How do I print a trackplan?

[coRioGrandeSouthern]

I have searched through the TS2006 PDF Manual, and the forums, and I cannot find any information on printing a trackplan. I use the map feature often, but at my age it would be very handy to have a printed copy I could use to refer to and make notes on to remind myself of changes I wish to make to a trackplan. And simply to refer to as I am operating a train session without switching back and forth to the in-game map.

I am aware of the Print Screen feature, but the reason I would like to be able to print just the trackage portion, is that the built-in color choice is not very appropriate for my purpose or my eyesight.

As sophisticated as the Trainz software is, I find it a little disappointing that printing just the trackplan hasn't been added yet. The map is great on-screen, but when I print a Print Screen capture of the map, with or without the contour representation, it is not very viewer friendly due to the light blue track outline. Black would be a better choice for me, but I would really prefer just the track on a white page.

Thank you Auran for an excellent Train Simulation. I am very impressed with everything about my recent TS2009 purchase!

 

[angelah]

Trainz Agent

I think there is a utility called Trainz Agent that does this. From what you say you just want the actual track plan without scenery and TA does this.

Angela

 

[itareus]

As far as I know this can't be done. I hope somebody knows better and can inform us!

The only work around would be to use the Print Screen function and then edit the resulting files using a graphics editor - replace the background colour with White and then the light blue colour with black, save and print the result.

A bit of a pain and not easy if your eyesights not good!

Graphics editors - paint.net and Gimp are both free and there are others - I think paint.net would be the easiest to use.

HTH

Chris

EDIT - Thanks Angelah, our posts crossed in the post! Do you know if Trainz Agent works in 2009 though?

 

[shaneturner12]

From what I have read about Trainz Agent, parts of it only work in TRS2004 (but I'm not sure whether the other parts are also limited to TRS2004) - It seems that Trainz Agent is made by the Razorback Railway team - please correct me if I'm wrong there.

 

[mjolnir]

I don't know of any way to do it directly. I have devised a work around, though, if you want something like this

Here's what I did:

In Surveyor (although it would also work from driver), I spent some time getting a view that was exactly North, and went from the main menu in Surveyor, selected the "Mini-Map" option. I zoomed out to a point where I could get a complete board within the circle of the mini map, and took a screen shot. I moved the mini map view around using the arrows in the map until I had a screen shot image of every board in the route.

Then I opened all of the screen shots in my favorite image processing software. Mine happens to be GIMP, but there is no reason that other products won't do as well. I cropped each screen shot until I had just the map; cropping is necessary because your screen shot will include part of your route, and bits of the mini map that you don't want.. I did find it necessary to rescale the image because for some reason, when I opened the screen shots, the horizontal and vertical scales of my board were different: the horizontal axis (East-West) was about 140 pixels, while the vertical (North-South) axis was about 180. I resolved this by scaling the image so that the two axes were the same magnitude. When all the boards were cropped and scaled, then I imported them into a new GIMP image, pasting each new board in as a new layer, and merging it down to achieve the final result.

The legend in the upper left hand corner, and on the map, and the color coding of certain bits of the map were added after the route was all assembled in a single image. At the point I made this image, I had applied only a very small amount of texture: the green area in the upper right of the upper board in the furthest column to the left, and the dark area in the board immediately below it, and the light gray area in the board in the extreme southeast had texture at the time I made the shot. I haven't explored the "items to display" in the mini map, but I suspect that you can turn the texture off.

If you want more detail, you'll need to zoom in closer, but the same technique can still work. When you zoom in, you'll have the mini map "target" you'll need to deal with. The way I did this is to overlap screen shots, so that I know I have a "clean" part of every portion of the image. If this screen shot has the "target" in a particular place, I'll offset the next screen shot by a significant amount, but still leave a considerable amount of overlap. In fact, in some instances it will be necessary to make have 3 overlapping images to get rid of all hints of the target and navigation arrows. Again, even at the larger size, I found it necessary to scale of the image because in every case where a particular distance on the East-West axis was about 14, the the distances on the North-South axis was about 18. You'll probably want to verify these amounts with your own screen shots; the ratio on your monitor may be different than on mine.

I find it useful to have the screen oriented so that the view is directly along one of the cardinal directions. In fact, this is not strictly necessary. I would expect that any image processing software which supports layers, will also support image rotation, so if you wish, you can take the screen shot from any angle, and piece the layers together, and rotate the final result.

