Hello Everyone!
I'm reaching out of my usual fields and posting in unfamiliar territory again because I have found myself in a bit of a predicament regarding my DEM of the Southern Railway and I could very much use some advice from more experienced DEM Creators.
Currently, my good friend Frank (Borderreiver on the forums) and I, are attempting to create a series of DEM Maps that will essentially cover the entire Southern Region of British Railways in the 1950s. The maps are intended to be mergeable with one another so that a seamless virtual replica of the Southern Network in the twilight of steam and the dawn of electric and diesel. Given the current state of Trainz's Route Capacity, merging them into one massive route is just shy of impossible, but with a few more iterations of the game I can definitely see this massive ambition becoming a reality. My current goal is to create three separate routes that cover the entire networks of the original Railways that governed them - the LBSCR, LSWR, and SECR - and complete them so that in the future they can be combined together into one massive route once Trainz has the capacity to support such a massive creation. This way users will have miles of track to run the Southern Region Locomotives and rolling stock that so many great modelers have created for us to use.
The current DEM we are working on is the Central Portion of the Route or as a lot more people recognize it, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR). At present more than 75% of the LBSCR's former network has been mapped. All that remains is the lines to Eastbourne and Hastings, the remains of the Bluebell and Oxted Line, the remainder of the Steyning Line to Horsham and Dorking, and the portion of the West Coastway Line that ends at Fratton/Portsmouth - the terminal at the western edge of the LBSCR's Borders.
However, we have run into a significant problem as we have attempted to continue eastward. Frank explained it to me like this:
''Heading east remains something to be overcome, as to get the map panels to join up means altering the co-ordinates to the UTM zone of the London to Brighton panels. What this bakes in is a geophysical anomaly, which will grow as the line progresses east. This will then make it impossible to successfully join routes to the east in DEM built to the correct UTM zone co-ordinates. You will not really see this issue in a UK line aligned north and south but you will encounter it in a line aligned east and west. How far the line can go west before we encounter the same issue I do not know."
My question for the all of you veteran DEM creators is as follows - is there any way to resolve this error we are encountering the further we map eastward? I know many US and AUS Routes that have been DEM'd that far exceed the distances and lengths that we are attempting, and they seem to be able to map their territories with little to no effort. (At least from where I am standing..
) I desperately would like to know if this is a common issue or if there is a workaround. As it stands, if we cannot overcome this problem, it will leave Kent and the entire SECR Network inaccessible to the project.
I'm asking anyone from any community for help on this. USA, German, Australian, Russian, Japanese etc.. It doesn't matter what your preferred community is. I am desperately requesting assistance from anybody who could help me and Frank figure this out.
Best Regards,
Alex Geisen (Tanker46)
I'm reaching out of my usual fields and posting in unfamiliar territory again because I have found myself in a bit of a predicament regarding my DEM of the Southern Railway and I could very much use some advice from more experienced DEM Creators.
Currently, my good friend Frank (Borderreiver on the forums) and I, are attempting to create a series of DEM Maps that will essentially cover the entire Southern Region of British Railways in the 1950s. The maps are intended to be mergeable with one another so that a seamless virtual replica of the Southern Network in the twilight of steam and the dawn of electric and diesel. Given the current state of Trainz's Route Capacity, merging them into one massive route is just shy of impossible, but with a few more iterations of the game I can definitely see this massive ambition becoming a reality. My current goal is to create three separate routes that cover the entire networks of the original Railways that governed them - the LBSCR, LSWR, and SECR - and complete them so that in the future they can be combined together into one massive route once Trainz has the capacity to support such a massive creation. This way users will have miles of track to run the Southern Region Locomotives and rolling stock that so many great modelers have created for us to use.
The current DEM we are working on is the Central Portion of the Route or as a lot more people recognize it, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR). At present more than 75% of the LBSCR's former network has been mapped. All that remains is the lines to Eastbourne and Hastings, the remains of the Bluebell and Oxted Line, the remainder of the Steyning Line to Horsham and Dorking, and the portion of the West Coastway Line that ends at Fratton/Portsmouth - the terminal at the western edge of the LBSCR's Borders.
However, we have run into a significant problem as we have attempted to continue eastward. Frank explained it to me like this:
''Heading east remains something to be overcome, as to get the map panels to join up means altering the co-ordinates to the UTM zone of the London to Brighton panels. What this bakes in is a geophysical anomaly, which will grow as the line progresses east. This will then make it impossible to successfully join routes to the east in DEM built to the correct UTM zone co-ordinates. You will not really see this issue in a UK line aligned north and south but you will encounter it in a line aligned east and west. How far the line can go west before we encounter the same issue I do not know."
My question for the all of you veteran DEM creators is as follows - is there any way to resolve this error we are encountering the further we map eastward? I know many US and AUS Routes that have been DEM'd that far exceed the distances and lengths that we are attempting, and they seem to be able to map their territories with little to no effort. (At least from where I am standing..
) I desperately would like to know if this is a common issue or if there is a workaround. As it stands, if we cannot overcome this problem, it will leave Kent and the entire SECR Network inaccessible to the project.I'm asking anyone from any community for help on this. USA, German, Australian, Russian, Japanese etc.. It doesn't matter what your preferred community is. I am desperately requesting assistance from anybody who could help me and Frank figure this out.
Best Regards,
Alex Geisen (Tanker46)