Tutorial for Using Google Earth & TransDEM for route creation

Raster Map Images

I have a question about the loading of the images with the Raster Map program . The area that I am working on contains approximately 3000 images. I have been working on this for the last week or so and still have about 8 to 10 hours of images to load at the current rate.


What happens, when I select the file to load, the program starts, but I notice that it goes into "Not Responding" mode while the computer is still doing something, and then the image loads. Total time about a minute per image. Is this the normal mode of operation for this program?


Dave
 
Hi, Dave.

I am assuming you mean the TransDEM program? If so, then I seriously doubt you will get all 3000 images into it. I am pretty sure that each new image added will cause the expansion of RAM as the program holds the completed image. If I'm wrong, perhaps Roland (Geophil) will pop in here and correct me.

You would be much better off cutting your route into smaller pieces. For instance, I have a route on the southern coast of Hokkaido Island (Japan) that runs around 150 miles. I've broken it up into six separate routes. That way, I can work on them in T:ANE Surveyor without the hassle of loading the entire route. Once I get done, I will just merge each new piece to the final route.

Bill
 
Raster Map Images

Thanks Bill,

I wish that I could post a photo of the area that I working in. The forum says that I cannot post attachments. I guess you could Google Houston, TX and see the RR routes that are coming and going in and out of Houston as well as the various sets of tracks that service the various shipping, chemical, oil & gas, and commercial & manufacturing industries in and around the city.

According to a Rail Fan map that I have there are about 15 lines radiating out of Houston. I suppose that I could make individual image patterns for pairs crossing the city with additional patterns for some of the industries that make up the entire service area. The other thought that I have is to trim the images so that image distance from the track is about 3 to 4 Kilometers. Seem like a lot of extra work for something that will be discarded after the scenery and objects are in place on the route. Will have to think about how I go about incorporating into Trainz. I think that I'll continue with what I'm doing and decide later what to do with it.

Dave
 
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You can post pictures. It just means that you cannot HOST the pictures here on the forum. You have to use a hosting service like Hostnpost or Photobucket. You put it there and then post just the link URL in the pop-up for the picture after you click the Insert Image toolbutton.

As i recall, Houston is pretty flat. Creating a DEM of that area would be sort of pointless, wouldn't it?

Bill
 
G'day hiballer,

Ahem!! Even as a relatively new user to TransDEM, Bill, you ought to know that NOWHERE is ever ..."...pretty flat..."..., not even the surface of a lake on a calm day (it WILL be LEVEL but NOT flat). Although the natural 'shape' of the terrain in an area might not have many variations, they will still be there but more importantly, the variations introduced by the 'infrastructure' (road over road; road over rail and rail over road) created by man DOES show up in the 1/3 NED DEM datasets...

...it just ain't flat...

G'day davedingler,

..as hiballer indicates, Dave, in order to post an image, you need somewhere on the "interweb" to store it. You DON'T need to use any of the "commercial" websites dedicated to the purpose, if you have space provided by your ISP, so long as you can 'point' a URL towards it...

...as for your route, again, Bill's suggestion is the same one I would use. If the route is proving to be "cumbersome" for TransDEM, split it up into smaller chunks, although it should be able to handle sections containing the large yards without the need to divide them longitudinally. I am more intrigued by your statement that you have about 3000 raster map "clippings" in a single area the size of Houston. I have just created the D&H line from Scranton to Ticonderoga for a "commission" and in all that distance, I had but a mere 120 (give or take) raster images (and that included one or two "side tracks"). Houston isn't THAT big (despite what the 'locals' might think)! I reckon I could get it onto two or three (maybe four) Topographic images from the USGS Tile Map Server. It appears to me that you might still be using the default ("256") pixel setting in the "Map Size" Panel of the Map Tile Servers dialogue box. I routinely set this to 2048 (in fact, TransDEM should remember the value here, after the first time you change it) and even if you're using the Web Mapping Servers option (to obtain your imagery), you can change the default sizes (1200 x 1600), there, so long as the actual server will allow it (you'll find out soon enough if it doesn’t), although I have nearly always found these values to be adequate for most purposes...

