CMS/DMS/VMS Electronic Signs
(Discord - 2025/08/06 through present)
CMS/DMS/VMS Electronic Signs
(Discord - 2025/08/06 through present)
Y'know those electronic signs on the highway that have jokes or travel info or legitimately useful information (but usually jokes) on them?
Those are called Changeable Message Signs (what the MUTCD calls them), or Dynamic Message Signs (what the manufacturers call them), or Variable Message Signs (what Wikipedia calls them), or one of a billion other names.
Over the past several months, I have made a lot of them. Watch my spiral into Daktronics-flavored autism here.
there's a crash on i-40 east near mebane nc (crash location)
if not for gps, we may have gotten stuck in the traffic (3 out of 4 lanes closed)
and it was a little scary going from 75 to 5 mph (pretty fast to pretty slow km/h) in 10 seconds, the car behind us likely agreeing
there was one sign warning of the crash, 20+ miles before, at an unrelated construction site
this is why we should install more cms (changeable message sign) displays
(the big things over the highway that sometimes display useful information, sometimes jokes, oftentimes nothing)
if there were more cms displays, they could have one that displayed:
CRASH AT
EXIT ###
X MILES AHEAD
RIGHT 3 LANES
CLOSED
BE PREPARED
TO STOP
[nowadays I would revise to "3 RT LNS BLOCKED / ON W I-40 / X MILES AHEAD" "BE PREPARED / TO STOP"]and if they're feeling spendy, they could also put some beacons on the sign (despite the mutcd recommending against it) to really get people's attention (beacons would only flash when important messages being displayed, i.e. not when jokes displayed)
might create a visual representation of that when i get home
look forward to that in 8 hours [because home is ohio and current location is north carolina] ["home :)" was sent at 8:24 PM, initial message was sent at 11:47 AM]
this is just an example
the wording and timing could probably be cleaned up
texas example of beacons on cms displays
and the mutcd recommending against beacons
god damn daktronics when was the last time you updated this
this version is from april 20254
2025
and it looks like they havent updated the ui in 15 years
and realistically they havent
idk about you but i just love spending several hours trying to recreate a font only to find that someone already did all the work for me and i wasted my time
in summary
fontstruct has a stupid line spacing problem that i dont
because im better
spent a couple more hours making my own
based on highway gothic
https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/2722278/highway-gothic-cms-5x7
i've had enough of digital signs having shitty fonts that look stipid
mine at least attempts to replicate highway gothic