TransDEM Forum

Hello, all.

Following this tutorial, I went ahead and my first attempt at making a route in TransDEM. Not a long route, but a railfanning layout centered on Bryan, Ohio. Going for 20 miles east/northeast from the Indiana/Ohio border to just outside Archbold, with Bryan right in the middle. Did have a delay with Malwarebytes blocking JOSM, but i got that resolved quickly, so in about an hour, i was able to follow all the steps, and import the route to Trainz, which i did a few days ago.

Quickly, however, i came across a problem - many of the baseboards between both ends are just straight up missing, including a big gap which you can see in this picture here (Still some baseboards extending out that i have to delete, but i'm putting that off for now)

Yes, i am using TS12, even though i have TRS2019 (but with one of JR's SD70MAC i tried to install ending up faulty, i'm not exactly ready to move over entirely yet)

From my judgement, according to memory of how i did the route, there are a couple of things i have wondered about the cause of this.

1: I didn't have Fixed 1000 m Grid Width on, but i'm not sure that would cause any issues here.
2: The number of baseboards it said that it would be was 77 east-west, and 42 north-south...don't know if that's what's showing on-screen. Maybe i should have checked my zoom level in TransDEM? I don't know.
3: Maybe adding all the secondary and tertiary roads along the way could have had something to do with it? Probably not adding roads in any DEM i do ever again if so, and will draw the road map up myself.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated, as i have already accepted this route will have to be re-done yet again, and i do plan to get started on an actual route sometime soon (first, either the BNSF Delta Sub from Sikeston all the way down to West Memphis, or the CSX Sanford Sub, don't know yet), so the idea of still having this issue when i want to work on future projects is a nightmarish thought for me.

Baseboard export is governed by two filters, if present, combined by logical AND:

1. The rectangular export mask
2. Any vector data loaded

77 x 42 would specify the baseboards according to either the entire map area in TransDEM the export mask. With no vector data, you would get exactly those. However, with vector data, this works as an additional filter and will only create only those baseboards with vector lines on them or those nearby, up to a maximum lateral distance as specified in the "Route Filter". It does not matter what the vector data represents. For a baseboard to created, it must be in the range of some vector line.

Alright, thanks for telling me. I'm guessing that either the roads did have something to do it, or i didn't include as much in JOSM as i should have. While i figure that out, i've gone ahead and deleted the route, and all the tiles with it. My map source for the tile servers is OSM, of course.

Did find a tutorial for OSM vector data on this forum in another thread, so i'm gonna read that and see if it helps.

I wrote the JOSM tutorial a few years ago mainly to demonstrate that this is one of the possible approaches to obtain vector data. On the other hand, it's often much quicker just to draw the essential polylines by hand, with the built-in Simple Route Editor. The accuracy of OSM data is limited, and it is 2D only. This means you will have to manually put in proper track and roads in Trainz Surveyor anyway. I believe that this video tutorial which adopts this JOSM approach makes things more complex than necessary.

Duly noted. I will agree that it is a bit complex for some, though i did follow it. I'll try it again, but without the roads, and see how it goes...i'll have another aerial image of the second route attempt if it's a similar result to this.