I want to create a route (Old Penn Haven, PA to Towanda, PA) of the Reading and Northern RR (to merge with the recently released R&N RR route) and I was wondering how to get the multi-colored TIGER lines for the roads, rails, and rivers like Fishlipsatwork used for his blank DEM routes. The site that has DEM in neatly downloadable squares, National Map Viewer, also has "tiger" data but it's all one color on the Trainz route. How do I get different colored lines so it's not so confusing what is what? Thanks.
Tiger data like fishlipsatwork?
- Thread starter rwk
- Start date
I think you might have the wrong texture set loaded.
I'm not at my Trainz computer so allow a little latitude! - Look in you HOG installation for a file called texture.txt (or similar). There are two other .txt files called something like HOG_Default 64.txt and HOG_Tiger.txt. The texture.txt file SHOULD be a copy of the tiger file, I think you will find yours is a copy of the default_64 file. Change the texture.txt and re-do the HOG part of the route creation process...
I'm not at my Trainz computer so allow a little latitude! - Look in you HOG installation for a file called texture.txt (or similar). There are two other .txt files called something like HOG_Default 64.txt and HOG_Tiger.txt. The texture.txt file SHOULD be a copy of the tiger file, I think you will find yours is a copy of the default_64 file. Change the texture.txt and re-do the HOG part of the route creation process...
I'm using TranzDEM to load and convert the DEM, btw. Is there a way to get the multi colored lines when using TranzDEM? There is route data available on National Map, but it comes out all the same color for rails, roads, and water. Also, with road data applied, it causes Trainz to use the entire squares of data which is too big, how do I trim it down without spending hours deleting excess baseboards manually in Trainz?
Please remember that the MicroDEM/HOG/TIGER approach is almost 10 years old. In TransDEM I never added support for TIGER for a very simple reason: lack of accuracy. The TIGER specs say, scale is only 1:160,000. That's just not good enough for the 1/3 arc sec DEMs of today. The manual data transfer steps with HOG added additional error but it wasn't necessarily the user's fault if rivers were flowing uphill.
What TransDEM does offer in the field of vector data is the creation of Trainz splines, with better than 1 m accuracy control points, and you can select your own KUID for each vector data layer.
How to acquire suitable vector data? I haven't checked all the layers of the National Map viewer, but some are quite coarse and not a good idea for basing route construction upon them.
One possible way is Open Street Map as vectors. It needs an intermediate tool called JOSM. See here how to accomplish that: http://forum.transdem.de/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=158.
(Direct support for OSM vector data is on my wish list for TransDEM for quite a while. I simply don't find the time to implement it.)
What TransDEM does offer in the field of vector data is the creation of Trainz splines, with better than 1 m accuracy control points, and you can select your own KUID for each vector data layer.
How to acquire suitable vector data? I haven't checked all the layers of the National Map viewer, but some are quite coarse and not a good idea for basing route construction upon them.
One possible way is Open Street Map as vectors. It needs an intermediate tool called JOSM. See here how to accomplish that: http://forum.transdem.de/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=158.
(Direct support for OSM vector data is on my wish list for TransDEM for quite a while. I simply don't find the time to implement it.)
I think what I'll do is just use the road/rail data from National Map even though it's all light blue in Trainz. At least I'll know where to lay roads, rails, etc. I don't know of a new source for topo maps since I heard that Microsoft's site no longer works, plus I never upgraded TransDEM since Trainz 2004. I'm using 10 and 12 now. I just generate the maps then import them to 10 or 12. How did the TIGER lines get different colors, anyway? Was there a different method then vs. National Map's route lines? Did anyone try the route lines with National Map? They look pretty accurate to me, down to showing highway interchanges accurately and every residential street. Only problem is if you use the road data, it will fill the entire square or route of DEM, thus making the route huge. Then, baseboards will have to be trimmed manually in Trainz which could take a while.
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Tiger lines don't 'get' different colours, they are different colours. I'm not sure what data you are using, I don't know what you are refering to as "National map's route lines". Tiger data is usually county-wide and was pretty freely available last time I looked. I think the problems you are having is that you are trying to create a route with the LOOK of a HOG map (flishlips' method) using a different tool.
Hog filters trainz route size by the light blue (teal) Tiger rail line. TransDEM filters by different means, but in principle the route size is restricted to a specified width from the tracks. If you are using images on which you have not (or cannot) specify the rail lines then i guess you are stuck with a 'full rectangle', though you could crop the images.
I haven't used TransDEM for ages and I have an old version, but it could use any map or other image data (I used scans of paper maps) provided the resultant images could be accurately referenced with lat/long co-ordinates.....
Hog filters trainz route size by the light blue (teal) Tiger rail line. TransDEM filters by different means, but in principle the route size is restricted to a specified width from the tracks. If you are using images on which you have not (or cannot) specify the rail lines then i guess you are stuck with a 'full rectangle', though you could crop the images.
I haven't used TransDEM for ages and I have an old version, but it could use any map or other image data (I used scans of paper maps) provided the resultant images could be accurately referenced with lat/long co-ordinates.....
If this is not about vector data but about standard route creation in TransDEM why not follow standard procedures? The simplest way of getting map data is a Map Tile service, and nowadays Open Street Map usually offers the most for railways.
The USGS 1:24,000 topo map is a well known alternative. It is available via WMS or as raster image files. It's true, MS Terra Server / Research Maps WMS is gone, but the USGS National Map Viewer offers free access to its WMS. See this TransDEM forum thread for some of the options: http://forum.transdem.de/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20.
Sorry to bring things off topic a bit but I would like to know how to download DEM's from the new national map viewer. It seems that it replaced the old USGS seamless server. I knew how to navigate around with the old website but this new national map viewer is not that user friendly. There are so many tools and I really don't know how to use it to filter down my search. I would like to get DEM's for different counties in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
I know what you mean. The old one allowed for easier selecting where as the newer one is more of a group/global selection of areas. Check some of the downloading options that come up with the selection. I think there's a way to choose specific county and region information based within the selection.
John
You can download DEM's in squares. Choose download data then choose index 24k. There's also transportation and hydrography data for lines similar to tiger lines but all are the same light blue color. They look more accurate than tiger. You could use maps, too through wms.
See here for downloading DEMs with the National Map Viewer:
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?81882-TransDEM-2-2-now-available&p=1024401#post1024401
In my opinion it is just as counterintuitive as with the predecessor when you try it the first time. Also, during times of heavy load, your download "orders" may not be accepted.