Delaware State & Route vs Yards

[greg4933]

Bummer I had a route from Wilmington DE to the southern end of the peninsula including all routes from way back in 1800's which have been all abandoned. I will need to regenerate this route again but will take time. I made it from Lidar dem data so the terrain was highly detailed even showing a little stream without even marking it yet on the terrain modeling screen.

For the routes from Pittsburgh to Altoona/Harrisburg/Philadelphia. Does anyone know what dem jrfolco used for these routes? The terrain seems not very detailed so was guessing 30meter Dem. He should have used atleast 15 meter dem. I can understand why not many play with lidar dems as they are very data intensive. I just like lidar dems cause on the terrain model screen you can see the elevated road beads and railroad beds so you can make easy fine adjustments and also get better accuracy for railroad grades.

Anyhow I feel it is best to make a portal that goes into railroad yards and make them stand alone files can anyone second this? Just feel if you are passing a yard with many cars in the yards it really slows down your computer.

 

[cascaderailroad]

It appears that Jrfolco used HOG on his DEM's as he mentions that they have no Tiger data lines on them, showing where all the roads, rivers, and tracks go (so the routes are kind of worthless without maps on them)

What is Lidar DEM's ... Can you make a DEM using Lidar ?

There are a series of DEM's from Pittsburgh/Conway all the way to Harrisburg/Enola ... I merged them all and got a DEM that is 1.09GB in size, and will no longer save as a CDP ... and needs to be sent via 6 files to be imported as content into your PC (Bmk, Trk, Obs, Gnd, Config, Screenshot)

I have practiced in breaking the huge million baseboards, 7 baseboard wide DEM down to 6 smaller DEM's:

Pittsburgh/Conway to Pitcairn
Pitcairn to Johnstown
Cresson to Nanty Glo and Philipsburg
Johnstown to Mount Union
Mount Union to EBT RRs
Mount Union to Harrisburg/Enola

I plan to make 2 more DEM's from Tyrone to Williamsport, and Williamsport via Sunbury to Harrisburg

I have used and planned the use of iPortal's to connect these massive DEM's, (as Portals do not send trains to a separate un-opened route)

Yards of great size have problematic framerates when you have more than four 100 car trains, and dozens of locos, and 36 track wide high poly track in them

I use low poly chunky mesh tracks: MP Wood v2 by Philskene, and MP Track Rusty, and MP Tunneltrack Dark, and 1000m Via Estrechia on the 3ft gauge EBT RR

As for Harrisburg to Philadelphia, and Harrisburg/Enola to HarveDe Grace to Wilmington and Philadelphia ... there are no DEM's yet made

PM me for more details

Skype UN: cascaderailroad

 

[greg4933]

Lidar is a point cloud, and not going to go into what you can fully do with Lidar data. Basically there are DEM's out there that range from 1-5 meter squares. Terrain quality goes down the higher the square meter number. For instance I think Jrfolco used in Hog a 30 meter DEM. So for every 30 square meters their is a elevation value assigned. So for 15 meter DEM you now get 4 elevation points assigned in the same area of a 30 meter DEM. For a 1 meter DEM you get 900 elevation points taken in the same area of a 30 meter DEM. With this in mind for the same area as a 30 meter DEM a 1 meter DEM will have 900x more needed data storage then a 30 meter DEM. 30 meter is not bad if you are making a map in the plains. Also think about 30 meters, that is 100 feet, this is like the width of a 5-6 lane highway. 30 and 15 meter DEM's really lack detail when it comes to hill creek and stream beds. With the raw lidar data I can extract a 1 meter or 1/9 dem or even better but the game only supports down to 1 meter terrain. This is good because I think a full 1 meter dem for the state of PA is over 100 TB of data. Basically for every 1 square meter on the ground a elevation is assigned to it. With the raw lidar data I can make unsmoothed or edited dems for any state if 1 meter DEM's are not available.

When you see a terrain derived from lidar data 1 meter DEM's in many cases you do not need a map image overlayed to figure out where the roads and streams are. It is very easy to find them with the raised railroad and road beds from the surrounding terrain. Some DEM's are that detailed you can tell the difference between a corn crop and a wheat crop just by texture.

 

[JCitron]

Joe used the much older HOG (Hand of God) method of creating Trainz routes which requires multiple steps and a couple of programs. He did his DEM conversion using MicroDEM and then processed that file through the much, much, older HOG utility to generate a Trainz route.

The inherent problems of HOG-generated routes are the very lower resolution. When using the TIGER map information, which is now obsolete by the way, the map lines in no way line up with the actual roads in may cases and can be 10s of meters out of place. It's not unusual with TIGER maps to indicate river shorelines running up and over hills, or railroad grades in the middle of a river.

The best method to bring in high resolution NGS DEMs is to use TransDEM.

TransDEM is a third-party application created by Trainz user Geophil - Roland Ziegler. The program will import NGS DEMs and impose, right into position, topographic maps on top of the imported DEM.

With map in place and trimmed down somewhat, a Trainz route can be exported directly and installed (import folder) into Trainz ready for editing. If you want to, though not required, you can have the program place track or other splines as well as UTM-coordinated images instead of painting the map directly on the terrain surface.

http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/startseiteEngl.htm

The cost is about $30.00 the last time I looked and is more than worth the investment especially if you are interested in doing an accurate DEM based route.

