HOG and Transdem Group

[cascaderailroad]

HOG and Transdem Group

Everyone should join a Transdfem group of persons, who have mastered Transdem, and wish to help others to master Transdem, (as it is difficult for me to understand, how about you all) ?

In the Mean time I found some lost gems of lost HOG data: http://web.archive.org/web/20070117165205/http://www.fishlips.net/Trainz/

And: http://www.storage.victrainz.com.au/Jerkers_DEM_maps/

And: Microdem: https://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem/microdem.htm

And: Phily to WashDC HOG DEM: http://web.archive.org/web/20070117165205/http://www.fishlips.net/Trainz/Phily - Wash DC/

And: NY to Phily HOG DEM: NY - Phily - fishlipsatwork <KUID2:59012:102557:1> https://www.auran.com/DLS/DLS_downloadasset.php?DownloadID=40273

I will be adding to this thread constantly, as I am bound and determined to learn Transdem

I have a visual problem seeing, reading and comprehending lengthly complex reading material, and a learning disability, short term memory loss, and have severe difficulty comprehending complex paragraphs ... After 40, 000 words, I tend to forget what I previously had read, and everything becomes a blurr, giving me much stress and severe headaches, I could never attend college and remember complex course material

So I start this thread to help all persons "who just can not get the hang and understanding of the overly complex Transdem program"

I hope to help EVERYONE to come together to understand all the shortcuts of mastering Transdem, and to help simplify the instruction manual, and to help teach all of those that are having difficulty with Transdem

Lets get mapping !

 

[JCitron]

Count me in for helping.

Reading 40,000 words is a bit much I agree. I get glazed eyes and the text no longer penetrates the eyeballs and never makes it into the brain. Throw in some maths and I'm done completely before even starting.

 

[anathoth71]

I have a visual problem seeing, reading and comprehending lengthly complex reading material, and a learning disability, short term memory loss, and have severe difficulty comprehending complex paragraphs ... After 40, 000 words, I tend to forget what I previously had read, and everything becomes a blurr, giving me much stress and severe headaches

I don't have those problems, but still got the stress and headaches after 3 days of coming up with a repeatable workflow document to get from nothing to a workable TransDEM route in Trainz. Kudos to you for even trying if that is your situation.

Can I ask 3 questions?

Do you have a particular route in mind?
Will you finish it?
Will it be posted to the DLS?

 

[cascaderailroad]

I am merging the 2 Fishlipsatwork HOG DEM's (NY - Phily, and Phily - DC) and will put it on the DLS, or give it out as a file transfer, or cloud CDP, so even TRS2004, TRS2006 trainzbuild #3337 version 2.6 people can use the blank map, I will be working on just a small area at first, from S Phila Greenwich yard to RG Grays Ferry Eastside yard, Arsenal tower to Zoo iinterlocking ... whether I will ever finish that small portion is unknown. I can always send my WIP CDP to anyone who wants it ... My main objective is to get a Trenton NJ to Wilmington DE route done

My Horseshoe Curve route presently goes from Harrisburg/Enola to Pittsburgh Conway, or a smaller size route Mt Union PA to CP Conpit

They are presently in TRS2006 format, but can be imported into TS12, and then imported into T:ANE

 

[JCitron]

That's very nice of you to do that, but keep in mind that the old HOG routes are not accurate at all due to the positioning of the overlays and the height information generated from MicroDem. If you've ever noticed that where the rail line is marked, it's not always where the grade is and is sometimes 30 to 40 meters up and over a hill instead of in the valley below.

With that said, however, it's great for building and having fun with but I wouldn't rely on those routes for 100% accuracy. If you want 100% accurate terrain with 1 meter difference on overlays, you need to use TransDEM.

 

[JCitron]

I don't have those problems, but still got the stress and headaches after 3 days of coming up with a repeatable workflow document to get from nothing to a workable TransDEM route in Trainz. Kudos to you for even trying if that is your situation.

Can I ask 3 questions?

Do you have a particular route in mind?
Will you finish it?
Will it be posted to the DLS?

