Since this was the most difficult part for me to understand, I thought I would share my experiences.

1. It took me 20 minutes to determine that the Gradient was not in degrees but was the rise over the run of a section of track (unit-less). Should have read the manual more carefully.

2. Set a track section to a height of 30 and the section of track disappeared. Determined that the visible range was set at -20 to 20.

3. Set an entire section of track to a height level of 30. At the endpoint of a section of track, set the height to 30 and the gradient to 2%, but nothing happened. It took me some time to determine that the track would slope until a height of 30 was reached. Since the initial height was 30 and the beginning of the slope was 30 no slope was created. Anyways once I figured this out the rest became very easy.

4.The last thing I did to see if I understood how the program worked was to create a 1-1/2 turn loop using 18 curved track pieces. My intention was to create a helix with each track sloped at the same gradient to a predetermined height.  I did this by calculating the length of the tracks and establishing a height level I wanted to achieve. From this I determined the gradient and inserted the valves into the program. I compared the results to some manual calculations and they were bang on.

Hope the information was of some help.