Newbie with a few questions

I have just bought T:ANE for the mac and am now wondering if I can import real world terrain and/or google maps so that I can create my own custom lines, based on my local area.

If this is possible, please would you be kind enough to explain how I would go about getting this setup.

Many thanks

Howdy and welcome to the Trainz forums and to Trainz.

You can do this relatively easy, but with you on the Mac, it means running Boot Camp in order to run the software to create the DEM-generated maps. Using a program called TransDEM, which you can download here, http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/startseiteEngl.htm, you will be able to import real world elevation data off of the various servers located around the world, import map images for that area, combine the two, and output a complete route ready for track laying and other stuff needed to complete the route.

I don't know where you're located because you don't show a region in your settings, but it costs around $35 US and it's worth every penny and then some.

But as far as Mac software, I don't think there's anything like this. Hope this helps.

Like JLemon said: you can do that with boot camp with at least 40GB of free space but if you don’t have enough space you can still run via wine you have installed on Terminal

MF01 said:

Like JLemon said: you can do that with boot camp with at least 40GB of free space but if you don’t have enough space you can still run via wine you have installed on Terminal

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Easier said than done, all of my efforts to get wine to work have come to naught , i've tried following instructions when i've downloaded the programs and i get to a point where i cannot go any further, either crashes or somethings missing that should be installed. but that said, i'm useless when it comes to anything other then the basics, anything terminal related other than the most simple stuff , you can forget it
you could run transdem on an emulator , which is probably the easiest way to go about it, as setting up bootcamp is sometimes fraught with issues . But whether you use bootcamp or an emulator ,either way you'll probably have to buy a copy of windows . transdem is great but results depend on the quality of the maps you can get your hands on , sometimes in remote regions such as the semi deserts of utah its hard to get high quality ones.

huwrowlands said:

I have just bought T:ANE for the mac and am now wondering if I can import real world terrain and/or google maps so that I can create my own custom lines, based on my local area.

If this is possible, please would you be kind enough to explain how I would go about getting this setup.

Many thanks

Click to expand...

what sort of mac are you running and what year ? , graphics cards are a big issue with macs , if you have an under powered GPU you wont be able to do too much with large complex routes . the new imacs with 4gb cards should be fine, but my gtx 680 with 2gb is now startign to be a bit stuttery with large routes.

JCitron said:

Howdy and welcome to the Trainz forums and to Trainz.

You can do this relatively easy, but with you on the Mac, it means running Boot Camp in order to run the software to create the DEM-generated maps. Using a program called TransDEM, which you can download here, http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/startseiteEngl.htm, you will be able to import real world elevation data off of the various servers located around the world, import map images for that area, combine the two, and output a complete route ready for track laying and other stuff needed to complete the route.

I don't know where you're located because you don't show a region in your settings, but it costs around $35 US and it's worth every penny and then some.

But as far as Mac software, I don't think there's anything like this. Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Great news! I can run TransDem in a virtual machine on my mac and then just dropbox the files over so that shouldn't be an issue. The line I want to create doesn't exist anymore but once I have the terrain and map images then I can use old maps to place the tracks and all should be good. Fingers crossed!
I am located in the UK.

dangavel said:

what sort of mac are you running and what year ? , graphics cards are a big issue with macs , if you have an under powered GPU you wont be able to do too much with large complex routes . the new imacs with 4gb cards should be fine, but my gtx 680 with 2gb is now startign to be a bit stuttery with large routes.

Click to expand...

It's a 2011 imac which I have upgraded to 12GB and have a virtual machine with Windows 7 installed. Hopefully, that'll be fine to run TransDem?

huwrowlands said:

Great news! I can run TransDem in a virtual machine on my mac and then just dropbox the files over so that shouldn't be an issue. The line I want to create doesn't exist anymore but once I have the terrain and map images then I can use old maps to place the tracks and all should be good. Fingers crossed!
I am located in the UK.



It's a 2011 imac which I have upgraded to 12GB and have a virtual machine with Windows 7 installed. Hopefully, that'll be fine to run TransDem?

Click to expand...

You might want to check the exact requirements for TransDEM on Roland's website. TransDEM is a 64-bit application, and I can't recall if there's 32-bit version available. If you have a 64-bit version of Windows running, you're in luck, and my fingers are crossed as well for you. There's a whole world out there to recreate! You have those gorgeous ordinance maps and old drawings, which come in pretty nicely in place on the terrain.

