How to use Google Maps in Train Simulator TS2014

The Google Maps Overlay is a very popular feature in TS2014. While it is very easy to use there are some fine tuning options that can really help you get the most out of it.This simple tutorial aims to demonstrate, step by step, how to begin the process of creating a route using the Google Maps Overlay.


Set up an API Key

This first step is optional but it is recommended by Google and will grant more data transfer per day from their mapping service. You will need a Google account to get a key, so if you haven’t got one of those yet, do that first.


Once you have an account. go to the Google API Console here.

Click the Create Project button. Note: If you have already done this before, you will be taken straight to the next menu and can choose from the services.

From the next screen, scroll down the long list of services until you find the “Static Maps API” service. Click this to toggle it ON, then read and review the terms and conditions. If you’re happy with these then click Accept.

From the menu on the left hand side you should now click the API Access menu option.

This screen shows a number of bits of information, the important one is in the “Simple API Access” section and is called “API Key” - it will show up as a long list of characters, symboles and numbers. This is the key that you need, select it and press CTRL+C to copy it in to your clipboard.

Start TS2014 and go to Settings followed by Graphical Settings. From here go to the new Google Map Overlay settings screen.

The top-most entry is for the Google Maps API Key. Click in this text field and press CTRL+V to paste the key in.

That’s it, you’re now set up with the API Key and you’re ready to move on to the next step.


Configuration of Google Maps Overlay

The remaining settings on the Google Maps Overlay settings screen will let you adjust how much detail is displayed, the more detail you want to display the more it will need to download.

Set the Google Maps Resolution to your preference, higher resolution data is of course preferred but 1280x1280 is four times bigger to download than 640x640 so I would suggest trying the lower resolution first to see if you get what you want.

The Map Type determines the type of image that will be displayed in the overlay. An example of each type of image is shown below (Road, Terrain, Satellite, Hybrid)

Zoom Level allows you to zoom in and get more detail, the valid range is 13-21 with 13 being the minimum amount of data and 21 being the maximum. Data for different parts of the world have different maximum zoom levels provided, if your zoom level is too high for the region you are in then you will get blank overlay tiles. In this case, keep lowering the value until you start getting mapping data. Generally 16-17 is quite well supported.

Increasing the zoom level also reduces the size of the overlay tiles which will make them conform to terrain better. There is of course a larger download required for the higher zoom levels.

Finally, Tiles Displayed controls the grid of data that will be downloaded surrounding the viewing camera. If you have used a high zoom level you may need to ask for more tiles to continue getting a reasonable coverage, if you are on a lower zoom level then you can ask for fewer tiles as each one is bigger.

You will likely find yourself back to this screen periodically to tune your settings for the region you are in or for the quality of internet connection you are using.

Now that you’ve set up the Google Maps Overlay, it’s time to build a route and see it in action.

For this tutorial we are going to focus on Sheringham on the North Norfolk Railway.

World Coordinates come in a variety of formats, so it is important to make sure you’re using the right one for TS2014. The correct format to use is “Decimal Degrees”. If you’re using the Google Earth application to get our coordinates, you can change it to report these units by going to Tools, Options and change the “Show Lat/Long” setting to read “Decimal Degrees”.

For Sheringham, the Latitude is 52.941728 and the Longitude is 1.207392. I have obtained this from the Google Earth application very simply. For your route, find somewhere reasonably central to set as the origin and ensure that you have the Lat and Long for it.


Now we’re ready to build.

First, click the BUILD menu from the front screen.

From here, click New Route.

On this screen, select the route template that you would like to use to pick up the basic textures, track types and so forth. This will usually be the route that you have on your system that you feel most matches that style of route you want to create.

It is important that you select the ground texture set first and then enter your lat and long second as selecting the ground texture set will overwrite the lat and long with the default origin of the chosen route.

Enter the lat and long, pressing enter after each one.

Finally, click Create, enter the name of your route when asked and then click OK to get into the world editor.


Enable Google Maps Overlay

Once you’re in the world editor you can simply press CTRL+G to enable the Google Maps Overlay.

Fly around the route as normal and orient yourself, it’s easy when the world is placed underneath you!

You may find it necessary to re-enter the lat/long once in the world editor and then jump to that location. You can do this by opening the compass box at the top and entering the details (ensuring to press enter after each number is typed in) followed by clicking on the white triangle on the right hand side.

Tuning the Google Maps Overlay

When the overlay is enabled a new fly-out box appears on the bottom right, move the mouse over to it to slide it out and use it.

