I was digging through old CDs a week or so ago and found the Vistapro DEM disc which contains a bunch of DEM files. I tried importing them into TransDEM to see what they looked like but they aren't directly readable by TransDEM even though they have a DEM extension. After checking on the web to find a converter to translate these files, and others too, into a readable format I came across this program called AccuTrans 3D.
http://www.micromouse.ca/index.html
The software comes with a free fully-working trial with a purchase option. The purchase option is $20.00 CAD, which turned out to be $15.23 USD. A nice purchase that didn't break the bank.
What's really cool too is there is no installation required like a lot of programs with online registration requirements, etc. The program installs by unzipping the zip file into a folder. The programmer even says it does nothing to the registry either, which is rare these days, given how many programs dump everything into the Windows registry.
Back to the old Vistapro DEM files.
These are different famous places around the globe such as Alaska, Appalachian Mountains, Mars, places in Australia, and many other places and unique things such as some fractals. The DEM files are in very tiny slices and are quite low resolution, although, they do come into Trainz quite nice. I tried a couple of quick tests with a few of them before I purchased the software.
And here we are. I chose DEM called 2011US.dem and imported into the program. I then exported it as an .asc and imported that into TransDEM for processing. I then exported that to a Trainz route and imported that into TRS2019-Plus.
The end result is useful. The DEMs are small and are 9 x 9 baseboards square at 10 meter grid. These come in without textures, but are great for fictional routes because the terrain is already there for adding in a route.
AccuTrans 3D also imports and exports various 3d formats for those that are interested in converting files from on format to the other.
http://www.micromouse.ca/index.html
The software comes with a free fully-working trial with a purchase option. The purchase option is $20.00 CAD, which turned out to be $15.23 USD. A nice purchase that didn't break the bank.
What's really cool too is there is no installation required like a lot of programs with online registration requirements, etc. The program installs by unzipping the zip file into a folder. The programmer even says it does nothing to the registry either, which is rare these days, given how many programs dump everything into the Windows registry.
Back to the old Vistapro DEM files.
These are different famous places around the globe such as Alaska, Appalachian Mountains, Mars, places in Australia, and many other places and unique things such as some fractals. The DEM files are in very tiny slices and are quite low resolution, although, they do come into Trainz quite nice. I tried a couple of quick tests with a few of them before I purchased the software.
And here we are. I chose DEM called 2011US.dem and imported into the program. I then exported it as an .asc and imported that into TransDEM for processing. I then exported that to a Trainz route and imported that into TRS2019-Plus.
The end result is useful. The DEMs are small and are 9 x 9 baseboards square at 10 meter grid. These come in without textures, but are great for fictional routes because the terrain is already there for adding in a route.
AccuTrans 3D also imports and exports various 3d formats for those that are interested in converting files from on format to the other.
