Size of area to be copied and paste?

[belgian46]

Hello Everybody,

I would like to use the copy and paste tool within my route.

Up to now, I have only been able to select a small area of a baseboard, copy the elements and paste them somewhere else.

What is the largest size of area that can be copied? ( how many baseboards ? ) What method must be used to select a large area and copy it

Are there any objects which can't be copied and pasted.

Any experience with it? If yes, would you mind sharing some ideas?

Thank you

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[ray_whiley]

Hello Kurt

I haven't tried copying and pasting any really large areas but the maximum size must depend on however long you can hold down your left mouse button to select an area to copy!

Sorry not to be more helpful.

Ray

 

[davidbird]

I've done this. A single square baseboard works very well, but when I tried a 4-board square it didn't work. To make it easier I made a 720x720 square object, so I could select a full baseboard square readily and accurately. PM me if you're interested in this and I'll email the cdp - and a fuller explanation of how I used it!

 

[NJCurmudgeon]

I've copied and pasted some pretty large areas (several boards), but it took a while to complete. It depends on the processing power of your computer, it seems. And also what you're copying. I would imagine the more complex the area, the greater the processing power needed to complete and the more for it to choke on.

 

[Scottish]

What normally determines the area you can select for copying and pasting is the amount of ground that is visible on your screen when you start the selection box. This is because the selection box will not extend beyond the visible screen. Looking down on plan gives a relatively small area which can be selected, especially in TS12 because as you scroll back the screen goes into map or satellite view where the selection tool does not work. If you position the view so that you are looking diagonally along the ground, you get more of the ground visible towards the horizon and therefore more can be selected.

There is a method which enables the view to scroll over a bigger area whilst holding down the selecting left mouse button, but you need both hands (using two fingers on each hand) to do it. Use the Ctrl and Shift keys positioned beside the four arrow keys on your keyboard.

Press and hold down Ctrl and Shift together. Now press the left mouse button to start the selection box to copy (still holding down Ctrl and Shift). With both keys and left mouse button still held down, you can now use the four arrow keys to scroll the screen view to show more of the ground and the selection box will continue into this additional area of ground which is now visible. When you release the left mouse button or the Ctrl or Shift key the selection box is now fixed at that size. You can now press the Paste button on the Tools tab to move the selection around your map and click the left mouse button to actually paste what you have selected.

If the area you have selected is very large or has a lot of assets in it, you may not have enough computer memory available to do the operation. If this happens you will need to do it again but reduce the area you have selected.

It is complicated to describe but with a bit of practice it becomes easy.

Scottish

 

[davidbird]

Its worth noting that, even if you can copy a large area, especially if it's bigger than that which can be seen on the screen, when you go to paste it the centre of the selection will be pasted at the cursor position. If you're trying to copy-and-paste several adjacent areas, getting them to align will be next to impossible...

I've found that pasting objects and splines was no problem, if I tried objects, splines and textures the time taken to paste was considerably longer, suggesting a greater processor load. You may be able to copy larger areas, if you're not pasting textures.

 

[justinroth]

adding surveyorfov=number to trainzoptions will help to achieve a wider viewing angle also.

 

[belgian46]

Hello Kurt

I haven't tried copying and pasting any really large areas but the maximum size must depend on however long you can hold down your left mouse button to select an area to copy!

Sorry not to be more helpful.

Ray

Hello Ray,

Thank you for your reply - using mouse and keyboard buttons can sometimes be a tricky action.

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[belgian46]

I've done this. A single square baseboard works very well, but when I tried a 4-board square it didn't work. To make it easier I made a 720x720 square object, so I could select a full baseboard square readily and accurately. PM me if you're interested in this and I'll email the cdp - and a fuller explanation of how I used it!

Hello davidbird,

Thank you for your answer - Yes I'm interested and I will send you a PM.

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[belgian46]

I've copied and pasted some pretty large areas (several boards), but it took a while to complete. It depends on the processing power of your computer, it seems. And also what you're copying. I would imagine the more complex the area, the greater the processing power needed to complete and the more for it to choke on.

Hello NJCurmudgeon,

Thank you for your reply . Would you mind giving us some information about the method you used?

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[belgian46]

What normally determines the area you can select for copying and pasting is the amount of ground that is visible on your screen when you start the selection box. This is because the selection box will not extend beyond the visible screen. Looking down on plan gives a relatively small area which can be selected, especially in TS12 because as you scroll back the screen goes into map or satellite view where the selection tool does not work. If you position the view so that you are looking diagonally along the ground, you get more of the ground visible towards the horizon and therefore more can be selected.

