Scenario idea - heightmap ?

[j484fan]

Ok, I'm totally missing something here and not sure what I may have done wrong. I selected the Wolverine's tutorial and each time I select run I get a message that says;

This application has failed to start because netcdf.DLL was not found. Rein-stalling this application may fix the problem.

I may have overlooked something else I need to DL that I don't have, what do I need to do?

[Hawk]

Assuming you're talking about getting that error trying to rum Microdem, check these link:

http://66.7.193.135/forum/viewtopic.php ... 5f621924fe

http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?s=70 ... ntry561717 - starting about post 8.

[j484fan]

Ok, now I have another issue. The version I DL has some differences from what Wolveriene's tutorial shows. Buttons or places to mark in the tutorial, no longer exist in the latest version. Either that or I'm just game creation inept. I'd really like to learn how, just have a hard time following I guess.

Don't want to go to far off topic, but in reference to what I'd like to do; EAST OF MISSISSIPPI II is pretty close to what I'd like to see in a map, its just missing the area going from NY to BUF. The idea is this: maybe two versions for what I'm thinking. 1st would have to be multiplayer, having N&W in the Pocohontas especially with heavy coal traffic between Bluefield (BLFD) and Roanoke (ROA) and from there to Norfolk (NFK). Setting the piers up to request heavy loads of coal and building two stations, One near the piers being Lambert's Point the other Norfolk for the city traffic. Also have the Pennsy running in this with the NE corridor being the target to get into full swing, plus any local connections for local freight to bring onto the mainline for further destinations. Then connecting to Harrisburg (2 yards here for HSBG yard and Enola Yard), Altoona, Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Having edge of map slightly past there with off map location for Chicago bound traffic. Then would come the New York Central and the famed Water Level Route going as far as Cleveland and off map from there to DET-CHI. Somehow setting the scenario up so that as the game progresses you have what eventully becomes Penn Central and then later Conrail and N&W becoming Norfolk Southern. With a time frame of that all eventually becoming engrafted into the NS system. I also for some reason cant DL Trainmaster on my computer, and one reason may be I don't have windows vista. Not in the position to deal with that at this time either.

And if possible, a simplified version of this for single player.

[nedfumpkin]

I've pretty much got a heightmap tga of the area covered by the N&W routes...it's just a matter of converting that into a TM map. I'll post it when it is done.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Ok, now I have another issue. The version I DL has some differences from what Wolveriene's tutorial shows. Buttons or places to mark in the tutorial, no longer exist in the latest version. Either that or I'm just game creation inept. I'd really like to learn how, just have a hard time following I guess.

They've made some changes in Microdem over the years, although the basic concepts of extracting heightmap data remains the same: locate the area you want to use, use the "Zoom" factor to adjust one of the dimensions to comply with the "64N-1" rule, adjust the map coordinate limits of the other dimension to comply with the "64N-1" rule, apply the 0-9999 elevation colors, save as a BMP, convert to TGA.

Someday, if I have the time I will update the Tutorial to use the current Microdem version.

[Grandma Ruth]

..it's just a matter of converting that into a TM map.

ned, I've got a RT2 (two) map I want to convert to TM. Can it be done, do you think? Any ideas how?

[nedfumpkin]

Not that I can think of...I am of the opinion thatTM works better with maps made from scratch...but that's a personal preference.

[Hawk]

They've made some changes in Microdem over the years, although the basic concepts of extracting heightmap data remains the same:

It would appear that the link is different than the one you give in your tutorial too.

This link: https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/gtopo30/gtopo30.asp brings up this page:

Click on image to view full size

I wanted to try Microdem to make a new map.

[Wolverine@MSU]

So it is. The new link is:

http://eros.usgs.gov/#/Find_Data/Produc ... opo30_info

[Hawk]

Thanks Wolvy. Now to try and use Microdem V-12 using your V-8 tutorial.

I'm assuming that the exe in the update zip you supply is an outdated exe and should not be used, but what about the xls and dbf files?

[Hawk]

I'm a little confused here, not about Microdem but the size of the map. Here's what I have.

In your tut you say this:

Decide the number of horizontal cells (East/West) you want on your final map. Say you want the RT3 map to be 448 cells from left to right (64 x 7). Zoom out to give a view of the displayed map that has 448 pixels in the horizontal direction.

How do I determine the cell count for the final map from the data in the screen-shot, aside from the 64 rule (shouldn't that be 64+1 )?

