Basemaps – larger than 1km square?

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I was thinking of 2km square. Unwieldy perhaps, but potentially useful for general landscaping.

I’ve successfully upped the image on the 1km basemaps from the recommended 1024x1024, to 2048x2048, achieving much better clarity for track laying over GE images. It occurred to me that applying that image size to a 2km square basemap would be perfectly adequate for tracing general landscapes, (roads, hedgerows and the like), and be no worse than a 1km basemap at 1024 resolution.

The advantage would be that, for some of the less precise work, you could build and place into Trainz basemapped landscape area four times faster than building separate 1km versions.

Are there any available?

I found reference to a 1km x 2km version, kuid:101839:654006, in a Croatian site which came up in a Google search, but the translation wasn't good, and it’s not on the DLS. For beyond line-side distant landscaping, that could be a very useable size, as would a 1km x 3km, although any size which isn't square might need to be made in N/S and W/E orientation to be fully useful.

I thought that 1km x 1km basemaps were difficult enough to move around, for fine placement, as you needed 4 baseboards it slide the huge things around on, and you needed to, in the trainzoptions file, make the -surveyorfov=185 (or larger than =100), in order to see what you are doing with basemap placement.

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I don't find it a problem moving large basemaps. Just pull them around with LMB kept pressed down as you navigate with mouse movement to steer, clicking RMB on/off to start and stop the movement. (To do this effectively, in Surveyor Options set compass movement to Mouse & camera behaviour to Panning).


As you say, you do need enough connected 720m baseboards to allow the basemap full movement, but that's not at all difficult to do.

Hi Casper.

Do you not find that you cannot see the map image texture on the basemap unless you move your sight angle quite low down? I find that even with the 1km ones, if I pan the view up towards a plan view the map texture disappears and that you have to move the viewpoint quite low down for the image to come back. I have tried wireframe and raising the basemap up a bit but this does not help. Anyway if you want to lay track or roads on top of the image it has to be not higher than ground level. Would a 2km basemap not make it more difficult to use?

I could make a 2km one if I was convinced that it would be workable.

Scottish

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Hi Scottish.

Thanks for your response.

Scottish said:

~snip~ Do you not find that you cannot see the map image texture on the basemap unless you move your sight angle quite low down? ~

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No. I can see it at any angle.

I find that even with the 1km ones, if I pan the view up towards a plan view the map texture disappears and that you have to move the viewpoint quite low down for the image to come back.

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Following your comments I’ve just tried all sorts of angles and heights, but can't find any way of losing the image. It works for me!

I have tried wireframe and raising the basemap up a bit but this does not help. Anyway if you want to lay track or roads on top of the image it has to be not higher than ground level.

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Yes I always have to lower the basemap below the level of track/road/hedge splines (or occasionally temporarily raise the ground level through the basemap so that the splines lay on top until they are adjusted for correct spline height).

Would a 2km basemap not make it more difficult to use?

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I don’t believe so. I wouldn’t have thought that it would be any different to navigating over several 1km basemaps distributed across the landscape. I’m doing the Swanage Railway and currently have twenty-two 1km basemaps 2048x2048, all laid at the same time, and can happily navigate back and forth across all of them at any angle.

I’ve done all of the track basemaps from Wareham to Swanage and am now concentrating on the distant Purbeck landscapes where prototypicality (is that a word?) is not as critical.

I could make a 2km one if I was convinced that it would be workable.

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It would be immensely useful. It’s taking me around 30-40 minutes to stitch each 1km GE image together and apply it to a new basemap. I have quite a few more to do to extend it up the valley to the visible skyline in each direction.

If a 2km basemap is workable, then that would theoretically speed thing up very considerably.

Here are a few shots showing how the basemaps reproduce on my setup which might help in support of the above comments:


Vertical view showing over two adjoining basemaps in the Corfe Castle area, using the “fly” view.




Closer “normal” Surveyor, angled view, between East and West Hill, Corfe, in wireframe mode.




Same view as above with wireframe turned off and part of the basemap (not yet fully lowered) showing the road area where the spline slopes down through the basemap on its way to the village.





Cheers
Casper

I am surprised how they seem to be working for you in 2004, particularly the first image. The same view in 2010 and 2012 would not have the map image visible. Is your map a tga, bmp or jpeg?