I have written up a simple workflow myself. It's not all valid due to the USGS changing their server setup and software interface 20 times in the past two years. The other parts, however, work well. If you need help with anything, perhaps I can help.

 

[clam1952]

That's very nice of you to do that, but keep in mind that the old HOG routes are not accurate at all due to the positioning of the overlays and the height information generated from MicroDem. If you've ever noticed that where the rail line is marked, it's not always where the grade is and is sometimes 30 to 40 meters up and over a hill instead of in the valley below.

With that said, however, it's great for building and having fun with but I wouldn't rely on those routes for 100% accuracy. If you want 100% accurate terrain with 1 meter difference on overlays, you need to use TransDEM.

My Ffestiniog Route was done with Microdem / Hog and required quite a bit of manual alteration, A lot in the Aberglaslyn Pass which was hardly recognisable, firstly due to heights being treeline not ground level, places being 100m plus out and don't suppose anyone noticed but the Cob at Porthmadog is at slightly the wrong angle due to the inaccuracy of the DEM.

I have now got a Transdem created terrain and that appears to be bang on, saving it for future use if I ever update the route.

 

[heimdall]

I am quite new to route building, I purchased TransDem a couple of months back and i have just imported into Trainz the terrain for a 10 mile historic (1900) route using 2m Lidar and Historic 25" UK maps. The result was very very impressive and I have now graded the track with little adjustment. It did take me a good two weeks to get the import right (must have done it 10 times before i was happy), there are so many minor adjustments to get it right and a steep learning curve. For me that is part of enjoyment, I love the challenge and the final success. if it was all done with a few mouse clicks I probably wouldn't have found it any where near as much fun....

Having said that i can see how others may have found it frustrating, bordering impossible.

With my somewhat limited experience I am more than willing to help anyone. just ask.

 

[cascaderailroad]

That is what I hope, to overcome the Transdem steep learning curve, so it is simplified for all others who bought the program, and could not get quite over the hump of the complex learning curve ... it should be a fun easy program to operate ... not a confusing chore

 

[JCitron]

My Ffestiniog Route was done with Microdem / Hog and required quite a bit of manual alteration, A lot in the Aberglaslyn Pass which was hardly recognisable, firstly due to heights being treeline not ground level, places being 100m plus out and don't suppose anyone noticed but the Cob at Porthmadog is at slightly the wrong angle due to the inaccuracy of the DEM.

I have now got a Transdem created terrain and that appears to be bang on, saving it for future use if I ever update the route.

That is exactly what Mike K (Steamboateng) and I discovered when he started work on his Hoosac Tunnel route, which is still in progress and I think will be for sometime. The HOG-generated route was way too out of proportion to get anything right without a whole lot of extra work so we went with TransDEM.

With TransDEM, we took ca. 1943-44 topographic maps and positioned them in place on a contemporary DEM. The heights were extremely accurate and in some cases with only a few meters difference between what I measured on Google Earth, saw in person, and measured in Trainz. The maps also lined up perfectly with the terrain and the only anomalies we ran into were due to more recent, ca. 1950s flood control channels within North Adams which was prone to flooding from the Hoosac River.

 

[martinvk]

A great resource is the TransDem forum where they have a set of tutorial videos taking you from start to Trainz. Thanks to Mrgisa for the explanations in that forum.

After a long hiatus, I decided to give TransDEM another whirl now that SP3 is out. Following the video tutorials, I managed to get a DEM map into TANE. One thing to keep in mind is to keep your maps small or detail light. Too big or too much and the processing times stretch from minutes to hours.

