DEM Volunteer Anybody?

[GN1996]

Hi, I just thought I would ask, but is anybody willing to make a DEM for me? Details will be scarce here, but if you are interested then PM here in the forums please. You're probably thinking, "Why don't you just buy TransDEM or learn to use MicroDEM and the HOG tool, GN?" Well good people, that is because I will probably only need 1, maybe 2 DEM's created.

The route will be approximately 225 miles long and will include a 15 mile long branchline. More details will be explained for those of you that are interested.

Thanks,
GN1996

 

[rickf77]

Hi GN, sorry I can't help, but I have to tell you, TransDEM is worth every penny to me. I only plan to make one route myself. I'm still in the dark when it comes to Trainz. At the moment I have the first part of my route in surveyor. I'm really surprised to see the route following the correct path, and the lay of the land looks just about right. For a computer idiot like myself, getting this far is amazing! I think you will be pretty happy if you buy this "program". Sorry if this sounds like an ad, but I would have been happy to shell out 10 times what I paid for it to get a "pro" to get me to the point I'm at now. After a little hair pulling and lots of cursing, and then realizing what I was doing wrong, I'm really happy that I got this far "on my own". I really have tons of respect for those guys that have produced such great looking layouts. I hope mine will look as good as their's. (Fat chance, hee, hee)
Cheers....Rick

 

[ModelerMJ]

I only needed 1 DEM (and it was a big one as well) but bought TransDEM anyway, and have never regretted it. TransDEM can do much more than just create DEMs and I have used its other tools to great benefit in my own route-building process. For example, tracks and roads can be traced as Paths in Google Earth, exported as KMZ files, imported into TransDEM as Simple Routes, and then used to automatically lay out marker splines that very clearly show where everything should go. So it's well worth the investment even if you only ever do 1 DEM.

Also, I believe there is the consideration that, unless someone has a commercial license for TransDEM, making DEMs for others may not be allowed. Perhaps geophil will stop by and clarify this point.

Regards,
-Mike

 

[GN1996]

Well, buying it really isn't an option for me at this point right now. I have hit a rocky point, so to speak.

 

[rickf77]

Hey GN, I sent you a PM. I'm not even sure I did that right. Hope ya got it.

Cheers.......Rick

 

[Thai1On]

Hey GN1996 just a quick note. I'm working on a 200+mile route and unless you have a bunch of time or plan to kiss the better part of most of your life away please reconsider your route. For me, it's too late .

Dave

 

[LWVRR]

Hey GN1996 just a quick note. I'm working on a 200+mile route and unless you have a bunch of time or plan to kiss the better part of most of your life away please reconsider your route. For me, it's too late .

Dave

Heck, I'm working on a 19 mile route that's been 5 years in the making!

GN1996, if you would of ask about a year ago I was making DEM's for everybody. I stopped because this community likes to receive more then give. I asked for things and got ignored.

 

[rickf77]

Oh, man, I'm trying a route of about 100 miles. I'm 62 now, it's starting to look like (just like what happened in real life) this route is never going to get completed! Let's see...if I quit smoking and drinking... nope, that's not going to happen. I better start putting in some overtime!

Cheers....Rick

 

[GN1996]

In regards to kissing my life away, I think I can have this done relatively faster then 5 years, considering I live on the route and know what most of it looks like off of memory. But, that probably has not decreased build times for others before. I'm hopeful though.

 

[rickf77]

Yeah, just go for it! I'm sure there are a lot worse things we could be "wasting" our time on.

Cheers........Rick

 

[JCitron]

In regards to kissing my life away, I think I can have this done relatively faster then 5 years, considering I live on the route and know what most of it looks like off of memory. But, that probably has not decreased build times for others before. I'm hopeful though.

I thought that was the case for the 8 miles of real route I included in my mega-route. After fiddling around with this section, I can say that this is the most difficult route I've ever worked on. I can't get the buildings right and I don't have the energy or the time to make my own. The track is almost right, and ... I could go on. In some ways it's a whole lot faster for a fictional route than the real thing.

Good luck with your project. I just hope you don't burn yourself out with the project. I've been there and done that with other things including music (piano performance) projects as well. After 20 years, I'm still working on Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata!

John

 

[ModelerMJ]

I've actually found that living in the area you are modeling can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing. I have 2 routes in the works, one set in the area where I live (which is a monster) and one set elsewhere (which is of a much more practical extent). In the case of the one where I live, my goal is to be as accurate as reasonably possible. I say 'reasonably' because there was a period of time where I found myself obsessing over small details and trying to make things look 'exactly' like what I actually see every day, because anything else didn't seem 'right' -- it may sound odd, but it's like if I did anything else, I was 'cheating' somehow. Obviously this is impractical, but I wasted a lot of time and effort before that finally sank in. Luckily I have a content creator working with me who is just awesome at what he does, so I have been able to include good representations of several iconic structures and other landmarks; but for everything else I try to just give the right overall impression and recognize when good enough is good enough.

In the case of the other route, my goal is more about creating a route that will be fun and interesting to operate rather than beng an exact representation of the area, so of course it tends to go much faster since I have given myself the license to generalize.

Anyway, good luck with your route.

Regards,
-Mike

 

[JCitron]

Mike,

You found out exactly the same thing I did. I too did quite a bit of "adjusting" and compromising because there are so many things that will be wrong. In a lot of the areas the rail line doesn't exist and neither do the buildings. The old Haverhill rail yard is now bushes, trees, and lots of poison ivy. Where many of the warehouses once stood, is now trash and empty lots. On my route I put some of the warehouses back in and some of the yard tracks in. I just found out recently that there was a small turntable there as well. Hmm... Another renovation, maybe!

I can say that I must've have something right because I brought my dad for a ride over the Merrimack River Bridge from Ward's Hill to Rosemont. He recognized the locations of the buildings and said I had most of the things pretty close. He was able to point out where our old house was on Front Street which overlooked the old Bradford freight yard, and the location of Ornstein's Heel Company, which is now where the MVRTA parks their buses.

John