Working with scale maps and gradients

[ColGibbon]

4 questions really.

I have a scale OS 6" map of the line we want to build, is there any way to overlay the map over the grid?

Second. The line has gradients of 1 in 60. and climes for best part of 5 miles, before descending at 1 in 80 for 7 miles. Is it possible to add these gradients?

The line is single track with 5 stations with loops and yards, and very deep cuttings and high embankments. Is this a problem to model?

Lastly, there are several of us who want to build sections. Can these be joined together?

Many thanks for any replies and help.

 

[JCitron]

All of this is possible using a third-party tool called TransDEM, which will import your OS maps and place them accurately on underlying DEM data you can obtain from your data sources. This will give you the grades in place which you can then smooth later on in Surveyor.

For sharing your route for others to work on, you only need to save the route to a CDP plus dependencies and upload the route to a data-sharing site such as Microsoft OneDrive, DropBox, or Google Share (Google Drive?).

I've been doing this with another Trainz user off and on with a prototypical route and it works quite well.

Routes in general can be merged together. By using TransDEM, you can then ensure that the image placement is accurate so that the map image and terrain are aligned between sections. Keep in mind that this only works if no one has done major trimming.

This does work quite well too as I joined a section of the above mentioned route with a nearby branch and everything lined up. This was with, by the way, using maps from 30 years apart - 1943-44 and 1970s timeframe because the terrain was that obtained from our National Map server database.

Hope this helps, but I do want to mention that TransDEM has a bit of a learning curve, however, there is a good user manual with tutorials and the forums to assist.

John

 

[RPearson]

I don't even have to read what John posted - but I did. Buy TransDem if you are interested in developing large routes based on or duplicating real railroads. I'd say everything you asked about can be done in Trainz. Degree of difficulty is a subjective value usually based on the skill of the content creators. But let's say it can all get done with some or a lot of difficulty.

Once you or someone in the team learns to use TransDem, and as John mentions it has a step learning curve for those not familiar with it, it's the best way to make routes with terrain that matches the real world as closely as we can get in Trainz. It facilitates placing route, map and/or satellite imagry on the terrain or maptiles to use as guides to build the route. It makes it possible to seamlessly merge sections of a route that are not initially created as a single asset for Trainz. If you have vector data defining the graded track centerline, TransDem can even duplicate that data as track splines in Trainz.

Bob Pearson

 

[ColGibbon]

I never thought this was going to be easy, but it's sounding a project that is going to be a nightmare! We are all retired Mid Hants Railway volunteers, and we wanted to build the whole line from Winchester to Alton, about 20 miles. We have all seen the JT Mid Hants, and it's nothing like the real line, that we worked on in the 70/80's rebuilding. We are aiming at a 40-50-60's senario.

Now, you say everything is possible in Trainz. We are working with 2010 versions of the Sim. How much of the map needs trimming off? Some parts of the line allow you to see for miles, but the cuttings are deep and nearly sheer. Alton to Butts Junction climes a little, but from Butts it's a straight 1-60 up to just short of Medstead, and then drops at 1-80 to Ropley.

Advice on how to do this in Trainz would be gratefully appreciated.

 

[narrowgauge]

Using Transdem is good advice, when we created the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway which has about 50 miles of continuous climb, Bill (Hiballer) made the full route using Transdem or similar and then marked the line for the track. Finally he carefully broke the route up into sections which allowed several people to work on it at the same time in different locations and timezones. When all the sections were complete and tested, they were rejoined easily and accurately with just the addition of the short section of track at the joins. The only problem we struck after joining was some random distortion of adjacent grid squares at the joins.

I recommend that you do the same if you want to work as a team. Have a look at the DHR on the DLS, you'll see what teamwork produced.

Peter

 

[Vern]

These days even where the gradient profile is available, I'm not a slave to it. I tend to work more by what's laid out in front of me so it fits the DEM and mapping (as per Transdem, another shameless plug for this invaluable programme) which doesn't always match what the Victorian era engineers marked down on their ground level survey gradient charts.

So far as distant scenery is concerned, it really depends on which version of Trainz you're working with. You mention TS2010 in which the official maximum draw distance is 5km but the software imposes a fairly rigid limiter depending on the amount of detail in the scene. However there's a fairly easy workaround to push the draw distance out much further. Pre TANE I normally extracted my routes in Transdem to around 6 "boards" either side of the track line which equates to about 4km. In the hills though you need to think about going slightly further to avoid users seeing the abrupt edge of the world. Anything beyond 2km from the track I generally just paint with a neutral grass texture unless there is a particularly visible feature or maybe forested hills (not going to be an issue on the MHR). At this point in Trainz life cycle, you really need to be thinking about doing the route in TANE. TS2010 is long unsupported by N3V and while at the time it was probably the pinnacle of "old" Trainz development, even if TANE doesn't look that much different, features like superelevation and procedural track plus elimination of a couple of rather nasty bugs (spline detaching at objects and terrain now smooth's up against the bottom of splines not 0.2m below) make it the best choice for starting a new project.

