QGIS .BIL File Bloat Issue

[D68js]

Hello everyone. A few months ago I posted some screens of a semi-fictional Ohio Hub route I was working on. Long story short, that project has gone defunct because I simply made too many mistakes to salvage it, but it was a huge learning experience for me.

Anyways, I have begun work on a similar route, closer to my home, and am at the stage where I need to get terrain into TS. I want to use the 1/9 arc second data that is available for the area, so I am using ReDem. As you know ReDem requires a .BIL file to make terrain, but .BIL files are no longer available from the USGS; only .IMG are. So I downloaded the 8 .IMG folders the USGS said I needed for that area and followed fecrails' tutorial referenced here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11473&p=132689&hilit=IMG+to+BIL#p132689 to merge the .IMG files into a single .BIL using QGIS.

I started the process and it seemed to be running (no CPU usage, but heavy RAM usage) so I let it go for 4.5 hours. Then my computer complained it was running out of disk space, so I checked the .BIL file size and it had grown to 225GB! I figured this can't possibly be right, so I stopped the process and deleted the .BIL file.

Did I do something wrong or is QGIS doing something wrong? My area is not big enough to need 225GB of terrain data, when the process was still running.

TL;DR QGIS bloated my 8 .IMG files into a 225GB .BIL before I stopped it. What is wrong?

[Bananarama]

Try this instead (2nd post, Quantum GIS (QGIS) + ReDem sections): http://www.3dtrains.com/forums/index.ph ... ap-viewer/

[D68js]

Thanks for the quick reply! I am going to show my inexperience here; do I need to use that method to create a .BIL for each .IMG file I have and then use ReDem on each .BIL file?

[Bananarama]

Thanks for the quick reply! I am going to show my inexperience here; do I need to use that method to create a .BIL for each .IMG file I have and then use ReDem on each .BIL file?

Yes - IIRC, that's how I did it here.

[D68js]

I followed your tutorial and it worked! Thank you very much.

However, when I put the .bin files that ReDem created into Assets/D68js/Summit and Southern Railroad/Terrain, TS now crashes when I try and load the route? Did I make a mistake somewhere?

EDIT: I have confirmed it has to be something related to the terrain files because if I remove them then the route loads fine. I have also attempted to run the .BIL files through ReDem again but it did not help.

[Bananarama]

The generated files need to be placed into the Terrain folder of your route in the Content directory and not the Asset one.

[D68js]

Thanks Hack! I really appreciate it.