TransDEM Forum

Hi folks; I'm fairly new at computers and Trainz (TS 12) and TransDEM. A couple of things were bothering me about TransDEM, so I thought I would start over fresh. I just re installed TransDem because my first question was about the following message I received while installing. This appeared at the end of the install, I just closed the widow and the TransDEM screen opens, and all seem to be OK.

"Setup has detected that this computer does not meet the requirements to install this software. The following blocking issues must be resolved before you can install microsoft visual c++ 2010 x86 Redistributable Setup Software Package.

"please resolve the following"

"A newer version of microsoft visual c++2010 redistributable has been detected on this machine."

Do I need to do anything about this message?

Like I said all seems to be fine. I have done the quick start tutorial, saw everything in surveyor, including track laid on the blue line. The one thing that bothers me is this. During the quick start tutorial, you are supposed to draw 2 "boxes". The first goes around the whole map. The second one goes around a smaller area. Although I can see the lines around the smaller box, what shows up in surveyor is the whole map, not the smaller area. I'm going to start over today, beginning with the Quick Start Guide and the Muengsten tutorial.

I have a few more questions, but I will wait until I get going again.

Thanks guys, I'll try not to bug you too much, cheers.......Rick

PS TransDEM is great, it's me who is screwing up!

No, you don't. There are two versions of the 2010 C++ runtime libraries. Current TransDEM is built against the original version, but it will also run with the newer version of the library. (The next version of TransDEM will use the second version of the runtime library.)


The two boxes you are mentioning are those in part 1 and part 2 of the Muengsten tutorial, I presume. The first one, the large one, determines the size of the map for which terrain will be created. The second, in the UTM tile part, tells TransDEM for which area of the map it shall generate those UTM tile objects. It won't affect the Trainz terrain created in the previous part.

Thank you, sir! I tend to over think (I don't know how that's even possible for me!) things that are new to me. Yes, those were the boxes I was talking about, I'm beginning to see the light! I thought rather than spend many hours driving around on all the great routes available, I wanted to learn to build my own route. Most of this route has been abandoned for many years. 90% of it has been turned into a trail (it's part of a large trail system that crosses all of Canada). The first time I did the "Building Your First Route" section I could have sworn I saw the whole thing, including the trail. The second time I tried it, the rail line ends where it does today, no sign of the trail section.

I'm starting from the beginning, I want to make sure I am getting everything done the right way.

Thanks, again, cheers........Rick

The Trainz baseboards created during the "DEM and ground texture" export are determined by two conditions which both have to be "true" (logical "and"):

1. The rectangular mask ("box"). Only such baseboards will be created which lie entirely within the boundaries of the mask. Any baseboard where a box edge passes through will be skipped. (You can display the Trainz baseboard grid in TransDEM, it' s shown in grey.)
2. The vector lines you draw in TransDEM yourself or read from a vector data file. Only those baseboards will be created, which are touched by a polyline plus those across which lie within the filter radius you set in the the export dialog. I think the radius is 2 by default. Meaning that on a straight section in addition to the baseboard where the blue vector line passes through, two more baseboards will be added to each side of the line.

So, if you have both a rectangular box and vector lines, no baseboard will be created outside the box, even if you have vector lines there. And, if your box covers a much larger area than your vector lines, the vector lines will determine the extent of baseboard creation, defined by the lateral filter radius (number of baseboards to the right and left of the route) and the box will have no effect.

Now why have two criteria then if box or vector alone would do? The box alone will always create a rectangular Trainz map. Which normally wouldn't make much sense since you rarely visit those areas on the map without - former - railway track.

Vectors alone may create baseboards for areas where there is no DEM or no cartographic map in TransDEM, which would lead to "void" terrain in Trainz.

That's where the combination of vector lines and box becomes helpful.

Thank you geophil (Roland?); Well, at the moment I am looking at my hometown in TS 12 in surveyor! Phew, I was beginning to think I was too old school (pre- computer days) to ever see this. I did however forget about the rectangular mask. The thing I was most concerned about, "the lay of the land", looks to be just right. I was dreading the day that I might have to do the "landscaping" myself. Another bonus was that I can see where the old part of the line is, at least it's there on this first section. I'm hoping the whole route will show up as I move along.

On my next attempt I will use the rectangular mask. My route starts in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is across the harbour from Halifax. Next time I want to remove Halifax because I do not want to make scenery for it.

I'm sure as I spend more time with TransDEM, it will be easier to understand. At times I was jumping back and forth between 2 or 3 tutorials.

I've got a ton of stuff to learn. Thanks for TransDEM, if I can get results from it, I'm sure ANYBODY can.

Thanks, again, it's worth every penny, and A whole lot more, cheers.......Rick

P.S. I did this before I read your last post.