Overlaying Google Earth into the Route Editor

[model321]

I am having a play around in the Route Editor, although i am wondering if there is a way of overlaying Google Earth Data showing trackwork and other related infrastructure, along with buildings on the lineside etc, into the Route Editor as can be done with routes built in Railworks using the RWDecal tool. This would make it a whole lot easier to make the route as accurate as is possible, and actually follow the right alignment of the track. I know this can be done with scanning OS maps etc into the Route Editor, though is it possible with Google Earth?

Many Thanks

Matt C

[dkightley]

The closest you're going to get without expending a lot of effort, etc is to stick to using markers. But do bear in mind that the ground mesh in MSTS has a slight skew (can't remember which way!) and even markes drift slightly away from where you think they should be.

Take a look at this thread: http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 0&t=106818

The theory still stands....but the details of how you achieve the marker file may be slightly different due to the way the .kml file is created in Google.

[model321]

I am using Marker Files at the moment, and although they are accurate showing junctions and bridges etc, it would be nice to be able to follow the alignment of the route using Google Earth data. Oh well, i suppose that this is one of the limitations of MSTS.

Matt C

[dkightley]

Oh well, i suppose that this is one of the limitations of MSTS.

I wouldn't put it quite like that. More like the fact that Google Earth as we know it now came along a bit too late in the life of MSTS for anyone to see any useful benefit in developing a utility that could extract images from Google Earth and write them into textures.

Steve Nicklin ( qzdcg8 ) has been the closest I've known to getting anywhere near working out how to get aerial images into ground textures. See this thread:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... lit=google

[qzdcg8]

A nice reminder of happy times fighting with terrain images...

I so wish I had hoovered more ground textures than I did off getmapping - with a bit of perseverance I reckon I could have got most of the UK before they threw me off (and changed the interface) BUT I am convinced it can be done with Google Earth - if you switch it into FLAT mode - the magic in my solution was to apply the 'skew/twist' and this was done by looking at the Lat/Long differences between Top Left / Bottom Right corners of Tiles - my solution sadly was a bit hard coded for the North West in that it worked fine for Oxenholme to Penrith, Isle Of Man and Woodhead 3 (and that's another untold story) but not for the North Norfolk Railway - as someone else found out after I had fed them the few hundred images required

[qzdcg8]

footnote: I now have GoogleEarth running under programmatic control....