I will make one up for you to try with a 2048x2048 image file and email it to you

Scottish

Yes, basemaps always showed fine in TRS2004. As soon as I moved on to TS12 I notice exactly what you are saying Scottish, the basemap is visible at the top left corner but as soon as you pan away from that position it disappears making it completely useless. As you say viewing it at an angle made it visible again but that's not ideal for accurate route building. The advantage TS12 holds over TRS2004 is you can stick the basemap in it's own layer and lock it so you don't inadvertantly move it out of position, something I always managed in TRS2004!

tmz06003 said:

Yes, basemaps always showed fine in TRS2004. As soon as I moved on to TS12 I notice exactly what you are saying Scottish, the basemap is visible at the top left corner but as soon as you pan away from that position it disappears making it completely useless. As you say viewing it at an angle made it visible again but that's not ideal for accurate route building. The advantage TS12 holds over TRS2004 is you can stick the basemap in it's own layer and lock it so you don't inadvertantly move it out of position, something I always managed in TRS2004!

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That's interesting, I wonder if anything can be done to make them visible in 2010 and TS12?

I will still make one for Casper, but will not distribute it unless they can be made more useful in later versions.

Scottish

Scottish said:

I am surprised how they seem to be working for you in 2004, particularly the first image. The same view in 2010 and 2012 would not have the map image visible. Is your map a tga, bmp or jpeg?

I will make one up for you to try with a 2048x2048 image file and email it to you

Scottish

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That's very kind of you Scottish, I will be more than happy to test it out.

The images in my 1km basemap folders are all .jpg files.

Cheers
Casper

Casper,

I have emailed to you the 2km Basemap asset. It might be usable in 2010 and TS12 despite the limits of viewing in these versions but with 2004 it is a good idea.

It is certainly easily adjusted and, by covering 4 times the area of the 1km ones, it will speed up the process of laying out basemaps.

Scottish

Success!

I’m pleased to report that the 2km Basemap is working perfectly, and even happier to record a note of thanks to Scottish for making this very helpful asset.

Here are some shots showing how it looks in Surveyor.

This first shot shows Scottish’s 2km asset to the right, which includes my .jpg image from GE of the Purbeck Hills. It is butted against three earlier 1km basemaps and, for some reason, has a slightly darker tone, possibly because it has fewer pixels for a given area than the 1km images. It is, as expected, not as clear as a 2048x2048 image on a 1km basemap, but more than adequate for less detailed landscape work. You can just make out the red surrounding 1 & 2km lines created in GE to define the boundaries of the adjoining squares.

This is in wireframe mode.





Here’s a closer view in normal view showing some of the terrain raised under road, invisible track and hedgerow splines from plotted GE heights. Still a lot to do over the new 2km basemap and then plenty of infilling.





Here the same image with Alternative Wireframe selected (toggle by pressing Alt-W when in normal wireframe mode). This works in TRS2004 but, I believe, has been removed in later versions which is a great pity. It’s an invaluable Surveyor tool for all sorts of creative reasons, but is almost essential for getting the best out of basemaps.





The 2km basemap is working really well and, IMHO, is a great success.

Thanks Scottish!:Y:


Cheers
Casper

Casper,

If you are happy, all's well.

As you said, the definition will not be as sharp when the same size of image (i.e. same number of pixels) is being spread over 4 times the area of the 1km one. But for use as a basemap I think it is fit for purpose.

The slightly darker colour is a combination of fewer pixels and also I turned off spectrals in the mesh. It could be made a bit lighter by increasing the spectrals, but my personal choice favoured the darker colour.

Do you think any other size would be useful, for example 2 baseboards square (1440m x1440m) or half a baseboard (360m x 360m) or what?

Scottish

I reckon that a 2km x 1km size could be very useful for laying in the medium distance, parallel to the generally more detailed track-side areas.

It would preferably be in two versions, one lying N/S the other W/E, so that the basemap imagery rectangles can be created and applied north up in either landscape or portrait format.

The slightly darker tone of the 2km square imagery is fine thanks. I don't see any reason to change it.

Casper

So, do you mean that the GE map images would be made either 1024 wide x 2048 deep or 2048 wide x 1024 deep for the other one, and that you want two different meshes to match these proportions?

Scottish

Scottish said:

So, do you mean that the GE map images would be made either 1024 wide x 2048 deep or 2048 wide x 1024 deep for the other one, and that you want two different meshes to match these proportions?

Scottish

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Yes, I reckon that should do it.

