Scale 1/2: More landscape with less memory

[colorado71]

Sometimes the memory of our computer does not permit us to create a too big route. The 1/2 scale can be a solution to resolve this problem. To make this, the map pixel size must be set to 20 m, and sure, the altitude must be reduced to half.
Here is a Rio Grande Southern's Ohir Loop layout in progress, made with Microdem.

 

[colorado71]

Ophir Loop 1

 

[Tokkyu40]

Very nice.

I did a similar treatment of a coal merry-go-round. Since it was a long route with little or no intermediate action, I reduced it to 30m pixels and reduced the height gain by 50%. The grades are steep enough now that you know you're climbing, but not too outrageous.

Claude

 

[Dermmy]

Hi Colorado - not a bad idea to put a quart in a pint pot, but absolutely no saving in memery! If your draw distance is 1500 meters, then that's it! The program is still drawing and loading in effect 2 baseboards all around the camera. Doesn't matter how big the route is, it is draw distance that is imposing most of the load...

Andy

 

[colorado71]

Yes, but in that 1500 m you'll have twice more landscape than otherwise. And also the size of the layout will be smaller and, I think, easily to manipulate. In a single trainz board will be all the landscape that otherwise would be in four boards.

 

[StorkNest]

I can see pros and cons to this.
Pros - It does take less time to load a smaller map and it is easier to work with one. You can run shorter trains so less memory use there too. It is like doing a model railroad where you compress space.
Cons - Other items cannot be shrunk to scale. Buildings, trees, etc will still be the same size as on a Real Scale route. Depending on the route, you might wind up with areas where more items are in view taking up more memory.
In the end I think it is something that has to be planned out ahead of time. You don't want to take an area with mid to large size towns/cities and compress them together but shrinking large stretches of wilderness would work.
Interesting to see a new method for route building.

 

[colorado71]

In most of the cases we don’t want or we cannot make an exact replica of a real location, filling our layout with all items we find in that place. Most important is to put there the railroad related items, plus rather a few of the others. And also, I think it is more important to have – especially in the cases of mountainous or hilly regions – all the landscape (with its landforms) which in that real place we can see from the railroad.
In most of the cases this is hard to attain at 1/1 scale, but it can work with ½ scale.
This is the case, for example, with some marvellous routes from Colorado Rockies, like Marshall Pass, Alpine Tunnel Route, Hagerman Pass, Cumbres Pass, Rio Grande Southern, Trout Creek Pass, Boreas Pass, Rollins Pass (in this particular case we must also renounce to some of the tunnels), Kenosha Pass, Gunnison-Montrose, La Veta Pass, Lake City Route, some portions of the Chili Line to New Mexico, and so on.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

It's not a new method, but one worth keeping in mind.

In my case, the only way I could fit the whole island of Kauai into a layout that didn't exceed the DLS upload limit was to do the DEM at one-third scale. Shrinking area to one-ninth real size meant that the radius for loops and curves had to be tighter than you would like in some places.

 

[colorado71]

I've also been trying a time ago the one-third scale for Cumbres Pass route, but the curves (especially that from Lobato Meadow) became too tight, and trestles were too low.