First things first I do have to apologise for not working on it for some time but I simply didn't know how to do certain things however I have managed to resolve these issues and the tool is finally here and available. I had to cut down my goals a bit but I believe that it does not affect the purpose of this tool. I hope that it does not give me a bad reputation. What is it The TS DEM importer is a tool designed to import high resolution elevation maps into Train simulator to provide better landscape quality for route building. Limitations There are two main limitations releated to the DEMs. 1. They must use meters as units. Not degrees. 2. All DEMs that you are trying to import must use the same DEM datum. Requirements This program requires GDAL from the OSGeo4W package so you must have that installed. How to use 1. import all of your landscape tiles using Train simulator's built in landscape import tool. This will tell the DEM importer what area do you want to import. 2. Backup your route. I have tested this tool quite a bit and it haven't failed but that does not mean that it's perfect. 3. Convert your route's origin to the coordinate system used by your DEM. Spoiler: Links that might help with that A good DEM datum converter can be found here. Here are some DEM datums that I have used: USGS 1 meter DEM datum: EPSG:26910 Alaska 5 meter DEM datum: EPSG:6393 Austria 10 meter DEM datum: EPSG:31287 4. Launch the TS DEM importer from the command line with arguments. The correct syntax is "TS dem importer simple.exe" <route_dir> <dem/txt> <x> <y> Spoiler: Explanation of the arguments <route_dir> Location of your route. Wrap it in quotes if it contains any spaces. Example: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Content\Routes\0349f149-8da0-40db-b7fc-d45290c5f7dd" <dem/txt> Location of the DEM that you want to import or a text file containing locations of multiple DEMs (one per line). Wrap it in quotes if it contains any spaces. Example: "E:\Landscapes\myDEM.tif" or "E:\Landscapes\list.txt" <x> <y> Coordinates of your route's origin converted to the datum of your DEM. Example: 505608 413000 5. Let it finish. It will take a while. All the processing is done in a temporary location and then applied to your route so a crash of the tool won't damage your route in any way. 6. Open your route in the Train simulator route editor and you should see a new landscape. About the files This is pretty self explainatory but I'll document it anyway. The "binaries" zip file contains just the compiled executable to be used by the end user. The "source" zip file contains the full C# source code of the program in case anyone wants to take a look at it (Warning, it's a bit messy). I hope I haven't missed anything and that this small documentation is usable.
I will check this out. It might be of some use to me, To get some high res DEM into TS for Australian and some others I have in mind. The DEM for Australia that can be used by default in the editor, is pretty useless, Being able to use the 5 Meter or 1 Meter is more useful.
Bumping an ancient thread, I know. But I was looking for an easier way to import LiDAR and came across your tool Tomas. I followed the instructions but its spitting out this error: N:\>"TS Dem importer simple.exe" "L:\ExpandedSteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ts14Alpha\Content\Routes\318238a5-6c83-4257-a868-661e6aa454ec" "N:\ChChDEM\List.txt" 1577323.2719470744 5171625.882780413 This operation will remove and overwrite any landscape information that is present in your route. Are you sure you want to continue? [no]: yes Copying terrain tiles to a temporary location... Converting terrain tiles from bin to xml... Unhandled Exception: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The system cannot find the file specified at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithCreateProcess(ProcessStartInfo startInfo) at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start() at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo startInfo) at TS_DEM_importer_simple.SysTools.launchProgram(String program, String arguments) at TS_DEM_importer_simple.TSTools.bulkConvert(FileInfo[] files) at TS_DEM_importer_simple.Program.Main(String[] args) The List.txt I have tried with both full paths in the list and as just the .tiff name, I have OSGeo4W installed for GDAL etc. Interested if you have any thoughts!
Sorry but, I stopped caring about the program (and the process in general) a long time ago so I don't think I remember anything about it anymore. Not to mention how terribly it was written at the time (made for personal use with some docs slapped on top due to high interest from other people) with all the hooks to install directories of other programs, lack of proper XML and most likely a bunch of other things that could break so easily. So yeah, this thing always sucked and I'm not proud of it in the slightest but at least it might have inspired the official LIDAR implementation in TSW.
Sounds interesting, I was recently experimenting with importing Lidar files and ended up with scenery assets which had the correct contours but none of the attributes of terrain. I will check the app over the next few weeks and see if it works for me.
