TransDEM Forum

Hi this is my first post. My apologies if someone has already posted a similar problem. I have tried to search for an answer.

I have recently purchased TrainzDem and have completed the tutorials. I have now created a new route and exported to TANE.
However, in TrainzContent some of the 3D UTM tiles show up as Faulty, while the others are fine.



I have tried the export several times and always find the same tiles to be faulty. IF I export as 2D tiles then everything works as expected.

Any help would be useful, thanks.

John

Which T:ANE build are you using? Mine is 76536 and it works fine here, with both 2D and 3D UTM tiles. Just created a new route for testing.

TransDEM 2.5.1 does indeed set the Trainz build number to 3.4 in the config.txt files for UTM tile assets but my T:ANE Content Manager imports these without complaining. I should rise the build number, of course, to a higher, more T:ANE like value and I will do so with the next version of TransDEM but for the moment it appears to be still okay, at least on my development system.

Hi, thanks for getting back to me.

My TANE build is 76401.
I've just checked for TANE updates and it says there is no update at the current time.
I'll check the N3V site next.

John

That's a bit strange. I have been testing earlier T:ANE builds since January and CM always accepted my UTM tiles. You could try to manually set the build to 3.5 in config.txt, without changing anything else - that's more or less the same which TransDEM would do.

Hi Roland,

I changed the build to 3.5 manually as suggested, but no change some 3D UTM still faulty.

I checked the N3V site and downloaded the patch to 76536, but this patch does not work for TANE build 76401.
76401 is the only version I seem to be able to download. I read somewhere that build numbers may be different for versions downloaded from Steam.
I bought direct from N3V.

I am currently using Windows 7 x64
TransDem 2.5.1 x64
TANE 76401
TrainzImporter_111019
OS Panorama 50 ASCII DEM data


Some 3D tiles build successfully, others do not. I've tried exporting smaller quantities of 3D UTM tiles (5 at a time) and again it seems hit or miss (same tiles always fail).

I can work with 2D tiles as these export and import to TANE everytime, but the 3D tiles would be better.

Is it possible to send my DEM and map files to someone to do a test build?

John

Yes, do so. Pack both the TransDEM-generated route and scenery folders into a zip, rar or 7z archive and send it to me, preferably through a file hoster, since it may be too big for an email attachment.

On what kind of hardware?

Hi Roland,

Hardware is:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz
4GB RAM
NVidia Geforce GTX 650 Ti 2GB

I have sent you an email on this forum with a link to my files.

Thanks

John

Hello John, thanks for the data.

It's not the hardware. 3D UTM tiles prefer multicore CPUs, it speeds up generation (at the cost of heat development) but it's also subject to occasional synchronization trouble between processes. That's why TransDEM writes those log files, but no such issues are found here.

The problem lies elsewhere. It appears that all the faulty tiles partially lie outside available height data. The faulty tiles are all located near the edges of your route. Height for 3D tiles is taken from the Trainz route, not from the original DEM. The result may be a corrupt mesh and the error message "invalid position data" suggests this (I misunderstood the meaning at first).

I would have expected TransDEM to detect missing height data - there are already quite a few filters in place here - but either it did not work or the filter does not yet exist for that case. (Goes to the todo list.)

You could export a bigger route that extends at least one baseboard further in all directions. However, the original O/S DEM chunk may not be large enough, so you may have to load and merge ("Add DEM") additional chunks.

Independent of the faulty UM tile problem: You apply a standard topographic map to the UTM tiles. That's fine, but perhaps not really necessary. For this scale and resolution, ground textures usually suffice (10 m Trainz terrain grid is good for 1:50,000, 5m grid for 1:25,000). Did you install the TransDEM ground textures for T:ANE with Content Manager?

Thank you for looking in to the problem Roland. I will export more baseboards as suggested and will let you know how I get on.
I have the ground textures installed and they do work, but they seem blurred. The 3D tiles however are really sharp.

Thank you again.

John

You could try generating the baseboards with the 5 m terrain grid. Then it should be sharp enough for 1:25,000 scale. Again, there is nothing wrong with using UTM tiles. Ground textures might just be quicker.