DEM to Trainz on a Mac

[FONT=&quot]Is there any methodology to get DEM/Google Earth type data into Trainz on a Mac computer?[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Looking at the forums and video tutorials on youtube, it seems that TransDem and BaseMapz are the tools of choice, but, alas, these are Windows only software tools. Any help to achieve easier (prototypical) route creation would be appreciated. Thanks.[/FONT]

Welcome to the forums, Herbert.

While I'm not a Mac user myself, I know others that use Parallels or Boot Camp to run Windows for TransDEM. Unless there's a specific Mac OS/x version of a program to this, I can't think of any other solution.

herbert-h said:

Is there any methodology to get DEM/Google Earth type data into Trainz on a Mac computer?


Looking at the forums and video tutorials on youtube, it seems that TransDem and BaseMapz are the tools of choice, but, alas, these are Windows only software tools. Any help to achieve easier (prototypical) route creation would be appreciated. Thanks.

Click to expand...

i work on macs, but to make DEMS I've always had to use windows to do the deed.

Thanks for the responses. It was as I feared, to make use of the tools I will need to use Windows on my Mac. Oh well!

Has anyone tried running TransDEM within WINE or Crossover?

https://forum.transdem.de/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=294&hilit=mac

Looks like people have had success with Parallels like above. In the thread linked above, people have also used VMWare, which is free. One people used Wine/Crossover to run it but gave up and used regular Windows computer.

With Parallels and VMWare, you are running Windows within the Mac OS. With WINE.crossover, you are running just the windows app, within WINE/Crossover. WINE is free.

I'll upgrade my TransDEM license, and try running under WINE.

Persistence paid off. I have TransDEM working under Crossover. I wanted to use Wine, which is the base project to run Windows programs and is free, however Wine is only built to run up to Mac OS 10.14. I'm running Monterey 12.4 beta.

You need to have crossover running. You need to have extra dependancies for TransDEM to run. I don't know what those dependancies are, however Crossover has archives of "bottles" with the extra dependancies already installed, to save time. Download the archives here https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/mac/mactutorial/unsupported_deps. I did the Win10 64 bit, and then imported the bottle archive. I then installed TransDEM as an unlisted app in the Win10 64bit bottle that came from the archive. As part of the TranDEM install, I installed the extra Microsoft code. I then activated TransDEM by opening up in TransDEM the license file that is on my Mac desktop. Now to call it a night and try things further another time.

Thanks for the Update

capdiamont said:

Persistence paid off. I have TransDEM working under Crossover. I wanted to use Wine, which is the base project to run Windows programs and is free, however Wine is only built to run up to Mac OS 10.14. I'm running Monterey 12.4 beta.

You need to have crossover running. You need to have extra dependancies for TransDEM to run. I don't know what those dependancies are, however Crossover has archives of "bottles" with the extra dependancies already installed, to save time. Download the archives here https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/mac/mactutorial/unsupported_deps. I did the Win10 64 bit, and then imported the bottle archive. I then installed TransDEM as an unlisted app in the Win10 64bit bottle that came from the archive. As part of the TranDEM install, I installed the extra Microsoft code. I then activated TransDEM by opening up in TransDEM the license file that is on my Mac desktop. Now to call it a night and try things further another time.

Click to expand...

Running TransDEM on a Mac definitely looks like it is not for the feint-hearted.

It isn’t that bad. I want to do a write up to make it easier.

capdiamont said:

It isn’t that bad. I want to do a write up to make it easier.

Click to expand...

That would be extremely helpful, and might encourage me to have a go.

My experience with Trainz is fairly limited until recently. It is a very complex piece of software which seems to have "grown like Topsy" and unfortunately the documentation hasn't really kept up; unless of course I am not looking in the right place. Having said that, the introduction of Surveyor 2, and its guide, has given me the confidence to have a go at route building.

I know it is bad looking, however this is my first time running TransDEM is over a decade and now I'm running it under Crossover on my Mac mini. OS is Monterey. I should of zoomed in more for the quick track route tool. I'm hoping to make the map clearer to place things also. Trainz Mesh Importer is just unzipped, not installed in the same bottle as TransDEM, as it has no installation program. GDAL, is installed under the same bottle as TransDEM and seems to be automatically recognized by TransDEM. For export, I have TransDEM put it in the edit/edited directory under my Mac Trainz data install. This is Trainz 22 and Surveyor 2.

TransDEM is a wonderful program, that has a lot of flexibility in data formats it can take, which can make things harder to understand. It does make it easy to import everything once you get things setup and it is nice to have track automatically put down.

The mess you are looking at is the long abandoned town of Falk, California. I think I want to do a mash of Falk and the railroad in modern times.

Give me some time to figure more things out, do some testing, work out how I got this far, and write something up, hopefully well enough for people to understand.

I think it would be best to put a guide in the Wiki. However, where in the Wiki should it go?