I'm across the pond in New England where we share similar town and city names.

But anyway the power of TransDem is to be beholden to. Another Trainzer, Steamboateng, is working on the former Boston and Maine's former mainline through the Hoosac Tunnel, which was pushed through the Hoosac Mountain range (part of the Berkshires), in 1877. The route took over 25 years to build and many early engineering feats were encountered with some new inventions coming along including drilling machines, and early dynamite. The tunnel was electrified between 1910 and 1946 when the route was dieselized. Anyway the point is he took a 1942/44 topographic map from the USGS and superimposed that in place on a contemporary DEM landscape. His job now is to lay tracks and plant trees, rivers, and buildings.

I've taken his route and have imported one I'm working that's a connecting line called the Hoosac Tunnel and Wilmington, which ran from a junction near the tunnel up to Wilmington VT. On the route I have imported and connected, the route has been gone for about 45 years now. There's barely a trace in most places due to a dam being built along it's ROW. I was able to delete some baseboards on my route and import that in and connect right up where the HT&W connected to the B&M. The only differences are the textures due to the newer maps I used compared to Mike's much older topographic maps. This ended up being the case due to only much lower resolution maps being available for that portion of VT, which I needed and we need 1:250,000 scale images.

There have been other cases too where I've messed up a DEM and ended up cutting out a section and reimporting the baseboards. In this case they all lined up perfectly!

Anyway good luck and I hope all works out for you.

I've installed a 64bit version of Windows 7 so all should be good !

That sounds awesome and just like what I want to achieve. I'm sure to come back soon for some more advice!

Many many thanks

huwrowlands said:

I've installed a 64bit version of Windows 7 so all should be good !

That sounds awesome and just like what I want to achieve. I'm sure to come back soon for some more advice!

Many many thanks

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That's great news. Plan on lots of extra disk space, though for your exported routes. A external drive is great for that which should be accessible via both platforms either through a SAMBA share or directly. That will save you the bandwidth when transferring data back and forth between the two operating systems.

On a side note, I use Ubuntu in an Oracle Virtual Box running on Windows 10 and use a local NAS box, located in my basement, for sharing files. It works perfectly for that.

Feel free to ask and ask away. There's so much to learn here.

For Info there is a 32bit version of Transdem as well as 64 bit.

And @huwrolands welcome to the crazy world of Trainz.

Did you really bought T:ANE because I don’t see it on your timeline?

huwrowlands said:

Great news! I can run TransDem in a virtual machine on my mac and then just dropbox the files over so that shouldn't be an issue. The line I want to create doesn't exist anymore but once I have the terrain and map images then I can use old maps to place the tracks and all should be good. Fingers crossed!
I am located in the UK.



It's a 2011 imac which I have upgraded to 12GB and have a virtual machine with Windows 7 installed. Hopefully, that'll be fine to run TransDem?

Click to expand...

according to the apple site they had these cards 2.5 GHz

• AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
• 2.7 GHz
  AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
• there was however this model :"Core i7" 3.4 27-Inch Aluminum (Mid-2011) is powered by a Quad Core 3.4 GHz Intel "Core i7" I7-2600 (Sandy Bridge) processor with a dedicated 256k level 2 cache for each core and an 8 MB shared level 3 cache. In lieu of a system bus, it has a "Direct Media Interface" (DMI) that "connects between the processor and chipset" at 5 GT/s.
  
  If only the processor is customized, it is configured with 4 GB of RAM (1333 MHz PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM), a 1 TB (7200 RPM) hard drive, and AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics with 1 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory.
• the specs on that model are quite decent, i think i actually might have had one of those for a while but it didn't exactly fly, at that time i was using trainz 2010
• f you only have 512mb vram on your installed thats rather under powered and of course, my understanding is that upgrading an iMac GPU is pretty much impossible .

that will probably be your biggest issue long term, this article shows some results for games but of course Trainz is never ever reviewed, would be nice if NV3 did a few reviews of their own https://www.anandtech.com/show/4340/27inch-apple-imac-review-2011/4i

Hi! Thread is a couple of years old...but did you have any success with this? What virtual machine are you using - Parallels, VirtualBox or similar? Thinking about a similar purchase.....

Is the VM just to run Tane/TRS19? Why Trainz under a VM? You still have the same hardware. I ran a VM for a long time but it was for "specialty" apps not available for OSX and not needing a strong GPU. Once I got TRS19 I bit the bullet and built a Windows gaming desktop.