TransDEM Forum

No such plans at the moment. Even today TransDEM will easily create bigger routes than Trainz Content Manager can digest. There would be other shortcomings, too. Hence no big gain for putting in all the effort needed to convert to 64 bit.

Hello Roland

My first try-outs with the above info was not a great success. You have to feel a bit lucky selecting the right options.
Nevertheless, it's a challenge .

I also tried a solution given in the Trainz Communitiy news newsletter of march 2010. It is a article - Producing topography maps for Trainz using google earth by Ian Manion ( Vulcan ).
I tried his solution - being importing the google image as an object. The result was quite satisfactory, I could see water, track, green patches, etc. Of course, the object is geographicaly speaking not correctly placed . I could use this method with trs 2009, but not with 2010. Reason ???

Now, just finding the right options within Transdem.

Best regards

Kurt

We have to distinguish ground textures and UTM tiles here. A little bit of background information may be helpful to understand what is going on technically and what to expect from it in the Trainz route. The basic information is also in the manual, for further reading.

A cartographic map or a an aerial image are the same type of geo data source in TransDEM. They are transferred to TransDEM as raster image, an ordinary pixel image, the same you shoot with your camera. The only difference is that the TransDEM images have geo-coordinates which determine their location in the world and their scale.

Scale in TransDEM is expressed as pixels per metre that's similar to the "an inch to the mile" (or 1:64000) you find on conventional paper maps and the two are related. The larger the scale, the more pixels per metre are needed to resolve all the details of the map or aerial image.

A typical topographic paper map in 1:50000 scale can be rendered as a raster image at 1 px per 5 m without losing detail. 1:25000 would need 1px per 2.5m and for 1:5000 we reach 2px per 1m.

1:5000 is a typical scale where aerial images (or ortho-photography) enter the game. You get 1:5000 at an eye altitude of approximately 500 m in Google Earth. For Map Tile services zoom level would be 17 or 18. (Not 16 or 17 as posted previously.)

Now, as indicated above, the two ways of transferring raster images to Trainz are quite different.

Let's look at ground textures first. Ground textures in Trainz are linked to the ground vertices. A vertex is a point in the 3D space. The texture can change with each vertex (There can be more than one texture per vertex, but that's not important here). The total number of textures is limited. It used to be 250 per route, since TS2009 it's 250 per baseboard. That looks like a lot but since there are 72 x 72 = 5184 vertices per baseboard (for the 10m grid) 250 is not enough to allow an individual texture per vertex. This means we cannot use our map or photo, cut it into small pieces of 10m each, retaining its original pixel resolution, and create zillions of tiny little textures. We run out of address space immediately.

One practical solution to this was invented by the developer of the HOG tool: A small set of reusable monochrome/unicolour textures instead. A monochrome texture reduces resolution, of course, for the 10 m covered by a ground vertex there is only one colour. This effectively yields the ground texture resolution of 1px per 10m (or 1px per 5m on a 5m baseboard). The colours in the texture set are predefined. The same colours will be used over and over gain. In TransDEM, the colours are typical for topographic maps. The TransDEM set has 20 different colours. 16 of them were determined by using a mathematical process which analysed a collection of sample topographic maps from different publishers/countries. 4 colours were added manually to emphasize particular features.

This means, the ground texture feature is suitable for maps with limited resolution. A typical resolution for the 1:50000 map is 1 px per 5m, see above. Sub-sampling with 1 px per 10m is tolerable, the map remains legible. But larger scale will appear blurred, the ground textures will no longer resolve it.

There is one additional useful feature of a map ground texture: the Trainz Minimap. Even if it leaves somewhat to desire in clarity, it provides a navigation aid for the entire route from the start.

An aerial image on the other hand is completely unsuitable for a ground texture - if the intended use is that of a planning aid. Firstly, a scale of 1:50000 will not resolve the features needed and secondly, the predefined TransDEM ground texture colours are tailored for maps, not for aerial images.

This brings us to the alternative way of transferring images to TransDEM: UTM tiles. These are plain flat objects which hover above or below the actual terrain surface. Their only purpose is to carry a texture which represents an aerial image or a large scale map or plan. The UTM tile texture does not have the limitations of the ground texture. It can offer more pixels per metre and hereby render the larger scale without loss in sharpness. The tiles come at fixed sizes of either 500m or 1000m. Texture size is dependent on actual scale and can be up to 4096 pixels per tile, if permitted by the user. This offers a maximum resolution of 1 px per 12.5 cm (which may not be rendered by all graphic processors in full glory, though).

UTM tiles do not adapt to terrain, they are always flat. This is a disadvantage. They are also rather big horizontally and you still need quite a lot of them, another disadvantage.

Therefore I do not recommend to rely on aerial images and UTM tiles alone. Always use a map and ground textures first. You also get the Trainz minimap for free. Add aerial images and UTM tiles for those places where the map alone does not reveal sufficient detail for your route project.

Hello Roland,

Thank you for your extra info. However, my euro ( or other coin ) doesn't seem to fall .

I'm trying the tutorials, and I have no problem with them.

But one way or another, I don't seem to find the right procedure to obtain the thing I would like to have.

I have read some parts of the manual two even three times, but sadly I am missing something.

I will send you a PM, because I can't add the information to my reply.

Best regards

Kurt