The "Entire World Map"

[TrainMan_112]

Hi. I've read posts about MSTSX including the alost all of the rail lines in the world. Does it include DEM terrain? How about textures? (Ground color?)

[keber]

Terrain and ground textures will almost certainly be taken from existing FS-X library. About rail lines, many thing are rumored. However, they certainly won't be available as exactly as they are in real world (especially big rail yards and industrial spurs). At making new, provided tracks will certainly need to be realigned.

Still, we must wait and see.

[Thunder]

I wish we will be able to see the difference in 79mph tracks vs 15 mph tracks. I want to see the humps and warps in an old slow line.

[sstyrnol]

>Terrain and ground textures will almost certainly be taken
>from existing FS-X library. About rail lines, many thing are
>rumored. However, they certainly won't be available as exactly
>as they are in real world (especially big rail yards and
>industrial spurs). At making new, provided tracks will
>certainly need to be realigned.
>
>Still, we must wait and see.

Again speculation! We don't know that! MS clearly stated they would take railroad information from commercial data providers which may or may not have a significantly sufficient data resolution to allow for satisfying results. Everything else would IMHO be futile to release.

They also clearly stated that they were employing a data team to process the data.

I think we should refrain from speculating so much, as it will create rumours and expectations of features we KNOW (irony!) they are in the new sim and which are likely to lead to flame wars!

[tdragger]

>I think we should refrain from speculating so much, as it will
>create rumours and expectations of features we KNOW (irony!)
>they are in the new sim and which are likely to lead to flame
>wars!

I disagree. All this speculating gives me something to read with my morning coffee! ;)

[High Iron]

You my friend, are sadistic.
:D

Cheers,
High Iron

[djt]

“I disagree. All this speculating gives me something to read with my morning coffee!”

That is if you can keep the coffee in your mouth between laughs.

[TrainMan_112]

>>Terrain and ground textures will almost certainly be
>taken
>>from existing FS-X library. About rail lines, many thing
>are
>>rumored. However, they certainly won't be available as
>exactly
>>as they are in real world (especially big rail yards and
>>industrial spurs). At making new, provided tracks will
>>certainly need to be realigned.
>>
>>Still, we must wait and see.
>
>Again speculation! We don't know that! MS clearly stated they
>would take railroad information from commercial data providers
>which may or may not have a significantly sufficient data
>resolution to allow for satisfying results. Everything else
>would IMHO be futile to release.
>
>They also clearly stated that they were employing a data team
>to process the data.
>
>I think we should refrain from speculating so much, as it will
>create rumours and expectations of features we KNOW (irony!)
>they are in the new sim and which are likely to lead to flame
>wars!

We can speculate all we want. YOU can be the decider in which to believe it or not. If there was no speculation there wouldn't be a whole lot to discuss at this point.


If that data is there, and we have decent, half easy to use editors, ( I know, it won't be perfect) it will "motivate" a lot of people to create routes. (myself included) I think that if the concept is executed properly, we will see A LOT of prototypical routes being developed.

[eaglefan9727]

With the "World Of Rails" concept, If the Southern Pacific Lorsdburg division is laid out with the track. I will probably decide on doing that route as I like that division alot. Especially if the RE is easy to do.

[Turbo Bill]

I will detail as many of the lines I used to run on too, if the editors are easy to use. This could open up a much broader train world for us to play in. I see a lot of good coming from this concept.

[TrainMan_112]

>With the "World Of Rails" concept, If the Southern
>Pacific Lorsdburg division is laid out with the track. I will
>probably decide on doing that route as I like that division
>alot. Especially if the RE is easy to do.

I'd love to see that route. Pick up the video "The Stormy" by Pentrex if you plan on doing it.

That is REAL desert railroading, in a time where it required true skill to take a train over that line.

[djt]

“That is REAL desert railroading, in a time where it required true skill to take a train over that line.”

So what happened, you no longer need any skill to run a train over it now?

[Poltergeist]

If they at least lay down the tracks for the shortlines as well as the major RRs like NS, CSX, UP, etc. I plan on doing Aberdeen Western & Carolina route that goes from Charlotte, NC to Gulf, NC & Aberdeen, NC. I hope the RE is easy to use. :)

[tcain1]

The entire world concept was something I thought (hoping) Aces was going to attempt when they first announced TS2 (Then TSX), knowing the way the FSX scenery engine works. This does present one problem however. If the rail data resolution is high enough this may not be a problem, as route builders would just have to add scenery objects. If however track is modified or repositioned in a route, it then needs to still line up with the continuing track outside of the route (scenery) boundaries, in order to maintain continuity of the trackage. In FS this isn't a problem except for the aesthetic appearance of the textures not lining up, but in a train simulator this will break the continuity of the detailed route with the rest of the line, so a way need to be found to easily reconnect them so this won't happen. Obviously some compromises may be needed, such as purposely moving the track and scenery to an inaccurate position to relineup with the rest of the world. Note with the addon capabilities of FS currently there are 3rd party scenery products such as Ultimate Terrain, that corrects positioning and adds detail to the default scenery for very large areas, like the US. There probably will be the same type of product for TS2 at some point also, unless the resolution of the default data is high enough that it makes a product like this unnecessary. This is good and bad. If it improves the detail and positioning of the default data it will make modifications to rail positioning in detailed routes unnecessary. It will though, by definition break any detailed route existing either default or 3rd party, that doesn't lineup with it.

