TSRE: Map View, a top-down map of your route in the Route Editor
Starting with v0.7.8-build.1, the Route Editor has a second way to look at a route: Map View. It shows the route from straight above, like a map. You can see the whole route at once, zoom from single platforms out to a whole country, and do a lot of editing without flying the 3D camera around.
It is not a separate window. The same editor view now has two modes, 3D and Map, and you switch between them with one key. If you have used the Open Rails TrackViewer, the idea is similar, but this works inside the editor, so you can edit as well as look.
What is new
Getting started
Navigation
Map View loads no terrain heights and no 3D shapes, so it opens and moves quickly even on big routes.
Layers (Map menu)
Every layer can be switched on or off in the Map menu. These settings are separate from the 3D View menu.
Labels never overlap. When there is not enough room, the more important names win: events, then stations, platforms, sidings, markers, and OSM names last.
Editing in Map View
Selecting
Activity tools (F4)
Terrain texture painting (F2)
Geo tools (F3)
Quad Tree tool (F3 > Quad Tree > Edit Quad Tree)
Measure Distance
Setting up OSM data
Colours
Known limits
Please try it on your routes and post here what works, what does not, and what you would like to see on the map next. Screenshots of strange-looking areas are especially welcome.
Starting with v0.7.8-build.1, the Route Editor has a second way to look at a route: Map View. It shows the route from straight above, like a map. You can see the whole route at once, zoom from single platforms out to a whole country, and do a lot of editing without flying the 3D camera around.
It is not a separate window. The same editor view now has two modes, 3D and Map, and you switch between them with one key. If you have used the Open Rails TrackViewer, the idea is similar, but this works inside the editor, so you can edit as well as look.
What is new
- Map View: a fast top-down view of the track and road databases, track objects, activities, terrain, OpenStreetMap data and aerial imagery.
- Menus reorganised: the old View menu is now 3D View. There is a new Map menu with the map layers, and Map Mode is in the Window menu.
- Tools work in both modes: the tool panels stay open in Map View. Buttons for tools the map cannot support are greyed out. If such a tool is active when you switch, it is put aside and comes back when you return to 3D.
- Right-click menu on the map: tools can now offer actions for the place under the mouse (for example, terrain overlays and quad tree editing).
- Measure Distance: measures in route metres and in real geographic metres.
- Light and dark colour palettes, plus your own palettes.
Getting started
- Open a route in the Route Editor.
- Press ` (backquote, the key above Tab) or choose Window > Map Mode.
- The map opens centred where your 3D pointer was (or on the camera, if the pointer was far away).
- Press ` again to go back to 3D. The camera moves to the spot under the map pointer, above the terrain, facing the same way the map was turned.
Navigation
- Mouse wheel: zoom in and out around the mouse pointer (from about 2 cm per pixel up to 500 m per pixel).
- Left or right drag: move the map.
- Middle drag: turn the map.
- W A S D or arrow keys: move.
- Q / E: turn.
- N: back to north up.
Map View loads no terrain heights and no 3D shapes, so it opens and moves quickly even on big routes.
Layers (Map menu)
Every layer can be switched on or off in the Map menu. These settings are separate from the 3D View menu.
- Track Lines / Road Lines: the whole track and road database. Curves are drawn exactly when you zoom in close.
- Junctions / Track Ends: markers for switches and end nodes.
- Track Objects: signals, speed posts, platforms, sidings, car spawners, level crossings, hazards, pickups and sound regions, in the same colours as in 3D. Platforms, sidings and car spawners show their length along the track. Station, platform and siding names appear as you zoom in.
- Paths: the paths selected in the activity tools (F4) and the activity's player path, with their nodes.
- Activity: the player consist and loose consists drawn vehicle by vehicle at their true length (engines dark blue, wagons light blue), speed zones, failed signals, and location events with their trigger radius and names.
- Terrain: terrain textures drawn flat. How much detail you get depends on the zoom:
- view wider than 16 km: distant terrain, and tile borders only;
- 16 km to about 6 km: patch textures, and baked textures for procedural tiles;
- closer than about 6 km: full procedural terrain shading, as in 3D.
In terrain editing mode (F2) the map also shows the terrain quad tree, and tiles whose files are missing get a light red tint. - Imagery: aerial imagery of the whole world (ESA WorldCover, Sentinel-2), downloaded as you move and cached on disk. It shares the cache with Load Imagery. Off by default because it uses the internet.