Jerker {:)}
 
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Speaking as a native of Colorado, Jerker, Houston is "pretty flat". My three years in the mountainous northern end of Honshu is "not flat". My two years in the hills of northwest Luzon was also "not flat". And, except for the actual port basins like Kau Hsiung, Taiwan is ALL mountains. I know the relativity of "flat" to "not flat" quite well. If I were making a route of Houston, I would start with a 0.00 height and go from there, building up little hillocks at they appear. I would not use TransDEM to do the job.

Bill
 
G'day hiballer,

...I agree, Bill, the whole perception is, absolutely, a "relative" one! To someone accustomed to the dizzying heights of Colorado, Houston would be "flat". That wasn't my point and it should be noted, that most of the words written above were written with my tongue "planted firmly in my cheek". Unfortunately, although it is difficult, enough, to talk with one's tongue so situated, it is impossible to write in a manner that depicts this (and no one, as yet, has devised a "smiley" that could be used to adequately express this emotional context). Although your alternative suggestion would work perfectly well, isn't the whole reason for using TransDEM, in the first place, to obtain prototypical accuracy (within the confines of the available datasets)? Given the, shall we call them "primitive" tools available in Surveyor to reproduce terrain, your 'alternative suggestion' is doomed to failure where "prototypical accuracy" IS one's aim...

...puff... ...puff... **hands over "peace pipe"**...

Jerker [:)}
 
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Once again, you should use Km as your height indicator. When you move the mouse around, the ELEVATION will vary, but as long as you do NOT move the mouse wheel the "VIEWING HEIGHT" should not change.

You probably know what you are doing, and what works for you... that said, height is analogous to AGL. Moving the mouse, the elevation of the terrain AMSL will vary, and the effective height of the view AGL will vary - although the view AMSL will remain fixed sans scrolling.
 
What you say is correct, Blu3wolf. However, in Google Earth, there is an "elevation" figure and an 'eye alt' figure. If you pan around using the mouse, the 'elevation' figure will vary depending on where the mouse pointer hovers. But, while you are locating various points AGL, the basic 'eye alt' never changes. Being a pilot, I understand the concept of Above Ground Level as opposed to mean sea level (MSL). But, for the purposes of my tutorial, keeping the 'eye alt' a constant will allow the images used to create the tiles to retain proper alignment with the surrounding tiles.

Bill
 
Didn't mean to start an argument. Just wanted to know if the time it takes for the selected image to load was what others were experiencing.

Re: Houston terrain: It is relatively flat in the coastal areas. As you move inland there is a steady raise in elevation. Traveling north and west elevations increase to hills and valleys. There are no towering mountain ranges in the Houston area!

As far as size is concerned: My chosen area is approximately 63m x 90m which converts to about 5400 sq. miles. Not all area is covered with images. Straight line distances from various places include from Galveston Island to central Houston abt 45 m. Rosenberg (South West of Houston) to Dayton (North East of Houston) is about 65 miles. This area isn't fixed, it can be changed. When I looked at the Google map to see where the tracks were , drew a rectangle and that was the selected area.

Dave
 
We did seem to digress, didn't we?

I've found that the time that TransDEM takes after beginning to load an image increases as the amount of images already in the main window increases. 5400 sq/mi is a pretty large chunk of real estate, Dave. I would chop that into manageable pieces and join them later.

Bill
 
We did seem to digress, didn't we?

I've found that the time that TransDEM takes after beginning to load an image increases as the amount of images already in the main window increases. 5400 sq/mi is a pretty large chunk of real estate, Dave. I would chop that into manageable pieces and join them later.

Bill

Thanks Bill. That explains why it is taking so long for the image to load. Since I'm so close to completing the area, I'm leaning toward completing it. We'll see what happens when I get it finished.

Daves
 
HI, are there limitations for TANE and TransDEM to build real scale of real route?
Real route length is approx. 700 km (north) and 900 km (south) and they will merge depart and arrival city ..
 
Hello, George.