There is a method which enables the view to scroll over a bigger area whilst holding down the selecting left mouse button, but you need both hands (using two fingers on each hand) to do it. Use the Ctrl and Shift keys positioned beside the four arrow keys on your keyboard.

Press and hold down Ctrl and Shift together. Now press the left mouse button to start the selection box to copy (still holding down Ctrl and Shift). With both keys and left mouse button still held down, you can now use the four arrow keys to scroll the screen view to show more of the ground and the selection box will continue into this additional area of ground which is now visible. When you release the left mouse button or the Ctrl or Shift key the selection box is now fixed at that size. You can now press the Paste button on the Tools tab to move the selection around your map and click the left mouse button to actually paste what you have selected.

If the area you have selected is very large or has a lot of assets in it, you may not have enough computer memory available to do the operation. If this happens you will need to do it again but reduce the area you have selected.

It is complicated to describe but with a bit of practice it becomes easy.

Scottish

Hello Scottish,

Thank you for your answer . I will try your method in Trs2010 and TS12 and see where it gets me.

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[belgian46]

Its worth noting that, even if you can copy a large area, especially if it's bigger than that which can be seen on the screen, when you go to paste it the centre of the selection will be pasted at the cursor position. If you're trying to copy-and-paste several adjacent areas, getting them to align will be next to impossible...

I've found that pasting objects and splines was no problem, if I tried objects, splines and textures the time taken to paste was considerably longer, suggesting a greater processor load. You may be able to copy larger areas, if you're not pasting textures.

Hello davidbird,

Thank you for the extra information.

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[belgian46]

adding surveyorfov=number to trainzoptions will help to achieve a wider viewing angle also.

Hello justinroth,

Thank you for your answer . I will give it a try.

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[cascaderailroad]

adding surveyorfov=number to trainzoptions will help to achieve a wider viewing angle also.

The line should read as a maximum: -surveyorfov=185 ... or as a minimum: -surveyorfov=35 ... or any numeral in between.

 

[belgian46]

The line should read as a maximum: -surveyorfov=185 ... or as a minimum: -surveyorfov=35 ... or any numeral in between.

Hello cascaderailroad,

Thank you for the extra information

Best regards

Kurt :wave:

 

[justinroth]

The line should read as a maximum: -surveyorfov=185 ... or as a minimum: -surveyorfov=35 ... or any numeral in between.

I should have elaborated a bit more on that

 

[NJCurmudgeon]

Looks like I'm late to the party...basically I do what has already been described. I also changed the FOV so I can pull back farther before it goes into map mode. I use it for large areas mostly to dupe large landscape areas - mountains, water, etc. The trick is to turn the orientation (you can only do 45 degree turns) so it isn't obvious it's a duplication.

 

[stagecoach]

I have copied and rotated a complete route because it was the wrong way around. I divided the route up into baseboard size sections. Where the baseboards met I placed a tall tower over the four squares at the joining point. I copied the entire route baseboard by baseboard and rotated it 90 degrees and placed onto new baseboards placed near by. I used a one grid square overlap when copying to avoid a crater where the boards joined together. If the paste was correct the towers would all be in the correct position, but if i pasted incorrect it would be easly identified by the towers. Just deleted the towers when finished.

 

[schweitzerdude]

One other useful copy/paste feature:

Let's say you added a baseboard and some/all of it needs to be ocean. You can copy from an existing ocean area and then paste not only the seabed texture and elevation, but it will include water at the correct level. Of course you will need to fine tune along the shoreline manually.

 

[belgian46]

I have copied and rotated a complete route because it was the wrong way around. I divided the route up into baseboard size sections. Where the baseboards met I placed a tall tower over the four squares at the joining point. I copied the entire route baseboard by baseboard and rotated it 90 degrees and placed onto new baseboards placed near by. I used a one grid square overlap when copying to avoid a crater where the boards joined together. If the paste was correct the towers would all be in the correct position, but if i pasted incorrect it would be easly identified by the towers. Just deleted the towers when finished.

Hello stagecoach,

Thank you for your answer. This is very interesting. My tram/train route, which I started in Trainz 2010, has been imported into TS12. I have a lot of errors and I only hope I will be able to fix those errors. Why? After installing TS12 SP 1, I noticed that I can now create the complete Belgian railwaynet with the use of transdem. This could not be done before, because of the Taddeamon error I received, whenever I imported large content ( file size larger than 550MB ) into Trainz.

If I can fix the errors, then my intention is to be able to get existing parts of my tram/train route into a new created Belgian route ( complete railwaynet ). My tram section follows the Belgian coast and has approx. 90 baseboards going from east to west ( or vice versa ).

Best regards

Kurt :wave: