway
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Post by North End on Jan 26, 2011 21:52:12 GMT
Is it me or have the platform DMI's (dot Matrix Indicators) been modified? I've been meaning to ask this for a few weeks but keep forgetting by the time I get home. It may also be a District line only thing..... Has anyone clocked that all the DMI's have gone from all capital letters to upper & lower case? Is this a deliberate change and if so, why? This has been something which has been creeping in for years. The Central Line indicators have been lower case since they were properly commissioned in the early 2000s. Many on the Jubilee, Northern & Piccadilly lines have been replaced with new indicators, mainly as part of station modernisations, which all show lower case. On the Northern I can only think of a few platforms which now retain the 1980s indicators (from memory - Embankment, Charing Cross, Tottenham Court Road, King's Cross, Moorgate, Bank, London Bridge). As to why the surviving 1980s/1990s indicators on the District & Met have changed recently, no idea! |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2011 22:03:24 GMT
They were changed approx 2 - 3 weeks now apprently its now clearer to read
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2011 22:09:52 GMT
The Bakerloo has many of the original ones, I find the newer grey ones abit slow to react, especially on the Central up the Ruislip end, the old ones would always be working, the new ones dont seem to be as fast
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Post by Tomcakes on Jan 27, 2011 0:03:40 GMT
It's a DDA thing, too - all buses built after 2001 must use upper and lower case on destination screens. I guess the same applies to new DMIs and it's being rolled out to the old ones.
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Tom
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Signalfel?
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Post by Tom on Jan 27, 2011 1:03:17 GMT
They were changed approx 2 - 3 weeks now apprently its now clearer to read It might have something to do with new PROMs being blown for the various TD mods taking place (Lillie Bridge Stabling, West Ham etc). The Bakerloo has many of the original ones, I find the newer grey ones abit slow to react, especially on the Central up the Ruislip end, the old ones would always be working, the new ones dont seem to be as fast According to my notes, the Bakerloo had a mixture of Thorn Mk2 and GEC Mk3 signs; the Thorn signs these days only at Charing X (originally Charing X to Regents Park inclusive.). The rest of the line uses either the new 'Metronet' VEID sign, provided as part of station refurbs, or a GEC Mark 3. |
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Colin
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My preserved fire engine!
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Post by Colin on Jan 27, 2011 2:20:00 GMT
They were changed approx 2 - 3 weeks now apprently its now clearer to read Well whoever decided that definitely needs to visit their nearest branch of specsavers..... |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2011 10:36:10 GMT
I think Tomcakes has a good point about the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) - I was told this was the reasoning behind the change in C stock blinds. As norbitonflyer said, lower case gives individual words distinctive shapes due to the variable height, wheras block capitals appear as just, well, a block, to someone with impaired vision.
I hope we aren't going to see platform roundels go lower case, though!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2011 13:33:06 GMT
Lets hope aswell that the enamel plates with the station name and line colour on in the underground stations dont change either!
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Post by t697 on Jan 27, 2011 19:17:10 GMT
It's interesting that the new font installed in most of the older platform DMI's has the upper case letters going both above and below the lower case letters. That was one of the options for the D78 stock refurb DMI's. I can remember a blisteringly 'anti' response from certain elements in LU for even suggesting such a thing! Only 7 years ago. Times change, or is it different people involved?
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Post by Dstock7080 on Jan 28, 2011 13:35:13 GMT
On the District, only the following 1st generation dot-matrix indicators remain UPPERcase:
Hammersmith ALL
West Brompton BOTH
Fulham Bdwy BOTH
Parsons Green BOTH
Southfields EB
Wimbledon Pk EB
All other have been changed to lower case, with initial Capital. (including the 1st generation dot-matrix replacement for the 60s/70s lightbox at Cannon St WB)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2011 14:31:38 GMT
It's interesting that the new font installed in most of the older platform DMI's has the upper case letters going both above and below the lower case letters. That was one of the options for the D78 stock refurb DMI's. I can remember a blisteringly 'anti' response from certain elements in LU for even suggesting such a thing! Only 7 years ago. Times change, or is it different people involved? Might have something to do with the number of vertical 'dots' available in the display. To my mind, the 'descenders' on lower-case letters (like 'y', etc.) should descend like they do in normal printed text. It looks better, in my view. However, if the depth of a field on a DMI is limited, then the better (or, indeed, only sensible) option might be to have upper-case letters that go both above and below the lower-case letters. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2011 15:41:25 GMT
Im glad Harrow OTH are keeping the lightboxes cant imagine what the station would be like with DMI's rather than them
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2011 20:05:23 GMT
Im glad Harrow OTH are keeping the lightboxes cant imagine what the station would be like with DMI's rather than them The lightboxes are certainly a nice feature of the station, I think. |
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Post by t697 on Feb 19, 2011 16:15:27 GMT
Might have something to do with the number of vertical 'dots' available in the display. To my mind, the 'descenders' on lower-case letters (like 'y', etc.) should descend like they do in normal printed text. It looks better, in my view. However, if the depth of a field on a DMI is limited, then the better (or, indeed, only sensible) option might be to have upper-case letters that go both above and below the lower-case letters. I rechecked these older platform DMIs. The letters use a 10 dot high field. The lower case letter body uses 6 dots, leaving 2 dots for ascenders and 2 dots for descenders. The upper case letters use the top 9 dots of the 10. So the upper case ones go below the lower case but not as far as the descenders do. I suspect the original upper case characters have been kept, with new lower case ones. I quite like the look for showing just a destination name. I think the set we actually adopted on D78 stock is better than the alternative that I mentioned before, but on D78 the DMI shows rather longer scrolling messages. The field is 8 dots high, lower case body is 5 dots, 2 dot ascenders and 1 dot descenders, upper case letters the top 7 dots. With this very simple font, the proportions are closer to NJ which for example has the 'o' as a circle - equal height and width. |
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Post by t697 on Feb 23, 2011 22:52:30 GMT
Well I now see that there's more than one font that's been put on recently. The DMI's at Euston Square have lower case body 5 dots, 3 dot ascenders and descenders making 11 dots of which the upper case use the top 10 dots. On these the upper case characters look disproportionately large compared to the lower case. Also some of the characters are pretty crude and unattactive, e.g. 'A' as in Amersham or Aldgate.
At Moorgate Circle line platforms and I think Farringdon too, they have (or did recently) a set with large and small capitals for the destination but no lower case.
I really got into all this dottiness when doing rolling stock DMI fonts. Anyone like to tell us more about the station DMI fonts?
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