One other thing I tried which did not work: I discovered by accident that when I had another application open when you launch TRAINZ, I can use the [Alt]-tab facility of windows to move from one window to another. GIMP allows one to create a screenshot within GIMP, and I tried to do that. This might work if you are using TRS in a window, but I couldn't make it happen using TRS in full-screen mode.

ns

 

[john259]

You could try Vistamare's TrainzMap. It's freeware but I don't know if it's compatible with TS2009.

It was included with TRS2006. It might be worth checking to see if it's also included with TS2009.

HTH, John

 

[teddytoot]

TrainzMap does not work with 2009 because of the different file format used for storage. I use the Prt Scr button to grab a view of the map. As you can now expand the map in surveyor, you can chose which options you want. If you need more detail then follow mjolnir's method.

 

[coRioGrandeSouthern]

Thank you!

Thank you for all your suggestions. I think what mjolnir suggested is very close to what I can live with, thank you, mjolnir.

I searched for Trainz Agent, and it looks like it hasn't been updated in a couple years, so I doubt it will work with TS2009, just a guess on my part.

Thanks again for the feedback.

 

[wmmeyer]

VistaMare's TrainzMap can be made to work in TS2009, with some limitations. Check out this thread http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=44581&highlight=trainzmap

The limitation would seem to include any maps using the 5m grid, but the default works fine for me.

 

[coRioGrandeSouthern]

VistaMare's TrainzMap can be made to work in TS2009, with some limitations. Check out this thread http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=44581&highlight=trainzmap

The limitation would seem to include any maps using the 5m grid, but the default works fine for me.

Great! This is exactly what I need! Thank you, WmMeyer.

I followed the instructions from the following post and it didn't open a trackplan I created (using the default 10m grid), but TrainzMap did open another trackplan and the result is exactly what I was looking for.

There was some discussion on this point back in May but the verdict is not yet fully in.

Some detailed instructions were posted at the following address ...

http://wprrr.blogspot.com/2009/02/trainzmap-in-ts2009.html

But the author made the following observation...

"NOTE: It seems that any TS2009 map with 5m grids can't be read by trainzMap, it can only display route maps of those routes that are TRS2006 compatible [no 5m grids]."

 

[wmmeyer]

Great! This is exactly what I need! Thank you, WmMeyer.
.

Once you get into TrainzMap, particularly the Print Preview page, you'll discover that it is a very powerful little tool that will do amazing things. You can vary the size of the area to print out as well as add or subtract many of the track plan features.

 

[teddytoot]

I wish somebody would tell me how they manage to view 2009 routes in Trainz Map. My experience is that routes imported from previous versions are viewable until you edit them in 2009. They then behave as the built-in routes and routes created in 2009, i.e. TrainzMap reports that the file format cannot be read. I assume that until you re-save them in Surveyor, they are not converted into the new file format. I would be interested to know if anybody has been able to view the built-in and freshly created routes (5m or 10m settings) and if they have used any trick not mentioned above.

 

[NICKEL]

Yes. It can and has been done.

 

[Paul_Bert]

I wish somebody would tell me how they manage to view 2009 routes in Trainz Map. My experience is that routes imported from previous versions are viewable until you edit them in 2009. They then behave as the built-in routes and routes created in 2009, i.e. TrainzMap reports that the file format cannot be read. I assume that until you re-save them in Surveyor, they are not converted into the new file format. I would be interested to know if anybody has been able to view the built-in and freshly created routes (5m or 10m settings) and if they have used any trick not mentioned above.

The last version of Trainz 2009 that I could use TrainzMap was 38599. I cannot make it work in version 40040. I also get the message that the file format cannot be read.

 

[coRioGrandeSouthern]

I wish somebody would tell me how they manage to view 2009 routes in Trainz Map. My experience is that routes imported from previous versions are viewable until you edit them in 2009. They then behave as the built-in routes and routes created in 2009, i.e. TrainzMap reports that the file format cannot be read. I assume that until you re-save them in Surveyor, they are not converted into the new file format. I would be interested to know if anybody has been able to view the built-in and freshly created routes (5m or 10m settings) and if they have used any trick not mentioned above.

Yes. It can and has been done.

Nickel, if you have done what TeddyToot posted, please let me know how to do that. I would appreciate being able to print just the trackplan. Thank you.

 

[beeb49]

trainsmap

did you ever get directions for trainsmap-if so could you please post how to do it? i have 2009-40040.
thanks-steve

 

[kurby]

Great tool, but anything for Trainz 12?

Nickel, if you have done what TeddyToot posted, please let me know how to do that. I would appreciate being able to print just the trackplan. Thank you.

Great tool for 2009, but I am using Trainz 12. Is there anything out there like that. Even a simple "Logical map" ie: This station connects to these stations, has these tracks, these industries.......

KJS