 

[geophil]

I have a scale OS 6" map of the line we want to build, is there any way to overlay the map over the grid?

That's the O/S 6 inch map in Trainz (click to enlarge):



The National Library of Scotland is doing a great job digitizing this historic map. They also have an ongoing project to digitize the historic 25 inch map, which is even larger (ca 1:2,500).

I never thought this was going to be easy, but it's sounding a project that is going to be a nightmare!

Not really.

TransDEM, the software the kind people here are referring to, automates many of the steps necessary to combine cartography and Trainz. But before such automation can be unleashed, it needs some basic understanding to control it. And that's the learning curve they are mentioning.

The map is one aspect. The other aspect is shaping your terrain. Data sources for this are also available in digital form. The Americans call it the DEM, the Digital Elevation Model. The British term is DTM, Digital Terrain Model. For the UK, we have 50 m data for all of Britain. That's a point every 50 metres, quite good but not detailed enough to shape cuttings and embankments. However, two years years ago they also started to make hi-res LIDAR DEM/DTM available. LIDAR is a new technology and gathering the data is quite expensive. Offering it to the general public for free is quite a thing. Resolution is 2m or better (Trainz can only resolve 5m). Stunning results, see that screenshot above. Cuttings, embankments, bridge gaps, not a problem. Unfortunately, coverage is still limited. And it's present day data, of course.

Working in a team: TransDEM for Trainz was designed with modularization in mind. I call it "Seamless Merging". It makes use of the merging feature in Trainz Surveyor, but adds an essential feature: TransDEM-made baseboards are always based on the same underlying map coordinate grid, with a strict and static mapping between baseboard edges and map grid coordinates. You simply have to agree on common module borders when building in sections. (The grid in TransDEM is UTM, not the Ordnance Survey grid, but TransDEM knows them both and will handle all conversions.)

 

[ColGibbon]

Hi Guys.

Thanks for the replies, but I'm suffering from brain meltdown!

I don't think I can spare £20+ to buy a copy of TransDEM, and I think that will go for the rest of our group. We are all in our 60's, and I've only modded a bit of Trainz, with 2006. For the past 10 years, I've been building aircraft models for a flight Sim, and although we had terrain, we converted a coloured satellite map to BMP, and used the colour index as the hight map data.

This is a whole new ball game, and I'm struggling to grasp the logic.

OK, if I think of this as a model railway, built on baseboards, what is the area of a board in real life? In the flight Sim one tile was 1x1km.

The squares on the boards are what size in real life?

I got the Mid Hants map from the National Library of Scotland so great minds think a like.

 

[narrowgauge]

Each board is 720 x 720 metres and each grid square is 10 metres. Treat that as 'real life'. You can work in Metric or Imperial. The Scale is 1:1. An item 20 x 20 feet in real life is made 20 x 20 feet in Blender, 3dsmax or Gmax

About Transdem, talk nicely to someone with the program and you may get a volunteer. Perhaps if you split the map sections into baseboard sized sections you may get several willing volunteers to do each section separately.

PM me.

Peter

 

[ColGibbon]

Hi Peter.

Got my new version of Trainz 12 today and installed and working. The surveyor works dine and tonight I#m going to lay a simple loop and points, and see how it works. Gotta crawl before I walk.

Regards,

John

 

[ColGibbon]

Surveyor Camera. Can you set it to overhead zoom view?

I zoom out and it goes overhead, but as soon as I zoom in, it goes side view. Readme's don't help, and I've tried editing options.

 

[Vern]

Not sure what you're after with this. As you zoom out with Surveyor the view will move into top down, but at ground level or near ground level you can manipulate the mouse to view the terrain at pretty much any angle you like. Trial and error plays a great part of learning to use this software...

 

[ColGibbon]

Hello Vern.

Can you fix the camera to top down view? I'd call it plan view. I'm finding it very difficult to copy a track plan. I'm using the measure facility on the Scottish University OS map to try and copy the lengths of tracks to points, but the 45 degree view is a pain.

 

[Vern]

I don't believe you can fix the camera view, just need to adjust the angle using mouse and keyboard arrow keys.

As suggested, for this sort of exercise you really need Transdem which will put the mapping on the route tiles for you.

 

[geophil]

I'm finding it very difficult to copy a track plan.

Trainz Surveyor offers basic "ruler" objects to measure distances.

How do you plan to shape your terrain? Trace contour lines? Then raise the terrain with Surveyor tools?

Do a calculation how long this is going to take for your 20 mi route. And if you end up with a realistic time estimate that this will take months, then perhaps you rethink about automation. And you may find out eventually, that the wheel you were looking for has already been invented.

