Map Merging and Precision

[minernut]

I remember from looking on the DLS (Download Station) that maps can be merged together. So lets say that I'm building a route on one map but I want to build another map that is miles away. For example, I'm building a line that goes directly south from Fort Wayne, IN.* I have recently looked around the Chicago, IL for the Illinois Northern (Long gone). Is there a way for me to merge the two or three maps once I reach that point and have the two maps be extremely close for when I connect the rail lines?
*(I'm building a line called Fort Wayne Southern Railroad, a company that was controlled and absorbed into the Pennsylvania Railroad)

 

[stagecoach]

Merge will allow you to join base boards together but will not allow overlap of each other. You can merge any map to a position of your choice, either touching an existing map or you can place it away from your existing map.

 

[JCitron]

As stagecoach said, you can't overlap maps but they can be butted together and connected. For what you would like to do, I highly recommend TransDEM. http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/startseiteTransDEMEngl.htm. The software costs about $35 US plus or minus.

TransDEM will allow you to bring in highly accurate National Geological Survey data and then overlay current topographic maps, images and even historic topographic maps. With this program, you download the supplied 1-arc second slice of the region, download your maps, marry the two together, trim out and you've got your terrain ready for track laying. The good part of using TransDEM is you can accurately butt additional DEMs in the same region nearly seamlessly. What you do here is trim to the edge of a baseboard on one part, and trim to the opposite side on the other DEM and map, and the merge. This is necessary when working on extremely large maps due to the shear size of the data being handled.

In the past, I have actually cut out a messed up section of a route I was working on and replaced it with the same baseboards I sliced out of the original files. It took a bit of planning and positioning, but the replacement was completely seamless and nothing was lost in the process except for my screw up.

 

[mjolnir]

One caveat I'll add: while it's true that two routes can be merged, they cannot be rotated, either before or after merging. That is to say, if you have a route generally oriented along an East-West axis, you cannot rotate it so that it is oriented along a North-South axis (this applies whether or not you merge the route with another one.). And best practice is that if you're going to merge the two routes, you make copies of the two, and merge the copies, leaving the originals intact.

Finally, if you do not expect to create the routes between Fort Wayne, and Chicago, you can use portals to merge the two routes.

ns