 

[greg4933]

Yeah I reordered TransDEM just today to get the 2.6 update. I also need to send in $100 US dollar and get Arch Map license for one-year. Been wanting to get it anyhow being I got a few other things I need to do with GIS data. TransDEM even gets sloppy when you start using 1 meter DEMS so I use Arch Map to cut out the DEM by distance from center track line then just import that to TransDEM. I also make a shape file in Arch Map of vector lines for tracks, roads, and water ways then import that also with TransDEM. Also with the aerial imagery I can place vertices accordingly so when imported I have specific spots selected where I need to hit the track straight line tool and so forth. The combination of these 2 applications is the easiest way I found to make a route the quickest, but not many want to pay $100 USD for an annual usage license for a piece of software.

This was how I made the Delaware lines but managed to have a hard drive go out shortly after making it Tricky part is need to relearn what projection TransDEM likes. Cause I can change it very easy with Arch Map. I just hope the current version of TransDEM also reads Shape files from Arch Map or I will need to deal with file conversions yet for the vector files.

I am trying to create routes that existed back in the late 1800's all the way to now in Very high terrain detail.

 

[cascaderailroad]

I have the great quality blank DEM (no track, no nothing) for free, from Pittsburgh/Conway to Harrisburg/Enola available right now ... It may be 1/9th data ... IDK ... I'd have to check

 

[JCitron]

You are doing some very interesting things using TransDEM. Dr. Ziegler would be very proud.

Yeah it sucks losing a hard disk there's no other way to say it especially when it happens without warning. I've gotten burned a couple of times with that and the last loss about 10 years ago now was very devastating. I lost GIGs of data, videos from trips just offloaded from my camera, Trainz data, and other stuff. All I can say is back up, backup, backup, but yeah still losing the stuff sucks because backups are not current.

Yes the latest TransDEM does read shape files. I brought in some tracks once. This has been true since Release 2.1.3 (04/2011). I downloaded the tracks from the National Map Server. You can include the shape files as part of your download requests, if I remember correctly, for these things it's under transportation and shape file. This may save you some money if you can use this data. Try this first with a test before spending more for the Arc Map license.

You are going to need the latest TransDEM anyway because of this, and also because it's now 64-bit and can handle the much, much larger DEM files from the NGS along with other formats now available in addition to the img format. Sadly we can no longer select a tiny area and need to do full 1 arc-second slices. In my case I don't need something from Manchester New Hampshire to Cape Cod when all I needed was Newburyport, MA. The file downloads are about 350MB compressed.

 

[greg4933]

Is it 7 baseboards from center line / track line? Or is it 3.5 baseboards on either side of center line / Track line? If it is 7 baseboard to one side equaling 14 baseboard across. Think that is overkill. 2-3 baseboards on either side of the track should be sufficient. Think even with max viewing distance you can only view out to 2-3 baseboards.

 

[greg4933]

Yeah that is the nice part of Arch Map cause I can slice the DEM up so TransDEM does not have memory issues. Also 1 arc sec slice is a 30 meter DEM should be getting 1/3 arc sec DEM's or also known as 10 Meter DEM. For the same area as 1 arc sec or 30 meter DEM it has the 9x data storage for 1/3 arc sec 10 meter DEM, 1/9 arc sec is 3.33 meter DEM 81x Data storage, 1 meter DEM 900x data storage. I see USGS is posting Lidar Info. Now I can make 1 meter DEM's where they are not available yet. PA was a pioneer for Lidar. See USGS has a new standard and they would like better lidar information then the standard used in PA. Hooray might get a 2nd lidar run in PA. This would be great then there would be so much data that could be compared when it comes to the forest setting. Comparing the different Lidar sets to check forest growth across the state. Can even look or erosion spots places where ground level changed. The new point cloud standard set by USGS is very detailed. Will be great having my hands on that stuff and playing with it. Got a groundhog hole in your back yard I can find it with that data set. With that new data set you will probably even be able to see the height of a rail versus ties.

 

[greg4933]

I have the great quality blank DEM (no track, no nothing) for free, from Pittsburgh/Conway to Harrisburg/Enola available right now ... It may be 1/9th data ... IDK ... I'd have to check

Would like it but I have the capability to produce 1 meter DEM's so I will prob make the route. 1/9th might pass for me but if 1/3 or 1 arc sec no way. Live just north of Harrisburg Plus was a conductor out of the Harrisburg region

 

[cascaderailroad]

Is it 7 baseboards from center line / track line? Or is it 3.5 baseboards on either side of center line / Track line? If it is 7 baseboard to one side equaling 14 baseboard across. Think that is overkill. 2-3 baseboards on either side of the track should be sufficient. Think even with max viewing distance you can only view out to 2-3 baseboards.

The reason why I haven't chopped mine down to smaller width is because from viewing from a airplane some jagged edge baseboards might show ... It might be 7 baseboards each side of the tracks ... IDK ... I'd have to check ... Once you start chopping baseboards off, it is do or die, and it can ruin a route

I have all the track laid from Harrisburg/Enola to Mount Union, but I have to apply the proper gradients ... and CP Conpit to Pittsburgh/Conway needs proper gradients applied ... Mount Union to CP Conpit is fully graded ... and that is a whopper of a route ... From Harrisburg/Enola to Pitcairn would be a really decent scope of the route ... although all the way to Pittsburgh/Conway would be the ultimate terminal to terminal route

1m data sounds really fabulous ... but it is only a dumb Twainz' route, to run a stupid train across a landscape ... It doesn't take data from the Hubble space tele-o-scope' to generate do-able workable terrain ... a terrain that will be eventually covered up with gwass' and twees' anyway :hehe:

My finished 1.09GB route will be on sale for this low, low, price, in a once in a lifetime offer of: $139.99 USD (Shipping and Handling is an additional: "Buck 380")