Route building in a day

[styckx]

That's where it gets confusing for me.

Let's say I laid track in mid air, and that track is at 300ft altitude. Then hit T to bring in the DEM for that tile and that the "ground" for that is at 1000ft. Wouldn't the track be 700ft under the terrain and the magnet tool just create a giant canyon? Or will importing DEM bring the track up to its level?\

I always get confused between real life "above sea level" and the games "above terrain".

[Acorncomputer]

That's where it gets confusing for me.

Let's say I laid track in mid air, and that track is at 300ft altitude. Then hit T to bring in the DEM for that tile and that the "ground" for that is at 1000ft. Wouldn't the track be 700ft under the terrain and the magnet tool just create a giant canyon? Or will importing DEM bring the track up to its level?\

I always get confused between real life "above sea level" and the games "above terrain".

The situation you describe is a bit unlikely but the answer is that track at 300 foot inside terrain at 1000 feet would create a large cutting (canyon!) when the magnet tool was used. In practice, however, you would try to get your track laid at the right altitude using data from Google Earth and then the DEM terrain would sit neatly around it. Note that when you have laid your track to the right altitude, gradients and position, there is no need at all to touch it again. Anything you do with the terrain will not disturb the track.

Altitude is generally regarded as always above sea level whatever is referenced to it e.g. track and ground level on top of the terrain.

[sniper297]

That's one of them shortcuts that's not really a shortcut - doing fictional routes you usually lay track then sculpt terrain around it, doing prototype routes you have the markers to follow. A fictional route on DEM terrain you have to do what the real railroads did, survey the best route to lay track, balancing the number and radius of curves against the maximum desired grade and how much cutting, tunneling, and filling you'll need to do.



That's my cheat, place a lake object and stretch out to max size, move against the hillside and spray paint a contour line. Lower the lake 10 meters and spray another line, keep going until you have temporary contour lines to follow for the easiest grades. After laying track set the paintbrush to 500 meters and overspray the whole mess to get rid of the contour lines. When you run the magnet tool over the tracks, it turns from science to art - you need to decide how close to the original DEM you want to stay, resculpting some of the terrain to match the track, fill if less than 20 meters and bridge anything over 20, cuts for less than 20 meters and tunnels if over 20 meters deep. In other words, the kind of decisions the original surveyors had to make.

[Racal]

Excellent idea.
Total respect.

I am following now having the building bug.
Thanks Derek and Adam.

Regards and have a great weekend.

Dave.

[longbow]

the terrain moulds itself around the track often reflecting real life by creating cuttings and embankments where the original track layers would have found them. It does not work well in every case....

I can confirm that! The SRTM DEM data used in RW is fairly low resolution and tends to smooth out terrain peaks and troughs in hilly areas. Plus if you don't have an accurate gradient map your track elevation may be considerably awry. Thus if you are modelling a prototype route it helps greatly if you have contour maps or GE decals to confirm where the embankments and cuttings should be, rather than relying on the terrain as a guide.

[RSderek]

We hoped you found the blog useful, the track and route is just an example of what can be done in a short period of time, the guys in the challenge a few weeks back did a wonderful job too.
Route building can take an age, as can building rolling stock and assets. However, thats not to say they have too.

regards

Derek

[Acorncomputer]

Well done Adam

[Easilyconfused]

I'm impressed and am going to change the sticky to make it a permanent sticky rather than limited duration.

When it is quiet here this afternoon (at home) I will have to have a dabble and see what I can do.

[keber]

Linked blog does not exist.

[RSderek]

Hi, sorry, the first post had been removed, I have updated the link.

regards

Derek

[RSAdam]

Hiya,

That would be my fault sorry. I cleaned up some of the posts that were pre-release as they are no longer relevent. Derek must have linked directly to one of those.

Regards