TransDem, Larger Routes, and Ortho Images

I didn't want to post this again but I posted a message over at the TransDem forums if someone can help me in their experience.

https://forum.transdem.de/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=582&p=2971#p2971

Basically what I'm trying to accomplish is using Bing Images that start with lower levels with higher levels on top. I'm happy with the images because they look realistic and give me something to enjoy while I build up scenery.

Unfortunately they are very resource heavy when your dealing with a rail system that is 30 x 20 miles. The distant hills of the escarpment should be visible as well as Lake Erie or Lake Ontario in different locations.

If I use just UTM alone it grinds my system to a standstill with 13 UTM wide and 10 baseboards wide for all mainline sections. So I tried a compromise and that was to pain the orthoimages on the baseboard with TransDem. I could only do up to Bing level 15 but I was able to pile up levels 12 to 15 (the idea is it's not as detail the further you look away) then UTM's from Level 16 with up to 19 stacked on top. This allowed me to get a much reasonable 2 UTM wide along the mains.

Unfortunately it didn't work as I had planned (as with most of my attempts at pushing the limits here). The UTM's were never visible yet installed. Apparently you can't have UTM's with orthoimage baseboards (or at least it didn't work for me). In fact the painted baseboards was even burying some of the ground scenery such as the track roadbed.

Any assistance or pointing me in the right direction is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Sean

Seane2c said:

I didn't want to post this again but I posted a message over at the TransDem forums if someone can help me in their experience.

https://forum.transdem.de/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=582&p=2971#p2971

Basically what I'm trying to accomplish is using Bing Images that start with lower levels with higher levels on top. I'm happy with the images because they look realistic and give me something to enjoy while I build up scenery.

Unfortunately they are very resource heavy when your dealing with a rail system that is 30 x 20 miles. The distant hills of the escarpment should be visible as well as Lake Erie or Lake Ontario in different locations.

If I use just UTM alone it grinds my system to a standstill with 13 UTM wide and 10 baseboards wide for all mainline sections. So I tried a compromise and that was to pain the orthoimages on the baseboard with TransDem. I could only do up to Bing level 15 but I was able to pile up levels 12 to 15 (the idea is it's not as detail the further you look away) then UTM's from Level 16 with up to 19 stacked on top. This allowed me to get a much reasonable 2 UTM wide along the mains.

Unfortunately it didn't work as I had planned (as with most of my attempts at pushing the limits here). The UTM's were never visible yet installed. Apparently you can't have UTM's with orthoimage baseboards (or at least it didn't work for me). In fact the painted baseboards was even burying some of the ground scenery such as the track roadbed.

Any assistance or pointing me in the right direction is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Sean

Click to expand...

That is generally a symptom of using PBR 4.6 track with non PBR textures.

Interesting. To be honest I don't much about PBR or what it even means. If I recall I installed the PBR Ortho for 2019 in TransDem. But I may have screwed it up.

I know it can be a large learning curve so I may have done something wrong. I used the default KUID setting when tracing a route. Still not sue why the UTM is not showing. Come to think of it I've built some routes before and it would show a UTM label. I don't recall seeing them for this route build. They were in DLS under today. The UTM tab is on and visible.

Thanks

Sean

This was much stranger than I expected on my 1st runs. I know there is a limit of 1000 UTM's which I encountered before and got around it. I also know about the 25 limit. Despite having UTM set to route filtering it decided to only process about 50 in an area of the map I didn't check out. The ground textures still overpower it to where I can't see it. F9 in Surveyor of course hides this but the whole point was to get something visible running while still adding scenery over time.

Not sure what happened on both accounts. Back to the drawing board.

Thanks

Sean

Seane2c said:

Interesting. To be honest I don't much about PBR or what it even means. If I recall I installed the PBR Ortho for 2019 in TransDem. But I may have screwed it up.

I know it can be a large learning curve so I may have done something wrong. I used the default KUID setting when tracing a route. Still not sue why the UTM is not showing. Come to think of it I've built some routes before and it would show a UTM label. I don't recall seeing them for this route build. They were in DLS under today. The UTM tab is on and visible.

Thanks

Sean

Click to expand...

Then you have probably used a build 4.5 non pbr track. It's never a good idea to mix the two. To "paint" over the PBR Ortho, I would highly recommend JohnnyC1's range of PBR textures. Theres around a thousand of them now.

Interesting, still don't know what PBR is but I've heard it quite a bit on the forums (photo realistic, photo paint brush?).

I wish my route was more linear but it's not as it represents a network of 2 class 1's, branch lines, and short lines. But it's my home. I'm thinking I may have to put in a spline line representing the escarpment though it might be just as easy to paint it at this point including adding water to the great lakes. Either way I need to reduce my 13 wide UTM's. I'll stick with the 10 wide baseboards. Honestly that alone almost covers the entire grid anyways.

As I mentioned back to the drawing board. I'm just hoping to get the best advice for my delima before I start the scenery again. Because once I start I'm not sure there is an easy way of magically copying it all to a different version of the route.

Thanks

Sean

The author replied and reminded me of a few things to keep in mind.

Decided to abandon using the baseboard painting and just deal with UTM's. To decrease the load I stuck with 3 UTM (down from 10) wide across my network, while leaving baseboards in at 13 width. Depending on if it's Lake Ontario or Erie I won't need UTM's because I can just fill the lakes up. If I need to get any visuals that are important for the route, I'll just merge them in (since I can't add UTM's to an existing route).

Thanks

Sean