TransDEM Forum

You are talking about working in Surveyor with the DEM-based route created by TransDEM? Not about the DEM (Digital Elevation Model) as the geo data source processed by TransDEM in the first place?

As you indicated earlier, you laptop have have limited resources. Saving in Surveyor may require extra memory temporarily. Has your work been lost when saving? Or will the changes be recovered once you load the route again?

I was referring to working in Surveyor with the DEM based route created by Transdem. None of the work has been lost when saving. All the changes that I made will be recovered when I load the route up again.

The route is still being built. But right now, I would like to hear everyone's opinion on this. A couple of weeks ago, I started using Transdem to make a DEM for my Major Tri State Area Project. About the last 5 or 6 screenshots I posted are in the DEM I am talking about. Last weekend, I took the time to look at the manual and the tutorials for transdem. I went to the seamless server and this time, I downloaded parts of NJ, NYC, upstate NY, Long Island, and Connecticut. I successfully got the DEM's that I wanted. The whole process involved merging DEM's and saving them in pieces to my computer. Getting the TIFF image and merging the DEM took a good amount of time to do. I think it has to do with the size of the DEM. Last night I finished the DEM and merging process. Earlier around 1:30, I decided to import the DEM to the Trainz CMP and at first, I got a fatal error for trainz 2009 but then the DEM continued it's import to trainz 2009. Right now, it is 5:06 and the DEM is still importing to trainz. It seems that my hard drive memory went decreased a good amount. Last weekend when I decided to use the Transdem program to make a new DEM that would consist of NJ, NY, and CT I had 97GB. Today, I have 78GB of free space. I know Transdem is a very good program if you are making a railroad in trainz but I am really debating if I should be using this on my laptop. My hard drive space has been decreasing and I don't want it to decrease to the point where I am going to have to buy a new hard drive. I wonder, should I store the Transdem program on a flash drive so when if I get a new computer soon hopefully, I can put it on there and use it. What does everyone think. Or should I do what I did in the first screenshots of the first Major Tri State Area a couple of months ago which was creating all the elevations and hills by hand. Something is telling me to go with hand creating the route on my laptop and and when I get a new computer hopefully, use transdem. I had no problems hand creating. I think it all has to do with patience because I think I could build the elevations just like transdem can but at a slower rate. Yep, I think I will go with hand creating for now and transdem for the desktop soon if I get one.

Also, if I am hand creating, could somebody tell me how to get the basemaps to appear high quality and remove the white or blue edges from the basemap. I also see that somebody by the name of Fishlipsatwork made a whole bunch of DEMs on the DLS that I could use for the Major Tri State Area Project such as Bronx East, Bronx North, and Port Jervis. How good are his DEM's. Since it is a prototypical railroad I am making, would his DEM's be good to use also. I would really like to hear everyone's opinion on how this is going to go. I also found the Major Tri State Area Project that I had when I first posted screenshots of the Major Tri State Area Project and the frame rates for that suprisingly are very good on my laptop. Very little lag and no stuttering whatsoever.Very smooth for a detailed route. So for now until I get a computer that is built for trainz, I think I will hand create my routes and use transdem in the future.

With TransDEM you are always running the risk of a project too big. Simply because much is automated and you just watch things happening.

But it's relatively simple math. The higher the resolution of the DEM and the bigger the DEM (talking about the cartographic data source here), the higher its storage needs, unfortunately resolution increasing it quadratically. It you have little disk space, stick to 1 arc sec DEMs. Do with 1:24k topo maps, refrain from aerial imagery wherever possible.

In TransDEM, make small modules, merge in Surveyor. Select DEMs to acquire in small modules, too, limit yourself to the data in the immediate vicinity of your route. You can't pack half of New England into one Trainz route anyway.

Instead of having to deal with 20GB of geo data you might be able to bring it down to less than 10% of it, by downloading only what you really, really need.

Taking a manual or less automated approach instead, like MicroDEM/HOG and/or Basemaps, you will less likely face memory or disk space issues for a very simple reason: It is much more cumbersome to produce usable data even for a small area. It's not the different "technology", TransDEM is not that fundamentally different from MicroDEM/HOG and Basemaps, it's automation that produces the huge output you may not be able to cope with.

Geophil. I took another try with Transdem and I read the tutorial in the Documents and the Tutorial on getting the DEM into trainz from the documents. I now know how to crop the areas that I want and take out certain parts of the DEM that I don't need. I also installed the Ground textures for transdem. When I followed the tutorials I exported the DEM to surveyor and this is the result.

Screenshot

Do you know what these purple square outlines are. I think that could be an outline for basemaps. If so that is great. I won't go with the UTM tiles because of size of the files will bring my hard drive memory down. After following the tutorials in the documents you provided, I thought I would get Vector Data or poly lines in surveyor to show me where the roads, water, and train tracks go. Do you know how I can get that into the DEM. The various documents that you provided with Transdem have helped me alot. Now I know a couple of the ins and outs for the DEM process.

These are the 1000m UTM grid lines.

Yes, they could. And they represent also the edges of potential UTM tiles.

Not really. UTM tiles and basemaps are the same, regarding disk space or memory usage. The difference is that creating and placing one basemap will take ages, while creating and placing one UTM tile is done in less than a second. The size of the texture image file can be controlled in TransDEM, too. Select jpg format if a you have disk space concerns. (jpg can be used for Basemaps, too, of course.)

True remedy lies elsewhere: You probably don't need UTM tiles or Basemaps for most of your route. A good cartographic map is all it takes. This will be used as the Trainz ground texture. See the Muengsten tutorial in the TransDEM Trainz manual for an example.

There are two recommended types of map data source for your US project. One is Map Tiles, like Open Street Map, the other, a bit more advanced, is the USGS 1:24k topo map via WMS. Usage of both sources is explained in the TransDEM main manual.

Tutorial 7 (page 126) tells you about Map Tiles and Tutorial 4 (page 114) about USGS topo maps via WMS.

I thought the difference between basemaps and UTM tiles was that the basemaps are low quality and UTM tiles are high quality. For the basemaps, when I go to Google Earth and copy my the map that is 3,280 feet above ground, I paste it to the basemap in CMP using Paint.net. When I put the map in Paint.net, do you know how to get rid of the blue or white edges that surround the map.

For Transdem, do you know how to make the option of adding polylines for vector data available. It's right next to the help on trainz exporter icon. Transdem won't allow me to select that option.

I'll take a look at the Cartographic tutorial in the meantime.

Quality and size for Basemaps is completely up to you. But for UTM tiles in TransDEM conserving resources is always the goal. A UTM tile is created with the lowest possible resolution. Texture size is determined from contributing maps or images. If these are low scale, the resulting tile texture may only be 256 x 256 pixel. And on the disk you'll save a lot by selecting jpg in the UTM tile dialog instead of Trainz' default tga.

I'm afraid I don't.You need vector data in TransDEM, either polylines you draw yourself using the TransDEM built-in Simple Route Editor, or external data, like USGS DLG maps, or more ambitious, Open Street Map.