 

[cascaderailroad]

As to the first project mentioned in post #1

I have successfully merged the 2 Fishlipsatwork HOG DEM's together, joining the Phily-Wash DC route to the NY-Phily route

It is presently in TRS2006 format on my PC, and has only HOG Texture Tiger Data lines showing where all roads rail lines and rivers are ... it has no track nor any other Trainz assets on it

I can not upload it to the DLS in TRS2006, without upping the train-build to TS12, so you will have to get the TRS2006 route from me, and get it into the higher trainz-build of your choice, on your own

You can get a CDP from me via Skype at present, until I figure out how to share it on a free file sharing site ... which I do not have, and I know nothing about OneDrive or Cloud

Like someone said: HOG is not very accurate ... But at least now there is a full route from Washington DC via Philly to NYC, (something we never had before) and it goes a mile or two west, past Zoo Interlocking towards Overbrook

If someone wants to upload the route to the DLS, or a file sharing OneDrive, or Cloud, they can do so, after getting the CDP from me

You must give Fishlipsatwork-Paul Haglund-fishboyatfishlipsdotnet-wwwdotfishlipsdotnet/Trainz, full credit for the route

If someone wants to re-do the NEC Philly-Wilmington route, go right ahead ... I got sick and tired of seeing the one texture golf course baseboards on the built-in Trainz NEC Philly-Wilmington route, that has catenary poles colliding with trains, all because it is improper 5m track spacing (where as the prototype is 4m track spacing), and where the edge of the world drops off into oblivion at RG Tower, and S Phila yard was not even there, nor was the airport line, nor CSX, as no realism was in the route

I figured out that the NEC route on the DLS, and built-in, is a cut down version of the Fishlipsatwork HOG WashDC-Philly route, what bugs me are the speedtrees are totally creepy, the BELL flyover has a brick wall on the gradient, (where as it should be a gravel embankment), the track spacing is 5m, (where as it should be 4m spacing), the catenary poles collide with trains, the one texture golf course grass is annoying, there are hundreds of passengers at stations, (when in fact there are usually only a handful getting on per train) ... allot of the assets used make the route have poor framrates ... it would take weeks just to fix the track, and to fix the catenary another couple weeks ... The route just is dated and needs total re-doing from scratch, you just can't fix a poorly done route ... The Airport line is so inadequate that it is just a stub ended track, as is the CSX line, the RG Grays Ferry Eastside yard, and S Phila yard, and many other rail lines, are not even there, giving the route no freight and commuter purpose nor destination at all, Zoo interlocking is so poorly represented it is a disgrace

Now someone has to make a Transdem route from at least Trenton NJ to Wilmington DE

 

[cascaderailroad]

Unfortunately I will not be able to download and test out Transdem, for a week, or two ... as the "Little Woman" is on her way home, from a month away vacation in FLA, this Monday, and the house is completely trashed, and is a real "Animal house", with cooking grease all over the stove and countertops, and dried dog poo-peeys, and dozens of empty beer cans, are everywhere, all over the floor ... and when she gets home, she doesn't want to see me sitting behind the PC screen, for 48 hours, spending 2 days glued to the PC monitor screen :hehe:

Listen to: "My Wife" song-The Who: https://youtu.be/yNlOHD8FR7c

 

[cascaderailroad]

I was testing out the NY WashDC HOG DEM

HOG is totally inaccurate, does not dig cuts, nor does it create fills

Applying Google Earth measured metric elevations, and applying them into track spline points on a HOG map in Trainz is way off, and does not work, as a 20.2' High Cube boxcar either is clipping an overhead RR bridge by 6 foot, or protruding through the terrain by 6 foot where a road bridge cross's over

So all HOG generated maps should never be used, as the program, and terrain, is seriously flawed and deficient

I have stopped playing around with HOG maps, deleted the route, and will someday buy Transdem, to make accurate terrain

I somehow got rid of my SpeedTwee Library, and wiped out the fugly, creepy, built-in Speed Twees ... much more enjoyable game without them

 

[cascaderailroad]

I don't have those problems, but still got the stress and headaches after 3 days of coming up with a repeatable workflow document to get from nothing to a workable TransDEM route in Trainz. Kudos to you for even trying if that is your situation.

Can I ask 3 questions?

1) Do you have a particular route in mind?
2) Will you finish it?
3) Will it be posted to the DLS?

1) The NEC from Trenton to Wilmington DE, S Phila Greewich yard to RG Grays Ferry Eastside yard, Phila to Paoli
2) Probably not ... It will be a WIP, for you to finish
3) Absolutely NO, as it will be too big to fit on the DLS