DEM Maps

N

NevadaNorthernFan901

Member
Hello Guys,

Does anyone on this forum make DEM Maps for trainz? If so, or you know of some one, can you please post on this forum, and notofy me on this forum please thanks.:D
 
I suggest you take a look at TransDem, or its free equivalents, and talk to Mr. Geophil :) he should know a lot on that subject.
 
What is the route ?

If it is a relitivly flat area...a DEM might not be needed.

BC Kicking Horse Pass-Spiral Loops would definately be worthy of a DEM...in comparison, the Strasburg RR is only 4 miles long, has 3 curves, and is relitivley flatland, it is not necessary on that route. Some terrain is very easy to make by hand. A DEM will require alot of gradient adjustments, as all the x-y-z axis are regularly off by +/-20' in all directions, or more.

Sometimes I like using basemaps and flat baseboards.

Sometimes a 300 mile long DEM becomes a lengthly chore...as opposed to just modeling the special high points of the route, and abrieviating it by condencing the mileage.
 
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Let see, I want to do the Carson & Colorado Narrowgauge Railroad, Navada Copper Belt Railroad, and the Tonopah & Goldfeild Railroad. But mostly the C&C.
Any ideas who would help me make this route?
Thanks.
 
From time to time, I wish that I had just made just one big conglomerated route with all the great Railfanning sites all ajoined together: ie: Tehachapi Loop, Williams Loop, BC Spiral Tunnels, Horseshoe Curve...etc...etc...

You can model many, many RR's together, or separately...just don't load more on your plate, than you can chew.
 
The first RR that you mentioned is 300+ miles long, the second RR is 38 miles long, the last RR is 197 miles long...that is ALOT of topography to cover...and tens of thousands of baseboards. Doubtlfully any PC cound handle that HUGE chunk of the world withot crashing, and it would not fit on DLS, and no one else would be able to handle it's
huge route.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TonopahTidewaterRailroadBed.jpg

My suggeston is to condence the scenes into one conglomerate.

Besides...running a locomotive on a 300 mile line would take several days running time.
 
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cascaderailroad said:
The first RR that you mentioned is 300+ miles long, (snip)...that is ALOT of topography to cover...and tens of thousands of baseboards. Doubtlfully any PC cound handle that HUGE chunk of the world withot crashing,
Click to expand...

I have no idea how often this piece of mis-information has been raised, nor how often it has been batted down, but once again..

The SIZE of a route in miles (or baseboard count) is utterly irrelevant when it comes to considering a computers ability to run the route. If you want to build a huge route build it. If you want to distribute it and it is too large for an auto upload to the DLS then special arrangements can be made with Auran and/or it can be hosted on a third party site.

If you want to have a crack at a big route twstone have at it...

Andy :)
 
I have the capacity to make the route you want...I do not however have the capability to give it to you when I'm done...a 300+ mile route would be approximately 150 megs (far too big for the DS). I know because my current route is 350 miles long...and no it doesn't take 3 days to cross...just one!
If you posted up some maps and maybe gave me a smaller section to model then that might be possible.
 
OR.......you could buy tranzdem and LEARN how to make it for yourself...it only took me a couple days of playing around with it to figure things out...plus now I have the capability to make any route I want even if Cascaderailroad thinks it's dumb!!!
 
I don't think it's dumb, and I am no expert, perhaps I have even given misconseptions about DEM's and PC's...I am just giving a fellow trainzer fair warning that a huge prototypicialy accurate several hundered mile long DEM may become a huge chore. Whereas if you made a conglomoration of all the special scenes....the 3 routes (and much more) could be done less than 50 baseboards. That is a vast expance of land out there to cover. Someone commented about my route: "Why don't you just create the whole world on a DEM".
 
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I'd have to agree with you there. I wish that I had made my current route in smaller subdivisions. Instead I made the entire route on one map...so it's a little big...and I have no clue how it will run when it is complete!....but by then (couple years or more) the computers will hopefully be able to run it!! :hehe:
 
twstone said:
Thanks Dermmy/Andy
But one thing is i don't know how to make the DEM files i need to make the route, i need someone to make that and then i will be all set.
Click to expand...

You don't need someone to make it. Making it yourself is (reasonably) easy.

The best way is to shell out a few bucks on a payware utility called TransDem which quickly and easily converts almost any part of the Earth's surface into a Trainz route. Search the Payware forum for more details.

If you don't like Payware and only want to create routes from within the USA, then the freeware HOG utility is worth getting. Learning it is quite easy, there is a brilliant tute available. There are just two complications, the tute was written for an older version of Trainz and an older version of some of the programmes used. Most of the changes are intuitive, for those that aren't there is plenty of help available right here on the forum. Wewain's excellent HOG/DEM tute which conatins links to all the programmes and data you need (all free) is available here.

Andy :)
 
I wanted DEM based routes myself a couple of weeks ago. I followed the tutorial at the link provided in the above post. I download the Countywide dem data and end up with a DEM of around 400 boards in a rectangular shape. After a little practice I can now generate a DEM and start placing track in 5 minutes.

There is a bug in Trainz, (I think), which causes spikes to be generated in the DEM map. I found a post here on the forums on how to fix that issue. Simply create a new one board route, rename the route layer to something else, then merge the DEM into it. Fixes it 99%.

The problem I have now is the tremendous amount of time, (work), and skill, (patience), it takes to grade the track over the various terrain elevations. I find it very difficult to get realistic looking track/grades in such conditions. I use bridges, terrain tools and track tools only to find it just doesn't quite look "right".

My point/suggestion is this..........get a DEM off the DLS from user "fishlipsatwork" and try laying track on that before undertaking a project involving a large time commitment. Some of his DEM's are absolutely HUGE in square miles of rugged mountains and rolling hills and the download is only 25 to 50 megabytes.

FWIW,

Randy
 
To Sek Hakuna the info you have giving me about the DEMs that fishlipsatwork made i already have all of them and the tracks are on them, with the senery.

To Dermmy thanks for the info and the link, i'll try it and see what comes up.

To Jayturf i'll send you a PM with maps and ideas how we can go about this, ok.

Thanks for the info guys.:)
 
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