I'm trying to create a route approx. 77 miles long in TransDEM and I want to be able to have a narrowed down route so I need to use a map instead of all vector lines. I still don't understand how fishlipsatwork Paul did it with the colored TIGER lines and the tiles were narrowed down to only so many squares on either side of the rail line while also having road and river lines on the route. If I use the vector data from National Map, with rail, road, and water lines it causes the entire area of DEM to be used in Trainz where the lines cover. That makes the files too large. So, I need to use a map instead of the route lines from National Map, except the rail line route line in order to narrow down the route. But, two sources of maps that work from the WMS, the Microsoft topo maps and satellite imagery have a severe loss of resolution at close range and everything appears choppy, that is the colors that make up the topo or satellite map appear "broken up" and the default terrain grid is visible. That makes it hard to follow roads and rail lines when building at close range. Is there another source of wms maps somewhere that have a higher resolution at close range? Satellite images even. The one source of satellite images from the Microsoft server are poor quality. Thanks, Robert
Good TransDEM wms maps
- Thread starter rwk
- Start date
The HOG textures are single colour just like the TransDEM textures. With MicroDEM/HOG, the TIGER overlay in MicroDEM became the "map", a raster image the moment it was rendered in MicroDEM. TIGER data has low density (because of the low scale), so it looked quite distinctive on the Trainz terrain. This was an illusion, of course.
Now, for larger scale maps there are two practical limitations with monochrome ground textures: Colour range and maximum map scale. The TransDEM texture colours are optimised for topo maps. The don't look good when applied to aerial images. There is a custom texture set which improves this but cannot solve the scale limit. Maximum map scale for the ground texture approach is 1:50,000 with the 10m grid in Trainz or 1:25,000 (1:24,000 will work) with the 5 m grid (from TS2009 onward).
The classic USGS 1;24k DRG looks like this, when painted to the 5m grid (a random example, there are many others in the forums):
The current source for these maps is the USGS WMS, which is backing the National Map Viewer. You access it directly using the TransDEM WMS client.
Now, for larger scale maps there are two practical limitations with monochrome ground textures: Colour range and maximum map scale. The TransDEM texture colours are optimised for topo maps. The don't look good when applied to aerial images. There is a custom texture set which improves this but cannot solve the scale limit. Maximum map scale for the ground texture approach is 1:50,000 with the 10m grid in Trainz or 1:25,000 (1:24,000 will work) with the 5 m grid (from TS2009 onward).
The classic USGS 1;24k DRG looks like this, when painted to the 5m grid (a random example, there are many others in the forums):
The current source for these maps is the USGS WMS, which is backing the National Map Viewer. You access it directly using the TransDEM WMS client.
I'm trying the Map Tile Server and trying different maps, the regular street maps actually aren't too bad, they show rivers in blue and black lines for the rail lines some maps the rail lines are thin others the rail lines are thick. I'm just going to experiment with different maps and see what works best for me. The problem with the topo maps is that much of the ground texture looks white like snow and it's hard to make out some things close up. The street maps might have a white or tan ground, too but there's not as much "clutter" like there is with the topo maps and I can make out the streets, rails, and rivers better.
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Try Open Street Map "Transport" for high contrast railway track.
Connection parameters seem to have changed. Copy the follwing code fragment into a text editor. Save as xml file like "OSM.xml". Import into TransDEM (Map Tile Servers dialog: Settings | Import)
Select provider "Open Street Map", tile type "Other 2". ("Other 1" is the cycle map.)
Connection parameters seem to have changed. Copy the follwing code fragment into a text editor. Save as xml file like "OSM.xml". Import into TransDEM (Map Tile Servers dialog: Settings | Import)
Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<TileServer version="1.0" >
<Provider name="5 Open Street Map" >
<URL addr="http://tile.openstreetmap.org" postfix=".png" standalone="1" type="1" >
<Matrix prefixClm="/" prefixRow="/" minZoom="1" maxZoom="18" order="2" />
<Mercator origLat="90" origLon="-180" signLat="-1" signLon="1" projection="4" />
</URL>
<URL addr="http://a.tile.opencyclemap.org" prefix="cycle/" postfix=".png" standalone="1" type="4" >
<Matrix prefixClm="/" prefixRow="/" minZoom="1" maxZoom="17" order="2" />
<Mercator origLat="90" origLon="-180" signLat="-1" signLon="1" projection="4" />
</URL>
<URL addr="http://a.tile2.opencyclemap.org" prefix="transport/" postfix=".png" standalone="1" type="5" >
<Matrix prefixClm="/" prefixRow="/" minZoom="1" maxZoom="17" order="2" />
<Mercator origLat="90" origLon="-180" signLat="-1" signLon="1" projection="4" />
</URL>
</Provider>
</TileServer>Select provider "Open Street Map", tile type "Other 2". ("Other 1" is the cycle map.)
For the US it is also possible to get good results by downloading maps from Libre Maps and georeferencing in Transdem. You need to prune the edges as they are scans of actual map sheets, but seem sharper than the tile server versions and better contrast after exporting through Transdem, too.
Open SM is probably the next best bet, though I normally run the png files created by Transdem through Paint Shop Pro before exporting, again to sharpen up the colour contrast makes it easier to see thin lines or where detail on the map is a light colour on top of the white background.
Open SM is probably the next best bet, though I normally run the png files created by Transdem through Paint Shop Pro before exporting, again to sharpen up the colour contrast makes it easier to see thin lines or where detail on the map is a light colour on top of the white background.
The import might not have worked. Did you you allow the import to overwrite existing settings? If not, it won't have has any effect.
You can check it easily. Map Tile Client | Settings.
In the Settings dialog set Provider to "Open Street Map" and Tile Type to "Other 1". Click Edit (in group Tile Type).
Check the URL. Address must be "http://a.tile2.opencyclemap.org" and Query prefix "transport/".
You can check it easily. Map Tile Client | Settings.
In the Settings dialog set Provider to "Open Street Map" and Tile Type to "Other 1". Click Edit (in group Tile Type).
Check the URL. Address must be "http://a.tile2.opencyclemap.org" and Query prefix "transport/".
Do your settings for "Other 2" match address "http://a.tile2.opencyclemap.org" and query prefix "transport/" as asked in my last post? (It must read "Other 2" above, not "Other 1". Nevertheless, "Other 1" should also work. That's the OSM cycle map.)
It the address does not match, your import went wrong. TransDEM pops up a message box with a summary when the import finishes. What does that summary say?
It the address does not match, your import went wrong. TransDEM pops up a message box with a summary when the import finishes. What does that summary say?
Biggest problem with UK maps is the lack of detail. The arcs are not refined enough to give much more than a general idea. So I hope that some day soon we will see an improvement in whats available. It would be really helpful if we had access to some of the data used in academia. I understand that they use far better quality than we can get hold of.