Merge problems

[Talismana]

Hi!

I have merged the big routes A+B with success, no problems there and everything works quite fine.

But when I some days later want to merge another route ,C, the problems starts. First I open the saved A+B route and checkes by a look in Driver and with the minimap that A+B are in place and so they are and everything looks OK.

Then i go back to Surveyor and open the A+B route again and tries to merge route C as well. Route C comes up, red where it is touching the underlaying route A. Funny thing is that all of a sudden route B has dissappeared completely. I still merge route C in a place where it would not have interfeared with route B. (or route A)

No error messages or anything funny but when I have saved and reopened the new route that is supposed to have A+B+C routes in places the first merged route B is still missing.

So now I have the two routes A+C and nothing more, route B is still not to be found. Has anybody a clue what has happened and a suggestion how to solve the merging of 3 routes?

Cheers,
Håkan

 

[HiBaller]

In working with our various parts of the DHR, I have extensive experience with merging bits of routes.

First off, I ALWAYS start with a COPY of all the routes in question. Make them named "RouteAm" RouteBm" & "RouteCm" or whatever, but use only a copy.

Then, take the smallest one into Surveyor and Merge the larger one. I don't know why this is, but the merge always goes better this way. Once merged, do a "Save As..." and give it a name like "RouteABm".

When ready, you load up "RouteCm" and Merge it with "RouteABm" and do a "Save As..." again.

This way, if at some point it messes up you still have ALL the pieces back to your last Merge. If you then exit TRS and either 'Archive' using CMP (TRS2006) or just copy off the \maps\-whatever- folders to a save folder (TRS2004), you can use them again if necessary.

Startup TRS again and just delete the intrim routes and keep the final route.

This works well with me - and I have over 17 different pieces of the DHR to contend with. Every time I put together a test version for comment I go through this and haven't missed once to date. All merges worked just fine. Once in a very great while, there will be a "hole" down to altitude zero along the joined edges. If this happens you can either back up and re-merge them, or, if the "hole" is just a 10M square you can use the "level terrain" button and bring the hole up to altitude.

Bill

 

[Talismana]

Thanks HiBaller!

I´ll follow your advice first thing in the morning!

One big difference that I see right now is that I have always started with the biggest route, then merging the smallest, thinking that would be most natural. I´ll do your way ofcourse and hopefully get a better result.

The big ones are about 400-500 baseboards...

I´ll let you know how things worked out when ready.

Cheers,
Håkan

 

[JCitron]

My route merging method is similar to HiBallers. What I do is create an interim route called xxx. There are no terrain features, textures, etc. This only a single baseboard. This is setup to have the same parameters as my real route with the correct region, etc. I then merge the routes into the xxx, and then delete the blank square.

I agree though, having a good backup of everything is a good idea before starting.

John

 

[HiBaller]

@Talismana:

I think the reason that small merging to large is the size of the files involved. For some reason, if you merge a larger route to a smaller one already in Surveyor, the resultant files are "cleaner" (is that the word I want??) with no "holes" or "deep cliffs" in it.

@John"

That is another way to do it, but if I try to use a single board route and merge two of my DHR routes I have that board anywhere from 450 feet to over 7400 Feet lower than the rest. Sometimes even FINDING the ground-level board is tough. :hehe:

When the DHR route was originally laid out all of it was in one route - end to end. When we decided to chunk it out with SCABS (see other post in Screenshots forum) they originally came from the breakup of that one (DEM) route. When it comes time to merge them back, they "jump" to the correct position when you click Merge. All you have to do is click the check mark. Piece of cake really.

Bill

 

[Talismana]

Hi again John and Bill!

I have tried all morning to merge my routes with no success, following your advices and retrying in my own way that has been successful before, with smaller routes.

Can it be that these routes simply are to big? I have a powerful computer with 4GB RAM and it uses 75% of that RAM when merging, but when I try to merge the third route, one of the earlier merged routes simply dissappears from the small mergemap and after the new merge is done it cannot be found anywhere.

How many baseboards have you succeded to merge?

If I open the two big routes that earlier is merged I can add single blank baseboards to the map, but I cannot merge the smallest of routes...

Cheers,
Håkan

 

[stagecoach]

The size should not be a problem because the last merge is the one that wont merge. I can only think that you have somehow got duplicate maps. Delete all but the original three maps and start again. Open A in surveyor then save as ABC. Close map and now open ABC in surveyor and merge B then save/overwrite ABC. Close and reopen ABC and merge C save and close. you should now be able to open the ABC map with all three. It is easy to get surveyor to list more than one map as driver only shows ones with a session and surveyor shows all.

Ive merged 1372 baseboards together from 5 different maps and ive only got 1gb of memory and an AMD 2500 CPU

 

[davesnow]

One other problem with merging routes that I have come across is this, Tracks that intersect with industrys may have to be re-connected and the industrys may have to be re-configured. Just FYI.

 

[HiBaller]

@Talismana:

I guess that number of boards will certainly stretch the merging capabilities, but I don't see a reason for your results. Give Stagecoach's method a try also and see what happens.

The DHR is only around 175 boards BUT when we broke it up we did so from a complete route. Did the routes you are trying to merge come from completely different routes? If so, then perhaps all you need to do is put a "buffer" of 1 board between any two merging routes. Sort of a "border" between them. It appears to be much harder to merge them if you've got different heights to merge. Since the DHR already had the heights set up, they merge easier.

I had no problems merging the Kauai route (East/West) but, once again, that started out as one complete route.

Bill

 

[Talismana]

Thanks again for your support guys!

I think that maybe Stagecoach has the solution. I saw once in the little mergewindow how the route I tried to merge seemed to already have a duplicate route. I´ll give it a new try tommorrow when I´m hopefully is a little sharper after a good nights sleep.

Cheers,
Håkan