how to use redem

[thecanadianrail]

can somebody explane to me in depth! how to use redem and make it into a route in more detail than the manual.

[RedWhistle]

I can give it a shot, with the way I did it...

0) Backup your current railworks installation.
1) Determine where you want to start your route; e.g. use Google Earth to find the lon/lat point of the place where the route will start, like a station, yard, or some other geographical feature that strikes your fancy.
2) Write those numbers down on a piece of paper.
3) Create a new default route in RW and use the numbers on your paper for the route origin. You can use another template besides the default if you want different sky blueprints or initial ground texture, etc.
4) Look at flatland for a bit, SAVE the route, CLOSE RW completely.
4a) Run another backup of your RW install.
5) Here's where maybe it gets tricky, creating marker files for ReDEM.
5a) Using Google Earth, create a track path for your route. This one doesn't HAVE to be detailed. You may want to add some points to this path that are further away from the route than the track. The idea is to make sure that all surrounding tiles from your route's track path are rendered by ReDEM.
5b) Save the path as KML (not kmz)
5c) Open RWTools. Go to Route Building Tools -> Marker Files -> Convert Marker Files. This function will create a .csv file from the .kml file made by Google Earth in step 5b. Choose where to save, click Proceed, browse and highlight your .kml file, click Process.
5d) Verify that the new .csv file is in the folder where you wanted to save it.
6) Open ReDEM.
7) Enter your route start (route origin) from your piece of paper. (Also available in an xml file from step 4, but don't worry about that unless you lose your piece of paper. )
8) Click "load" button.
9) Select the .csv file from the folder you checked in step 5d. Note: Make sure you have the browser's files-of-type drop list set to "*.csv", the default is ".mkr" type markers.
10) Open the file and it will populate the four lat/lon numbers and the marker file field in ReDEM.
11) Follow the ReDEM help from here, to the letter.
12) Open RW launcher program.
13) Tools & Docs -> Clear the Blueprint Cache. (recommend doign this every time you run, especially doing route building).
14) Start RW and choose to edit your route you created in step 3, and see the view!

A few other thoughts...

Your route start marker may be at (or near) 0 elevation, so when you open your route in RW after ReDEM, you'll see the skydome; this is okay. Grab the route start marker and guide it upward with the blue arrow until you "punch" through the surface of the ground. There may be a better way to do this (or to manually set the route start marker height via XML... I don't see a way in RWTools... much to learn about that software... )

Don't go too big with the "Range" value. 2 is good max, 3 is probably the more than you'll ever want or need... 2 tiles away is a long way to see from a train or even from sky. When distant mountain rendering improves, more than 3 tiles away may be desirable, but not now I don't think. If you select too big an area with your markers or the "Range" is too large, you will need multiple downloads from USGS and, thus, multiple runs of ReDEM to make all the tiles. I'm not sure how that works, but I know on one of my attempts I had to get two files from the USGS seamless server. Since I wasn't sure how to combine the output of two runs of ReDEM, I chose a smaller area and it seems to have worked out. I think it may be possible to combine the output terrain (as long as the route start point is the same for each run!) for separate files from USGS. Actually, that reminds me, I think Tori mentioned something about combining 1/3 and 1/9 arc-second tiles, so search around for that too.

DO NOT HIT "t" KEY in World Editor mode. If you hit the "t" key, it will drop the terrain back to zero elevation for the tile you're on and the surrounding 8 tiles (a 9-tile square from your position in the editor)! You'll have to restore the terrain files if you save the route after doing this. BACK UP YOUR RW INSTALL AFTER EACH RW RUN DURING THIS PHASE.

EDIT: I changed above paragraph "groud level" to "zero elevation". Also, do not use the "level" terrain tool, as it still thinks level is zero elevation, and you'll get a deep hole down to 0 elevation. Use Ctrl+z or "undo arrow" to undo the change if you use the "level" terrain tool by accident.

If you grade or sculpt any part of your terrain, the .bin terrain files will get updated as you might expect. Restoring the terrain from ReDEM output will lose all your terrain height changes (like the grade you may have modified for track, etc.)

Backup early, backup often.

... any corrections, clarifications, or other thoughts welcome. Your mileage may vary, especially if you use your reverser instead of brakes.

[thecanadianrail]

thanks i will try that now

[micaelcorleone]

From the first to the last step?
Ok. This will take some time.

First of fall insert start long and lat which should be the same as in your route template (best is to set this up with RWTools).

Now you'll have to load your markers. You can create thise markers using Google Earth (one marker should have the exact start long and lat of your route template).

This is done by adding "Placemarks" (I don't know if it has any affection if you name them?). All the route placemarks should be in the Google Earth left column.
You can now rightklick the folder and save it as a ".kml" file on your PC. Use RWTools to konvert this ".kml" file into a ".csv" file.
This ".csv" file can now be loaded into ReDem.

