D&RG Canon City to Salida Colorado

[Maddox61]

I was working on this in MSTS and live in Denver, so I have a bunch of photos of the area, if you need them.

Thank you for the offer.

My little sister stays in the Springs. Got a nephew in Denver. Small world.

If you ever need a Photographer or Camera Man, call Earlybird Productions in the springs. This is my nephew's studio.
Just ask for Stephen or Stephanie Early.
I know this don't pertain to Trainz, but I always try and mention his studio to folks living in that area.

Thank again,

Merrill

 

[socalwb909]

-I'm in North Denver lol! :wave:

-Joe

 

[Maddox61]

Linda,

Thank you for the compliment.

When lowering the elevation in TransDem, does it lower the entire elevation; IE 1500m to 2500m becomes 1400m to 2400m, Or does it compress it such as 1500m to 2500m becomes 1500m to say 2200m?

Thanks,

Merrill

 

[Maddox61]

-I'm in North Denver lol! :wave:

-Joe

:wave: back at ya Joe

 

[Shortline2]

When lowering the elevation in TransDem, does it lower the entire elevation; IE 1500m to 2500m becomes 1400m to 2400m, Or does it compress it such as 1500m to 2500m becomes 1500m to say 2200m?

Hi Merrill,

From when I did it, it lowered the whole map by what ever I needed it to be. In my case I had to lower it 1500 meter so I put in that I need it -1500 meter lower and it chopped of 1500 meter.
Making my top of 4500 meter become 3000 meter and my low of what ever it was - for instance 1800 meter to become 300 meter.

Annoying as it is in Trainz to remember to always remove 1500 meter from every know heights, it is far better then to try inside of Trainz to work over 3000 meter as while HOG and TransDEM can create the ground over 3000 meter and at least versions before the newer Trainz allowed me to work above 3000 meter with tracks and structures and all - I was never allowed to do any ground work, as the ground grid would always drop down to 3000 meter as soon as I tried to do anything to it...
And Auran stand was, "we allow a range from -3000 meter to 3000 meter, that is a total range of 6000 meter, you have no need for such a large raise anywhere, as you can always start at a sea level at -3000 meter"...
Not quoted word by word, but that was the meaning I got out of them...

Anyway, the only thing I remember when lowering my old map years back was that all objects was initially hanging in the air, but as soon as I touch them, they drop down to the ground.
Same thing you see in Trainz if you place a object (not a spline) and then you lower the ground - sometimes the object stay put.
At least it has happen to me many times.

So, yes, TransDEM lower the whole elevation, not compresses it.

Love your projects, I have the area Canon City in southwest, Florence in south east and hopefully down to some of the coal mines south of Florence, then up to Cripple Creek and further north to Woodland Park in North and all the way East to Colorado Springs as one huge map in Trainz...
One map I need to redo as the Cripple Creek area it self has a big problem with the ground and the topomap not lining up while area around seems to do it.
Spent years on an of on that project, so good luck with yours, your of to a flying start, well done!!

Linda

 

[geophil]

When lowering the elevation in TransDem, does it lower the entire elevation; IE 1500m to 2500m becomes 1400m to 2400m,

As Linda (long term TransDEM supporter ) has already pointed out, TransDEM lowers the entire terrain and everything on it (hopefully) by the amount given, without compressing it. This can be done at any time.

However, as Bob Pearson has said in the other thread, it is somewhat difficult to merge multiple Trainz route modules built by HOG. As HOG loses geo coordinate reference in the process, baseboard edges (your "tables") in one module will not match the edges of another module. There is no "clean" way to bridge the gap. TransDEM can raise or lower modules but it cannot shift or rotate them. For seamless merging of route modules all modules must have been created with TransDEM.

Another aspect: For most regions, USGS offers 1/3 arc sec DEMs (10m). I mentioned this before. However, due to internal intense low pass filtering, HOG removes most of the additional detail you would gain from 1/3 vs 1 arc sec resolution. This also affects the steepness of rock walls.

Compare the following image to your screenshot in post #8. (Same spot but facing west).

The walls appear steeper, the bottom is somewhat more pronounced. That's what you get from the higher resolution DEM and less filtering (smoothing).

The overlay in my example is the 1:24k USGS topo map.

View of the minimap:


View in TransDEM:



I have the highest respect for you to have come that far as a newbie in such a short time. I have to admit I myself never completed a terrain generation project with the MicroDEM/HOG process, although I employed HOG in the first release of TransDEM for Trainz, using image transfer complying with the "Piglet" utility.

However, if you plan for TransDEM anyway, I suggest not to put that much additional work into the current terrain model, because of the inherent shortcomings with HOG. Starting again from scratch in an early stage of the project will always cause much less resentment.

You will already have learned a lot in this field of geo data processing, possibly more than the average TransDEM user ever will. These skills are valuable by themselves even if you decide to discard the HOG-generated terrain model.

 

[nfitzsimmons]

:wave: back at ya Joe

More of us here than I thought.

 

[Maddox61]

Hey geophil,

Yes I plan on getting TransDem right after the first of the year.
Then I plan on redoing the entire layout.

Right now, I am doing more testing and trying things to get a good feel of Trainz and using DEMs. Definitely a huge learning curve. But then, the day we stop learning is the day we stop living.

Thanks for the compliments.

Merrill

 

[Maddox61]

One thing I am trying out is how to create and use reference images to lay roads and rails.

I know there is a couple ways to do this. I have tride using hog with no luck. I did one test using Blender.

Using google Earth, since it is easy to get an exact 1km, I created a simple plane in Blender that was 1,000m x 1,000m and mapped the image onto the plane. I then added it to Trains as an asset. It worked out greate. The benefit was, I could raise or lower the image as I liked and the image was clear enough to use for placing trees and buildings. And when your done with the image, you can simple delete it off your board.

I don't know if this is a normal operation or not. But I am leaning towards using this technique, unless I find a better way to do it.

 

[geophil]

I don't know if this is a normal operation or not.

It definitely is.

And it is also another TransDEM built-in.

You add your aerial images to TransDEM, using either the GE placemark method or the TransDEM Map Tile client. Both will handle the georeferencing (almost everything in TransDEM is coordinates :wave: ). Then you mark the area where you want these texture carrier objects and let TransDEM do the rest. TransDEM will punch-out clippings for the textures, using a 1000m or 500m stencil, will create a bunch of Trainz objects for them, called UTM tiles (also known as Basemaps elsewhere), and will even place these objects into your route, right on spot. (The 1000m stencil will be aligned with UTM grid lines.)

 

[Maddox61]

That's greate that it is an included feature in TransDem.

When I did this in Hog, the entire map spiked all over.