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"Markers... in the river"

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Macster (547 posts)
Jun-04-02, 01:06 PM (EDT) "Markers... in the river" Well, after looking at the marker files, and comparing some interesting things.. I finally noticed that, the marker files are happily sitting in the river!!Location of Bridge at Pateros
Location of Olds Jct.
I haven't been up there yet, but I know for a fact, it is sitting in a river, I used Convert3.zip to do my markers. Guess it might be a good time to get me a Garmin GPS III at this rate. Is there any way to get the markers in the right location?
Brian E. Bundridge
Seattle, WA USA Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Markers... in the river Bodgeous Jun-04-02 1 RE: Markers... in the river Railfan727 Jun-04-02 2 RE: Markers... in the river Bodgeous Jun-04-02 3 RE: Markers... in the river zorcan Jun-05-02 4 RE: Markers... in the river landnrailroader Jun-05-02 5 RE: Markers... in the river zorcan Jun-06-02 6

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Bodgeous (103 posts)
Jun-04-02, 02:41 PM (EDT) 1. "RE: Markers... in the river" If you can determine how far off the markers are from the correct location you can apply a "correction" to the marker file.Open the marker file in a word editor and change the spaces between the fields to <tab>'s. Then copy the document with the changes to the clipboard, paste into an Excel or Works spreadsheet. Make 2 columns with the correction factors for LONG/LAT and apply those to the existing columns (add or subtract). Once that's done, apply the changes to the original LONG/LAT columns and delete the "corrections" columns. Converting into individual columns is necessary so the coordinates will occupy their own columns and can thus be corrected.Now copy the spreadsheet back to the clipboard and paste it back (Paste Special) into the word processor as unformatted Unicode text, overwriting the original data. Convert the tabs back to spaces and save the file as a Unicode text file. Try it in the Route Editor and the markers should appear in the correct locations.This works well in a relatively small area, but over hundreds of miles may not be as accurate due to map declination. You'll have to cut and try a bit.If this is too confusing as stated, e-mail me and I will try to make a step-by-step procedure for you that contains more granularity.Bill Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Railfan727 (140 posts)
Jun-04-02, 03:14 PM (EDT) 2. "RE: Markers... in the river" I used DeLorme Atlas & Gazeteer maps for Indiana and Ohio (there is one available for every state) to assist me in planning the Conrail Indianapolis Line. These maps are very accurate, and include GPS grids in the WGS84 datum (same as that used by MSTS). I computed scale factors of degrees per inch, and measured distances from the gridlines to plot the locations of markers. Most of the time, I was able to place the track within 50 feet of its actual location, and the track (and markers) closely followed the traces of the right-of-way visible in the terrain created from DEMs.The trackwork is nearly finished; I am working on putting the finishing touches on Indianapolis (trackwork only) this week.Bruce BridgesConrail Indianapolis Line
Indianapolis, IN-Marion, OH Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Bodgeous (103 posts)
Jun-04-02, 06:02 PM (EDT) 3. "RE: Markers... in the river" I use Delorme Street Atlas 9.0. It can output a route in decimal degrees as a text file that imports well into MSTS. I have found it to be very close to what I've confirmed with my Garmin GPS III and other known data. I have created markers from Jacksonville, Florida to Valdosta, Georgia for the route operated by the NS.BillBuilding the Suwanee Steam Special Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
zorcan (172 posts)
Jun-05-02, 07:30 AM (EDT) 4. "RE: Markers... in the river" It may be the DEMs you used that are the root of the problem - I understand that they can contain location errors of upto 200 metres Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
landnrailroader (274 posts)
Jun-05-02, 07:48 PM (EDT) 5. "RE: Markers... in the river" That is why, I have largely stopped using Convert to produce Marker Files.I found that a somewhat tedious, but better way, was to hand digitize marker points (wayside points i.e.) in MicroDem, and export this as a file. Someone created a program sometime back that converts the resulting file into something palatable to a spread sheet like Excel, which is then used to arrange things in the appropriate format for a marker file. There are a few steps to the process, but I found that if you do this, it then becomes very easy to locate critical fiducial points in your markers and compare those to the terrain (at this point no track has been laid.) I also use DEMEX,which in the latest version (except for the one that John says he is sending special to his registered users) allows you to offset scenery both east-west, north-south, and also vertical. So you look at your fiducial point, and decide to shift it 50 meters east. Do so, and check again. After two or three iterations of the process (regenerating scenery in between checks), you can get it right on.I can't claim credit for dreaming this up. John recommended it, and several others.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. (retired) Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
zorcan (172 posts)
Jun-06-02, 08:49 AM (EDT) 6. "RE: Markers... in the river" TSTF will create marker files with spot-on positional accuracy and allows you to import DEMS (with optional offset to correct where necessary), and then update route tiles directly.Not as fast as DEMEX at DEM import, but it has a lot of additional functionality.The ability to quickly create Track beds (thus speeding laying your tracks in RE) is one such. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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