 

[Vern]

I speak from experience to support Roland in this.

The first route I ever built was Glasgow to Falkirk, which ended up as a default route in one of the early versions. All sketched out by eye from paper Ordnance Survey maps and the Quail Maps/IA gradient book. Terrain created to a rough approximation by laying roads where my eye thought the contours were then linking the adjacent ridges with more road splines to fashion the hills. It was daunting and time consuming.

For my next couple of routes I switched to a programme called HOG. This involved taking OS images from Streetmap and colouring the contours in between lines in various shades of greyscale, which (kind of) then generated the terrain but still no map overlay.

Then along came better DEM data and Transdem which overnight transformed the process of setting up a prototype route in Trainz from a chore that could take days or even weeks, to around twenty minutes. It's so easy I've got about six or seven WIP routes from various parts of the world sitting on my laptop, all vying for time to be spent working on them. (And that's not counting the numerous projects which bit the dust). Route building can at times be an extremely boring and tedious process, often having little to do with the railway when you are marking out and painting field patterns and trying to arrange groups of trees or buildings so they look natural and not copied. The least you can do is make getting to the stage where you can start all that as painless as possible.

We all appreciate money can be tight, but as often stated on here - compared to the cost of buying a PC to run Trainz on, the software itself and maintaining a decent Internet connection, Transdem is a relatively inexpensive one off purchase which will enhance your practical use of the Surveyor route editor.

 

[ColGibbon]

Hi Guys.

I've built loads of buildings for the flight Sim I was working with, and if someone has a copy of 3ds Max 8 or better, they can all be converted. There all built at 1/48, but resizing should not be a problem. All the single textures are 512x512 24 Bit BMP. The other option is to convert to OBJ if that's easier.

Have a look.

http://www.sandbagger.uk.com/WOBT/WOBTbuildings.html

I'll try your suggestion but the 6" map I've found has no Long/Lat lines on it, so how do I know what scale is right? A readme says 1024 x 1024 is the tile size? Shall I measure a 720x720 box at HR and reduce it? I just need some examples to look at to get me going.

Regards.

John

 

[geophil]

I'll try your suggestion but the 6" map I've found has no Long/Lat lines on it, so how do I know what scale is right? A readme says 1024 x 1024 is the tile size?

The map, when viewed with the Nat Lib of Scotland website portal, will show four lines of coordinates in the lower right corner. The first two are O/S grid coordinates in grid square and absolute notation, the others are geographic coordinates, in decimal and DMS notation:

SJ752827
375269, 382753
53.3411, -2.3729
53° 20′ 28″ N 2° 22′ 22″ W

O/S grid coordinates are in metres (as almost every coordinate system in use for topographic maps all over world).

The geographic datum for the geographic coordinates is WGS84, not OSGB36 as you expect for an O/S map. This has to do with the re-projection of the map for the Map Tile standard. This new projection is standard Mercator, like a naval chart (other than the O/S grid, which is transverse Mercator). Geodetic datum for the projection is WGS84, simplified to a sphere with the semi-major axis as the radius. Mercator, by mathematical definition, is conformal but neither equidistant nor equal area. In this case it means, scale varies with latitude.

Tile size is actually 256 pixels, at every zoom level, in accordance with the Map Tile standard. But that's irrelevant when viewed via the portal.

 

[ColGibbon]

Hi guys.

This is driving me nuts. On my screen I Can't see those coordinates on my screen, and I think it's related to my screen resolution of 1024x768 on a 14" screen.

I guess you guys have bigger screens allowing larger screen captures. But, I'm completely in the dark. I think I will give this idea up. I've been making 3D models for over ten years, but I've always found it hard going to understand something in written instructions, unless I know what is going on. With Trains, I'm completely lost. Give me real track, and I'll lay it where you like, or in any scale you like, just not Trains, which is making me feel frustrated and unhappy.

 

[Vern]

Perhaps Roland has rushed ahead a bit here for you. Working in Surveyor you won't see any co-ordinates, even if you do extract the route via Transdem. If all you have set up is a few blank baseboards, then you will have a compass showing notional headings but otherwise there is no relation to any real world data. This is where, as I noted above, if you're trying to build a route with no external setup it is very hard. Out of the three big train sims, Surveyor is by far the easiest route editor to use but, unless you're just content with building abstract small layouts the Transdem step is essential for your sanity. However starting with a small one or two board "layout" is not a bad idea to learn the tools before moving on to more ambitious projects.

If you search You Tube, I'm sure you can find some clips that demonstrate the basics of using Surveyor. Actually this thread ties in with another recent discussion lamenting the lack of decent documentation with N3V's latest Model Railroad edition, to guide newcomers how to get started. Perhaps the company should take note that they need to be addressing this aspect and providing some sort of tutorial that new users can run through.