[keber]

>>Terrain and ground textures will almost certainly be
>taken
>>from existing FS-X library. About rail lines, many thing
>are
>>rumored. However, they certainly won't be available as
>exactly
>>as they are in real world (especially big rail yards and
>>industrial spurs). At making new, provided tracks will
>>certainly need to be realigned.
>>
>>Still, we must wait and see.
>
>Again speculation! We don't know that! MS clearly stated they
>would take railroad information from commercial data providers
>which may or may not have a significantly sufficient data
>resolution to allow for satisfying results. Everything else
>would IMHO be futile to release.

Maybe you don't know, but I have some knowledge about existing railway databases. Those databases are kept in various archives, and many of them are probably even not properly digitized for using in simulator (some are probably not digitized at all). I have access to complete database of my country's railways, about 1250 km of railways (this doesn't mean railway tracks, there are much more of them), more or less only scanned paper blueprints of axis layouts and height profiles. Vectorizing them would take a lot of time, even for this small amount of less than 1000 miles of railways. I'm sure, that many more countries, including US, has similar data, that are not vectorized. If Aces would want to present those accurate data for whole world, they would need immense amount of man-hours to process them, and probably for the most of the world they wouldn't even get those data, no matter, what

So everything probably they have (or will have), are situational data, similar to RGE, only more detailed, but far from detail, used to represent prototypical railway. Maybe they will obtain those detailed data for routes, they want to represent in greater detail.

[sstyrnol]

My morning coffee made my stomach hurt... :S But you are right, it must be comic, to read what you are supposedly all developing! LOL

[sstyrnol]

>With the "World Of Rails" concept, If the Southern
>Pacific Lorsdburg division is laid out with the track. I will
>probably decide on doing that route as I like that division
>alot. Especially if the RE is easy to do.

I thought you weren't getting the sim! ;) LOL Just yanking your chain a bit though! :P

[OwainGlyndwr]

>I disagree. All this speculating gives me something to read
>with my morning coffee! ;)

I hope you choke on your doughnut. :D


Mike.

[eaglefan9727]

One day, I will be getting the sim. Probably not until I get a new PC and then I will go the ebay method as it would be probably cheaper that way.

[TrainMan_112]

I think they have a great deal of the data already processed. I'm thinking that most of the data will be taken from the FSX library. (This seems the most logical choice) This means that they already have DEM and ground texturization already complete. All that's left to do is lay track and add objects.

[Hack]

>I hope you choke on your doughnut. :D

At least allow the team to finish and deliver the product before we kill 'em off. :+

Cheers!
Marc - 3DTrains
http://www.3dtrains.com

[link:www.3dtrains.com/products/index.shtml|http://www.3dtrains.com/images/pro_funit_atsfmain.jpg]

Pro Series v4.0 SuperPacks

[OwainGlyndwr]

Sorry Marc, i wasn't thinking straight. You could always take control and do a proper job of it though. :7

Cheers,
Mike.

[tdragger]

True. We've considered this an have a number of ideas for how to solve the problem.

[tdragger]

One of the videos we showed at Leipzig illustrates how much data we have. It's much, much more than we had for FSX. It's already been digitized by various agencies and companies and is quite accurate.

[kerrgg]

["...more or less only scanned paper blueprints of axis layouts and height profiles. Vectorizing them would take a lot of time, even for this small amount of less than 1000 miles of railways. I'm sure, that many more countries, including US, has similar data, that are not vectorized."]

May I add some insight into this. Here in South Africa, Spoornet, is using a GPS to GIS technique for mapping out their trackage, by fitting a GPS locator on their locomotives, whilst they are moving along the railway lines, during normal opperations, or fitted to track maintenance vehicles. Using the locomotives gives a quick overall set of data, taken at set intervals of say around every 30 seconds, (a distance of 1km), and the track maintenace vehicles would give a point to point of say 0.5 metres (1 1/2') to 0.1 metres (4") And this will cover all their track, including Stations, yards & seldom used lines & disused lines.

This is also covers Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya & Tanzania.

It's the quickest way of collecting digital 3 dimensional spatial information for use with CAD Design, over the manual system of scanning drawings (prints), vectorizing, then touch up. (This manual process is a long, laborious task, and inherits the errors of paper stretch which at scale can be up to 100 meters out on an A0 sheet.~not fun.)

I can add that tags are also used for the positions of signals on the Line, as well as misc. railwayline structures.