Now we come to step 3, the suggested Dem bounds.
You can set the number of Range tiles. This influences the number of tiles (which are about 1 squaremile each I think) which are around the tile which is directly set on the marker wich have been created earlier.
This means that you can control how many miles of terrain will be created around your markers.
Depending of how far your markers are away from each other and if you want for example mountains in the distance to display you'll have to increase the number of these tiles.

Now ReDem will calculate the Dem Bounds for you.
Go to the National Seamless Servers (http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.htm).
Follow the instructions of the ReDem manual how to insert theses generated coordinates into the Servers and how to grab the data.
Remember: I recommend to download the 1/3 arch data only as the 1/9 arch data is only availble in limited places and different datasets could lead to problems.

Step 4 is to load the info into ReDem.
Unzip the downloaded files and load it into ReDem.
Maybe you had to download the data from the seamless servers in several single downloads.
No problem: Just insert the downloaded data into ReDem in steps (in a row/ multiple steps/ each data for itself and then repeat the process) and the Dem will be created out of the many pieces of info.

Now it's step 5.
Create your tiles with ReDem. If you'll have to do this several times (due to several downloads from the seamless servers), make sure that you check the option "Overwrite Tiles" and that the created tiles are all saved into the same folder.

Now you can insert all the single tile/Dem data into your route's "Terrain" folder.
Clear the blueprint cache with the Railworkslauncher, start the game.
Select your route (it has to be set up before the ReDem process) and all the Terrain should be there.

Et voila!
Puuhh, a long post and I hope this is enough explained.
Any questions? -> Ask me.

[thecanadianrail]

great right now i am on the google earth part. i found a place i liked and got 146 miles in and guess what town shows up, Minturn! so i guess i will be building from the tennissee pass west?!? or is somebody already doing this?

[micaelcorleone]

About that what RedWhistle said:

It's no problem to use more than the 2 tiles he suggests.
It depends on the type of route you develop.
It's also not necessary to do a path you can also use single markers.
And combining the different downloads is no problem.
I did it for my Feather River Canyon route and had no problems.

[thecanadianrail]

i am having problems, when i try and convert the markers from google earth with RW.tools in the middle of the process i get an eror that it did not work properly, and when i load it in redem nothing shows up in the markers area.

[RedWhistle]

About that what RedWhistle said:

It's no problem to use more than the 2 tiles he suggests.
It depends on the type of route you develop.
It's also not necessary to do a path you can also use single markers.
And combining the different downloads is no problem.
I did it for my Feather River Canyon route and had no problems.

Cool, glad to hear it's okay to "go big" and also that combining different downloads will work. Thanks!
This makes me want to do more routes...

Also, as long as you're backing things up regularly, feel more comfortable experimenting more. Make several routes that you might not do anything with, get used to ReDEM and RWTools. Of course, I (like others I'm sure) recommend RWDecal also, as it makes prototypical track and other detail work MUCH easier (nay, in some cases, makes it possible) where otherwise it's hard to do.

Red

[RedWhistle]

i am having problems, when i try and convert the markers from google earth with RW.tools in the middle of the process i get an eror that it did not work properly, and when i load it in redem nothing shows up in the markers area.

Hrm, dunno. It's a KML file right? The file should be fairly small, and not have thousands of points. Holding the mouse button down to make a path in Google Earth will make a path with thousands of points, just click and release for each point. Should be on the order of a few to several dozens (if you've made it more detailed), but not hundreds necessarily... and should not be thousands and thousands.

Keep tryin'!

Red

[thecanadianrail]

well the error message says that an error has occoured while writing markers.

[RedWhistle]

Make sure you are running RWTools as an administrator if this is Windows 7. Right-click on the shortcut for RW_Tools -> Properties -> Advanced -> Check the box "Run as administrator". That might be the problem, not sure though.

Red

[micaelcorleone]

Make sure you are running RWTools as an administrator if this is Windows 7. Right-click on the shortcut for RW_Tools -> Properties -> Advanced -> Check the box "Run as administrator". That might be the problem, not sure though.

Red

This also applies for Vista.

Try if it's the same with single markers.
Do you use this option: "Route Building Tools" -> "Marker Files" -> "Convert Marker Files" That should be the right option.
Also look under "Help" -> "Contents". The process how to create a ".csv" file is explained there.

Maybe you haven't saved the path in Google Earth in an extra folder?
Attention: There should be one custom folder under "My Places" were your path/Markers should be. (You have to set up this folder by yourself!)
Only save this folder by rightklicking as a ".kml" file.

[thecanadianrail]

no, that did not work.......

[Trainguy76]

no, that did not work.......

Which part, the markers or the terrain?

If the markers, when you create them (correctly) you must

Start RW, clear the cache, then start the program, Run your route and enable the markers by selecting your folder in the right hand flyout.
Then you must save and close RW, and then start RailWorks again, and go back into your route and the markers will be there.

The "restart" of RailWorks is due to when RailWorks updates it's "list" of markers in the program.

[thecanadianrail]

no no no, when i am transferring the files from google earth to something that redem can use via RWtools, RWtools gets an error. i am not even at the part where i select the markers in the editor!