[Wolverine@MSU]

The .EXE file was a custom executable to allow elevation databases of 1024 entries; the V12 Microdem does this now, so the .EXE in the ZIP is no longer needed (and probably won't work in V12 anyway). The .DBF file is still necessary as it supplies the correct colors for elevations. The .XLS file is also still useful for placing things like cities and other "points of interest" on the map if the latitude and longitude are supplied.

[Wolverine@MSU]

How do I determine the cell count for the final map from the data in the screen-shot, aside from the 64 rule (shouldn't that be 64+1 )?

You don't "determine" it from the data in the screen shot. You decide what size you want your map to be (and yes, it should be 64N + 1) and use a zoom factor to acheve that size in Microdem. So if you wanted 449 pixels wide (7 x 64 + 1) you would use a zoom factor of 449/1317 (0.340926347). Once you have the horizontal size defined, you trim the top and or bottom to a 64N + 1 vertical by adjusting the latitudes at the top and bottom with the "keyboard corners".

[Hawk]

The .EXE file was a custom executable to allow elevation databases of 1024 entries; the V12 Microdem does this now, so the .EXE in the ZIP is no longer needed (and probably won't work in V12 anyway). The .DBF file is still necessary as it supplies the correct colors for elevations. The .XLS file is also still useful for placing things like cities and other "points of interest" on the map if the latitude and longitude are supplied.

That's what I suspected but wasn't sure.

You don't "determine" it from the data in the screen shot. You decide what size you want your map to be (and yes, it should be 64N + 1) and use a zoom factor to acheve that size in Microdem. So if you wanted 449 pixels wide (7 x 64 + 1) you would use a zoom factor of 449/1317 (0.340926347). Once you have the horizontal size defined, you trim the top and or bottom to a 64N + 1 vertical by adjusting the latitudes at the top and bottom with the "keyboard corners".

Your help here tells me that I didn't ask the question right.

How do I decide on what I want the cell count to be? What's average for a map? What's the max for a map?

I'm trying to create a new Southeast USA map. My plan is to try and create a scenario about the birth of Georgia railroading but I would need to include some Alabama cities as well as some in Tennessee, South & North Carolina, and possibly a couple of Florida cities.
I looked at the default Southeast USA map but didn't like it as much as what I hope a Microdem map would be like.

I understand that the max pixel size for a map is 1024 but pixels and cells are two different things, right? How many pixels in a cell?

Does that make sense?

[Wolverine@MSU]

Yes it does.

If your heightmap is fewer than 1025 pixels in both directions, then each pixel on your heightmap will become one cell in RT3 (actually, each pixel in the map will be a corner of a cell on the map, which is why you need one more pixel in each direction than the number of cells you want). If your heightmap is greater than 1025 pixels, RT3 will ask for a size of the final map when you import the heightmap (not preferred; see below).

As for what the final size of a map should be, that's the designer's decision. It has to do with how big an area you're trying to depict, what level of topographic detail you want, how far apart (in track miles) you want things to be etc. Remember that track miles are fixed relative to the map cell. The number of track miles from Atlanta to Acworth will vary depending on the size of the map (number of map cells between them). Now that computer CPU and graphics cards are pretty much not a limiting factor, you can go for bigger maps (more pixels on the heightmap) without running into hardware limitations.

A word of caution about resizing a heightmap made in Microdem: Don't do it! Make your heightmap from Microdem exactly the size you need. If you use an editing program or the RT3 import to resize/rescale a heightmap, you may run into problems with interpolating color values (heights), which can do weird things to coastlines.

[Hawk]

OK! Now I think I understand.

[nedfumpkin]

Yes it does.

you may run into problems with interpolating color values (heights), which can do weird things to coaslines.

Yeah...just look at Lousiana! :)



...sorry couldn't resist.

[Hawk]

Well, I finally got through the tutorial and got the map into RT3, but then I come up with this in the Northeast corner.

Not sure what I did wrong but I reckon I'll try again.


Edit 1: It just dawned on me what caused that spike in the terrain.

How do I get rid of that color bar and those black X's? They also show up in the map in RT3

Here's a crop of the saved bmp.

Edit 2: OK! I figured out how to get rid of the black X's. That's the grid and I found where to turn that off, but what about that color bar overlay?

[Wolverine@MSU]

click on ""Modify" in the menu bar, then "Map Marginalia" and uncheck the "Elevations" box. I'm working from V11, but V12 should be similar.

[Hawk]

That did the trick.

I looked everywhere for somehow to turn that off, but never imagined it would be under "Map Marginalia".