Way of importing DEM Data to TRS19?

AppleDash22

Autistic Railfan
So I've recently got Trainz 2019 and and wanted to try my hand at building a few routes, the main route being the Strasburg Railroad. However simply eyeballing the hight of each hill is not gonna be something I feel would give the route an accurate feel. I had heard of TransDEM thanks to a video I found on YouTube on the subject however the way to get the program seems a bit shady in my opinion. After all I rather not send out a random email to a random person just so I can ask to buiy a program of some kind. (No Offence)

Naturally I'm wondering if there are other options on importing DEM and Heightmap Data into Trainz 2019.
 
Not really as the other options are very old and may not work anymore. Roland isn't shady as far as I can tell. He seems honest and very helpful to me. Maybe he has been burned by e-commerce systems in the past. But you send him an email and he will reply with the price and the method of payment he can take. I used Paypal to pay him I believe.

William
 
Add my support to Transdem, 110% above board and once you learn the ropes, there is no other way of getting real world data in a Trainz route.
 
Add my support too +120% here. It works very well and supports the new file format used in TANE and up.
 
I can only echo the above, and Transdem has been useful of 4 routes I've worked on so far, and saves months of hard work doing the contours by hand.
 
Well if that'sthe case then I guess I have no choice in the matter. I'll just need to save up money for it anf get it later.
 
I can recommend TransDEM also, well worth the $'s.
Only other thing is to make sure you can get the DEM data for your area of interest. Many countrys now have the DEM data freely available for download. Also I recommend trying to get the most detailed DEM such as 1 metre resolution if possible (2M or 5M at least.)
GOOD LUCK.
PG
 
RE: DEM data/resolution = Good Point
Reminder: TransDEM is a tool to apply DEM data to Trainz routes. Results are only as good as the data you supply.
 
Another issue to consider is the size of the route files generated by TransDEM.
Settings such as :
- length of the route should be kept reasonable if possible.
- baseboard width, the number of baseboards each side of the track. ( I generally use 2 here)
- 5m or 10m grid size for the Trainz baseboards. Ive found routes generated at 5m baseboard grid are roughly 3 times larger than 10m, especially when using high res DEM's.
Best bet is to do a lot of testing and experimenting with the various settings untill you get your best desired result which loads in Trainz fairly quickly and the landscape is what you want even without the proper textures and scenery. In the end it all comes down to your PC capability (CPU/RAM etc and GPU).
Once again ! Good Luck
PG
 
TransDEM user here. The quality of the DEM source data you use is best determined by what you are doing. Last March I began an entirely new, eventually large, non-prototypical route and wanted some interesting terrain as a starting point. The terrain I chose is the area around Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan, even though the route is based on current-era North American. I used the 30m SRTM data because I just wanted oceans, plains, and mountains - I didn't care about details like every cut and fill because I didn't even know where the tracks would go. Likewise I told TransDEM to give me baseboards with 10m grid everywhere, then when I develop a baseboard with detailed textures, I change that one baseboard to 5m grid. As time went on, I would use TransDEM again to create chunks of terrain on a separate route which I would eventually merge into the real route, usually just for background.

But if you are creating a small but prototypical route, obviously 30m SRTM will not give the results you want usually so more detailed data sources need to be used.
 
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I tried getting a hold of Roland because I lost my installation and user id and password and he never responded. I can’t access the software right now.
 
There are several other sources for DEM data. I have used some when I was building airports for my use in flight simulators. However. unless you have the program to translate the data to a format acceptable to trainz it is just numerical gibberish. The raw data is free, but the translators are not. I paid for some. I was able to model runways that in reality did run on an up/down hill trajectory as they do in real-life. So, unless you are very good at mathematics, and programming, get Transdem.
 
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