DEMs

[waynesbea1]

Is there anyone who makes Dems from Google Earth for others?

 

[cascaderailroad]

Once you get one ... You'll wish you hadn't ... as a DEM controls you ... instead of you controlling your own route ... and you will spend years recreating a route, only to come to the grande conclusion: "It's only straights and curves of RR tracks, nothing more" !

And you will see that most RR lines (except for mountainous regions) really are just low rolling bumps of terrain, and are nothing spectacular to rave about.

ie: Asking for a DEM of the Strasburg RR, is like asking for a DEM of dull rolling flatland ... there really isn't much there to replicate, as to spectacular terrain.

 

[JCitron]

Hi Wayne,

You can download DEMs from the National Geological Survey National Map Server.

http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

You can then use a 3rd party program called TransDem which is about $33 USD

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

There's a bit of a learning curve, but it's worth it in the end. By converting the DEM to Trainz-compatible terrain, and downloading GE images or even topographic maps, combining them, and then tracing off a route, you can then bring this in ready to be tweaked and ready for scenery.

John

 

[RRSignal]

I could be wrong about this, but I haven't found a way to make a route "scenery ready." While you can trace out a route in Transdem, any trackage that follows your polyline is almost certainly going to be nowhere near accurate enough to be usable as trackage; polylines are used selecting areas to map. Put another way, trackage made from polylines is next to worthless, from what I've seen, though, again, if somebody knows other techniques, I'm all ears.

One CAN trace out trackage on a basemap, manually laying track(s), resulting in an extremely accurate map, but that still requires manual track laying, and one has to know details about the trackage itself (i.e. how many, configuration, etc.) for the particular era being modelled.

If there is an automated way to pull railroad data off of USGS or some other source that will produce full, highly-accurate track, I'm interested to know about it.

With that said, Transdem is awesome, and quite cheap for the quality and ease-of-creation it brings to the table.

 

[JCitron]

Some people have been importing kml files into TransDEM and using those to plot the tracks on UTM tiles made up of Google Earth images. I've never done this but I've read here (somewhere recently) that this is pretty accurate.

John

 

[geophil]

You could also use Open Street Map vector data, with the help of the JOSM map editor to convert into .gpx which TransDEM can read. It would still be rough track, not normally suitable for running trains on it.

If you have close relations with your favourite railway, you might have access to their track geometry database and obtain accurate 3D track vectors. In this (rare) case, TransDEM would adjust the DEM-based Trainz terrain to the track geometry, shaping cuttings and embankments.

 

[Vern]

You're not going to get the terrain data direct from Google Earth.

As noted you need to download the DEM from one of the available sources, process this via Transdem into Trainz with a preferred mapping overlay then start building your route. It's better than starting with a blank canvas but it won't build the route for you. The "other" sim has just introduced a feature which can temporarily download images from GE into the editor to assist in placement as you go, but again the terrain still needs to be set up from DEM and the landscape painted and filled with 3D assets to bring it to life.