- OSM Data: OpenStreetMap roads, railways, rivers, water, forests, buildings, place names and stations, read from your own .osm.pbf files. It works from street level up to a whole country. See the setup below.
- Transparent OSM Areas: draws OSM areas see-through, so you can compare them with the terrain or imagery underneath.
- Faded Overlay: fades terrain, imagery and OSM towards the background colour, so track and objects stand out. Off by default because painting needs the real colours.
- Markers: the marker set chosen in the Navi window (for example, from Route > Generate Country Places), as dots with names. Off by default, as in 3D.
- Pointer: the square under the mouse.
- Scale Bar: in the bottom-left corner.
Labels never overlap. When there is not enough room, the more important names win: events, then stations, platforms, sidings, markers, and OSM names last.
Editing in Map View
Selecting
- Click to select, just as in 3D. You get the same objects, properties window and undo. Selected objects get a cyan outline.
- When you are zoomed in, track objects are the real world objects. When you are zoomed out, they are track database items.
- You can select activity objects: single vehicles of a consist, speed zone ends and failed signals. Drag a selected activity object to move it along the track.
- World objects cannot be moved on the map, because the map has no ground heights. Use 3D for that.
Activity tools (F4)
- New loose consist, new speed zone and pick event location all work on the map. They snap to the nearest track under the mouse.
- For activity work, the map is often much quicker than 3D: you can see the whole path, every consist and every event at once.
Terrain texture painting (F2)
- Colour and texture painting, put, pick and lock texture, and procedural painting and fills all work on the map.
- Static textures need a view narrower than 16 km. Procedural painting needs the full procedural level (closer than about 6 km). At other zooms, the tool does nothing.
- Tools that paint by dragging use the left drag. Use the right drag to move the map while they are active.
- Height, water, gaps and fixed height stay 3D only.
Geo tools (F3)
- They act on the tile under the mouse, so the map is an easy way to pick tiles.
- Terrain Tile Overlay (right-click on the map): Show/Hide Loaded Overlay, Create from OSM, Create from Imagery, Save Overlay to Disk. Terrain Tile Texture: Make from Overlay, or Remove.
- Create from OSM draws the tile straight away, with no dialog. It uses your local OSM files if they cover the tile, and the OSM servers otherwise.
- Opacity slider (0-100%): blends the overlay over the terrain, in 3D and on the map.
Quad Tree tool (F3 > Quad Tree > Edit Quad Tree)
- Right-click a quad: Split Quad, Toggle Populated, Create Tile, Delete Tile.
- Careful: quad tree changes are saved at once and cannot be undone. Delete Tile removes the tile's files from disk. It asks first.
Measure Distance
- Right-click > Measure Distance, then left-drag from one point to another.
- The length is shown in route metres. If the real geographic length differs by 1 m or more, it is shown too, for example 1942 m (geo 1940 m).
- Press Escape, or use Clear Measurement, to remove the line.
Setting up OSM data
- Download one or more .osm.pbf extracts, for example from Geofabrik. Regional files are best. A whole country works too, but it needs more memory to convert.
- Put the files in one folder (subfolders are not read).
- Set that folder in Settings > Settings Editor > Maps and geodata > Geodata > OpenStreetMap data directory.
- Turn on Map > OSM Data. The first time, TSRE offers to convert each file into a sorted copy (name.tsre.osm.pbf). This takes a few seconds for a province and under a minute for a large country, and happens only once.
Colours
- Two built-in palettes: light (the default) and dark.
- To change it: Settings > Settings Editor > Interface > Route Editor > Map mode colours.
- For your own palette, put a name.json file in the map-palettes folder of the TSRE configuration directory, then enter its name in the same setting. You can set every element's colour, including the colour of each kind of track object.
Known limits
- The map has no heights. Objects cannot be moved on it, and height tools are 3D only.
- Track and road lines cannot be selected yet.
- When a terrain edit is not possible at the current zoom, nothing happens and no message is shown yet. Zoom in and try again.
- Imagery comes from one world source for now. Regional imagery sources may come later.
Please try it on your routes and post here what works, what does not, and what you would like to see on the map next. Screenshots of strange-looking areas are especially welcome.
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