TransDEM Forum

I have a router for which I downloaded maps as you can see on the following image:



(image URL if image is not shown: https://prnt.sc/uwm37w)

The question is how can I effectively add some more tiles along the route, but a little bit farther from it? If I need to go one by one, can I somehow preselect the area for which to download tiles? If I just create a rectangular selection and open Map tile servers, I cannot move the map to that location, even if I click the left arrow.

If your creating a simple route in DEM you can specify how many tiles wide you would like (I do 13 for example forget what the default is). For UTM's the default is 2 (but I've set it to 3).

Does that help? If not let me know.

Thanks

Sean

Hi Sean,

Thanks for your reply. I think it's a simple route what I'm trying to create. How/where can I set these values? (I know I can tell the number of tiles during export, but I'm trying to find a way to download them at all first.)

Gus

Page 31 of the English manual you'll see an image. On the left hand side is Route Filter. Make sure you have a route set in simple route editor. This is where you set the number of baseboards. The default appears to be 2 here, I was actually using 13. This is for exporting the DEM.

On page 37 you'll see again on the left hand side route filter. This is for the UTM export. Here it's especially important to select route filter over a large area as your limited to I believe 30 UTM tiles per export without route filter. If you have route filter I believe the limit is 1000 (and I have more than 1000). So in my case I have to do a few exports in different overlapping areas, or merge routes together in Trainz. I chose the later since it allows me to work on parts of the route now while leaving expansion for down the road.

Thanks

Sean

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the explanation, it's much clearer now and I'll give it a try soon. What I don't really get still is how to tell TransDEM to download that many tiles? It's okay that I can tell it the radius upon export, but I don't really know how can I tell it when in the Map Tile Servers dialog to download tiles for a radius of, say, 3 tiles. Therefore no matter what high radius I set upon export as I don't have the tiles only for a radius of like 2.

Gus

I believe it defaults to 2. So again you must use the simple route editor in TransDEM and draw a line representing the track (or really any feature you want to include if not track). You can select a huge square that's only the area it will apply to. Then you select that window I showed you for the route filter and that is how it will filter x number of tiles away from that line.

Transdem will only place a tile for the following at that point:
1) an area that actually has a DEM map (I could be wrong on that)
2) tiles only x number of tiles radius from that line.

UTM will work the same way in it's own filter but UTM tiles are 1000m long by default (I think you can set it to 500) where as the baseboards are 720. If you zoom in close enough you can make sure Transdem shows these grids. The baseboards is in the trainz menu. I forget which menu offhand the default UTM to 1000 showing is. But that will also give you an idea how far and wide it's going to attempt.

UTMs on the other hand will only place for the following
1) same as above
2) same as above
3) If there is an actual baseboard present in the bottom left hand corner of the UTM.
4) There are rules on duplicates but you can set what you want it to do here.

When you upload the UTM's you will likely get some warnings about tiles that don't meet these conditions. After all your selecting a square and most routes are not a perfect left to right or up and down line.

Remember that if you create routes to remove all files from your edits folder inside Trainz. Otherwise as the manual suggests strange things will start happening.

Hope that helps.

Sean

Thanks, I think the key is to draw a route along which I want the UTMs to download. I hoped I can just draw the "actual" route, that is, the path of a railway track, and can avoid adding "spikes" to areas that I want to include along the route. But it's okay if I can't, I just thought of it as a nicer solution, if viable.

Depends how far away it is as well. The way I see it if my train can't see it in the image it's not worth bothering. In fact what will likely happen is I will remove baseboards down the road as I find areas that are simply not visible to the track even in images from the air.

Thanks

Sean

I went for the same, expect that I want to make sure that the scene doesn't end suddenly even if you have a chasing cam or a pre-set cam somewhere on the sky.

Simple you create your tile width further as mentioned. I use 13 baseboards, and 3 UTM tiles. Then you use the method I mentioned to have lower quality UTM images with more detail on top.

If your absolutely insisting on detailed UTM's then your going to wind up having to draw more track lines. But the UTM's should eventually be deleted once you have your scenery in anyways.

Thanks

Sean