Unless you have a very high end computer, I would strongly recommend that you make your route up with smaller maps and merge them later. When you give 700Km north and 900Km south, is that from a central point? If so, that would make your route 1600Km long - which is entirely too long. It would never load into your computer, much less allow you to use Surveyor on it.

For a start, I would pick one end of the route and work on the termination station and the surrounding city. Extend the route either north or south to about 150Km. At that point, you could insert either a temporary buffer (so that AI trains would run properly) or use a temporary portal to consume/emit trains for you. When you are satisfied with that portion, create the next 150/200Kmportion as a separate route.

In that manner, work your way (either north or south) to your final destination.

As an example, I am currently working on a small route on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. It is approximately 320Km long, but I am making it in six segments around 50Km in length so that it will load and allow me to work on it easily.

Bill
 
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Thanks for suggestion.

Below is my map for more clear info :
BwarOPSEy5nTAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC

Distance through A-B-C-H (North) = 700 km and A-D-E-F-G-H (South) = 900 km.

I already had North route and A-D route. This cdp size is 230 MB.
A to B=250 km separate into small station (approx 20-30 km distances each).
I need 7 hours total to ride A to H... hfff ...
This is real scale (or maybe 90-95% of real world).

The scenery for South is more beautiful and addicted than North.

But I worry to merge all route into one. Maybe there's a limitations for TANE or TransDEM to load large map.
My computer specs is core i7 with 16gb ram. I was enjoy for ride on North route.
 
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Good morning, George.

I wouldn't let my CDP files get much bigger than they already are. T:ANE has limitations, but I don't know what they are. Any route that becomes so cumbersome that it takes minutes to load probably will not perform very well - depending on how much scenery you have put on it. Tree-covered mountains seem to be the heaviest load on the game.

I see you have given this some thought, and I think you have chosen well to break the route up into smaller bits. As for joining them, you might consider using iPortals or use simple hidden yards to store consists at the end of each segment. I do think that trying to join routes until you have the entire map in memory will overload the game, making it run poorly.

Do you have any screen shots of your route?

Bill
 
Here's one for you guy's when I try and load the KMZ's from GE into TD (on 2.5 [sadly I'm poor so I cant afford an update atm]) its throwing out an error: incompatible placemark, "heading" or "tilt". Click [reset north] and [reset tilt] in GE before exporting image and placemark. My problem is when I go to rest it zooms in from the 2.5km height exponentially so I cant get it to reset and stay at the right height any ideas Hiballer? Roland?
 
When you get ready to make the initial KMZ in GE, you MUST press the "N" and "R" keys BEFORE you put the placemark on the map in the Southwest corner (lower left). Those two keys (N & R) will reset the view to North and perpendicular, or absolutely vertical (respectively). That is what TD is complaining about when it says Heading or Tilt.

As for maintaining the "eye alt", make sure you do NOT use the mouse wheel at any time while viewing the GE map as it will change the height drastically. Using the keyboard arrow keys is the best way to move the map around to position it where you want it.

If you already have a series of placemarks and want to correct them, you can double-click the placemark name in the left panel of GE. That will move the GE map to the exact same spot when you created the placemark. Then, use the "N" and "R" keys to make the map heading North and vertical. Then RIGHT-click the placemark on the map. That will bring up the context menu. Choose "Properties" which will bring up a dialog box. If your "eye height" is what you want, and you are now heading North and are vertical. You can also MOVE the placemark if it isn't where you want it. Now click the OK button on the dialog box. GE will ask you if you want to replace the placemark. Click YES and the placemark will now be correct. Resave the map as the original name and click to overwrite it.

The next time you import the mark into TD, it should work just fine.

My recommendation of 2.5Km is simply a guideline. Theoretically, you could use almost any height, but I chose 2.5Km so that the clarity of the UTM tile would be good enough to place the objects I want on it.

Bill
 
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Oops. My mistake. Apparently, the "R" key combines both the "N" and the "U" functions. I just gave it a test after rotating the map and changing the view angle. pressing "R" will reset both to North and Vertical. But, having said that, I am using Google Earth version 7.1.7.2606. Your version may be different.

If you use the "U" and the "N" keys, you will be on the right path. i should probably add this to my tutorial.

Bill
 
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