It's perhaps being a bit cheeky asking for two versions, but I think it will help prevent confusion when creating the imagery prior to placing it in the asset file.

The conventional wisdom seems to be to do everything on maps and GE north up. This certainly helps, both for easier orientation for failing brains and when stretching the GE Ruler line when creating the 1km or 2km outlines. It would be possible, of course, to use just one version, and simply rotate it in Surveyor, but for correct orientation of one of the two possible oblong images, you would would need a 90° rotation adjustment to the 0°, 90°, 180° & 270° line bearings when creating the GE boxes.

I hope this now makes sense having re-read and edited it around 10 times! I know what I mean (I think!)

If I've confused the issue I might need to look at it again tomorrow.

Casper

It's probably easier for me to make 2 meshes and assets to match the 2 sizes of jpegs I mentioned above ( in other words a deep-narrow image and matching mesh, and a wide-shallow one for the other). It will be done.

Scottish

I have the official Victorian Railways diagram of gradients and curves - which shows distances, location of bridges, crossings etc and elevations for all points where elevation changes by a measure a tracklayer considers significant. My problem is that I don't know how to get a 'birds eye view' of the track to which that data relates. I am anything but a computer expert and my head spins when I read about DEms, cartographic raster versions, etc. Is there anyone out there who can get down to my level and provide the answer to my problem? I don't necessarily aim for a perfect prototypical version of the landscape but I do aim at getting the track to follow the correct line . Thanks in anticipation.

You guys seem so knowledgeable I confidently ask for your help. I have all the vertical data relating to an actual route. I don't know how to get the overhead view showing where the route goes as a map to which I can apply the data. I confess to being no expert with computers but I am patient and will have a shot at anything you can suggest. Hope springs eternal and I thank you in anticipation.

Hi NOOJEE31.

Does your official Victorian Railways research material have any scale maps which you could scan? If not, you will need to find an historical large scale map of the area in question which shows accurate track positions. 1:500 scale is great if you can get it. Alternatively, check out Google Earth which will often show traces of the old tracks.

There are assets available which are generically known as Basemaps. Some are 720m x 720m (Trainz baseboard size), others are 1km square for use in larger areas in Surveyor. The 1km size can be easier to use when creating the imagery because you have to have a fairly precise lined box around the image. If you’re lucky, some maps will have lat/long lines already set at 1km intervals. Most often, though, they won’t! You then have to accurately draw the lines on the image so that it can be accurately clipped and attached to the basemap assets for successful placement into Trainz.

However, there does appear to be a problem with some Trainz versions.

I’m no expert in later editions, but it would appear from other posts in this thread that TS2010 and TS12 won't allow a vertical view of basemaps.If that is the case, then we could spend a lot of time giving you advice which, sadly, you may not be able to fully apply, (unless you have an earlier version, but I don’t see any older ones registered on your time line). It seems that basemaps can be seen in Surveyor at an angle in these newer versions, but a totally overhead view is nigh on essential for accurate placement of track and other scenery assets. ¤¤¤ Edit: Please see next post for clarification from Scottish regarding the ability to use a vertical view. Apologies for the misinterpretation. ¤¤¤

It would be nice to think that a Service Pack upgrade might just correct this problem at some stage. I guess it’s a question of wait and see.

Having said all of that, if you want to have a go at basemaps there are several threads on the subject (do a Google search for trainz base maps). Here’s one I got involved with recently, which might help.

mezzoprezzo said:

It would be nice to think that a Service Pack upgrade might just correct this problem at some stage. I guess it’s a question of wait and see.

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I don't think that the lack of being able to get plan views like 2004 in later versions will be in a service pack. It is not an error, it is a deliberate change on how these later versions are designed to work. It is better in TS12 than 2010.

In 2010 there is a limit imposed on how far back one can go with the view and this is what prevents a high level plan view.

In TS12, as you pull back on the view, the view swings upwards until it becomes a view like a larger version of the mini-map. At this level the tools to lay track, splines and objects are disabled, therefore you have to go closer in for these tools to work. However from my experiments, by finding the optimum level, it is still possible to get a reasonable 'near plan' view of the basemap and still be able to use the other tools.

I have now sent you the 2km x 1km and 1km x 2km basemaps with the higher resolution jpeg map files. Hope you find them usefull. At the moment I do not intend to put them on the DLS, unless a number of people express an interest.

Scottish