TransDEM Forum

Hi all,

I have recently completed a tutorial about how to place a detailed Google Earth image directly on the Trainz terrain using only ground textures (no carrier objects required). The tutorial, along with the files required to make the process work, is available in a ZIP archive here.

Many thanks to Dr. Roland Ziegler for reviewing the tutorial and hosting the files. You will find my original post(s) about this on the Trainz forms here (screenshots section) and here (surveyor section).

Regards,
-Mike

Hello Mike, Roland

To Mike :
Thank you for your excellent tutorial . Downloaded the zip-file and will start a test next week ( at few days a home ).


To Roland :

Thank you for your assistance in the making of this tutorial.

Best regards

Kurt

I have now tested custom textures removal, using the built-in function in TransDEM 2.1.3.1. I can confirm it does work with TS12.

This means, you you can use the same file to apply the custom ground textures and also to remove them later, after the route has been completed in Trainz Surveyor. Visual feedback for texture removal will be added to the next version of TransDEM.

For that next version, I will also try to enable changing of ground texture sources without the need to restart TransDEM.

Do I install the colours that came with TransDEM, as well as yours?

The texture sets are completely independent of each other and will reside side by side in the Trainz asset data base. If you create a route in TransDEM using the default set, the route will require the default textures in Trainz. If you create a route with the custom texture set, the route will require the custom texture set installed in Trainz.

Hi Mike;

I tried out following your tutorial in getting the highly detailed Google Earth textures into Trainz 12. All works, but the results are that the textures in Trainz surveyor are all washed out (looking to be at 16 colors rather 256 or greater)? The texture files (UTM) in content manager look spot on, but not in surveyor. Not sure if I have missed a setting.

Running high-end system and up-to-date on Trainz 12 patch level and your texture files are loaded into the content manager.

I am running Google Earth 6.2 with your suggested setting and TransDEM 2.3. One note, when i went to the custom colors and pointed to the WebColorsXRef.txt file (put in the TransDEM directory) TransDEM never asked to be restarted for the new texture files to take effect.

Any suggestions?

Regards, Gerry Baldwin

Gerry,

ground textures are limited to 1 pixel per ground vertex, i.e. 1 pixel every 10 or 5 m, depending on the baseboard grid. This limitation is imposed by the way ground textures are organized in Trainz. You'll find some explanation on this in the manual.

Due to this limitation the maximum map or image scale which can be resolved with ground textures is 1:50,000 for the 10m grid or 1:25,000 resp 1:24,000 for the 5 m grid. Aerial images at this scale do not reveal details. A topographic map is much better here. For a US route we have the USGS 1:24k topo maps available online, via WMS. There is a tutorial in the TransDEM main manual on using these maps.

If you need the utmost detail for certain areas and would like aerial images, TransDEM offers you so-called UTM Tiles which are large flat texture carrier objects. These can resolve up 1 pixel per 10cm (500 m tiles, 4096 px textures). It is true that in TS12 UTM tiles are harder to read, because the wireframe mode in Surveyor has much thicker links than in earlier Trainz versions. I think that was the reason for Mike to try ground textures instead.