The first slider controls the opacity of the overlay. All the way to the left the overlay will be completely invisible, all the way to the right the overlay will completely block out the ground underneath. Often you will find the most comfortable setting somewhere in the middle but it depends on what you’re trying to do so it’s useful to be able to change it quickly while you’re editing.

The second slider height of the overlay above ground level. All the way to the left means lowest and all the way to the right means highest.

The pause and play buttons are used to pause streaming the data. If you are quickly trying to fly from one point of the route to another and don’t need the overlay you may find it quicker to pause the stream, get to where you’re going and then press play again to resume it, rather than have it try to download data you don’t want.

Now get building!

...啥东西

LEO LI OF ZZ 发表于 2013-10-25 20:59
...啥东西

教程，自己翻译

这个教程是如何使用谷歌地图在TS2014

oh!!!太棒了!!!!!!!!!!!感谢!

哈哈哈 研究成功.终于可以用了!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!现在细化一下..

要是有英文好的热心人士把着教程给翻译下就好了.....

还请此处版主容我简单翻译一下，仅供相关学习者参考！（注：虽然年代有点久远，但是知识学习与科普教程类的帖子永不过时呵呵），译文如下：
Google Maps Overlay（即Google地图覆盖（或叠加））是TS2014中非常受欢迎的功能。它使用起来非常简单，而且有一些不错的调整或校正选项，可以帮助您充分利用它。这个简单的教程旨在演示如何开始使用Google Maps Overlay创建路线的过程。
设置一个API（应用程序界面）密钥
这个第一步是可选的，而且是由Google推荐的，这样每天可以从地图服务中获得更多的数据传输。您将需要一个Google帐户来获取密钥，所以如果您还没有一个密钥，那么请先执行此操作。（即为自己申请Google账户）
一旦你拥有一个帐户。请在此处转到Google API控制台。
单击创建项目按钮。注意：如果您以前已经完成此操作，则将直接进入下一个菜单，并可从服务中进行选择。
从下一个屏幕中，向下滚动长列表的服务选项菜单，直到找到“静态地图API”服务。点击此按钮打开它，然后阅读并查看条款和条件。如果您对此感到愿意，请点击接受。
从左侧的菜单中，您现在应该单击API访问菜单选项。
该屏幕显示了许多位信息，重要的是在“简单API访问”部分中，称为“API密钥” - 它将显示为长列表的字符，符号和数字。这是您需要的关键，选择它，然后按CTRL + C将其复制到剪贴板。
启动TS2014，然后转到设置，然后进行图形设置。从这里转到新的Google Map Overlay设置屏幕。
最顶级的条目是Google Maps API密钥。单击此文本字段，然后按CTRL + V粘贴该键。
就这样，你现在已经设置了API密钥，你已经准备好继续下一步了。
Google Maps Overlay的配置
Google地图叠加设置屏幕上的剩余设置将允许您调整显示的详细信息数量，您希望显示的更多详细信息将需要下载获得。
根据您的偏好（或个人喜好）设置Google地图分辨率，当然更高分辨率的数据是首选，但1280x1280是640x640的四倍，所以我建议尝试较低的分辨率，看看是否得到你想要的（显示内容）。
“地图类型”确定将在叠加层中显示的图像类型。每种类型图像的示例如下所示（道路，地形，卫星，混合）
缩放级别允许您放大并获得更多显示细节，有效范围是13-21，13是最小数据量，21是最大数据量。世界不同地区的数据提供了不同的最大缩放级别，如果您的缩放级别太高，那么您将获得空白的叠加图块。在这种情况下，请逐步降低缩放值，直到开始获取映射数据。一般16-17是相当好的支持。
增加缩放级别也可以减小覆盖图块的大小，从而使它们更好地符合地形显示的需要。当然，更高的缩放级别需要更大的下载体积（或更多的下载）。
最后，“图块（或地块）显示”控制观察摄像机周边下载的网格数据。如果您使用高缩放级别，您可能需要被要求更多的图块（或地块）才能继续获得合理的覆盖率（或覆盖范围），如果您的缩放比较低，那么您可以要求更少的图块（或地块）。
您可能会偶尔（或时不时）地回到此屏幕，以调整您所在地区的设置或您正在使用的互联网连接的品质。
现在，您已经设置了Google Maps Overlay，现在是创建线路并查看它的时候了。
在本教程中，我们将重点关注北诺福克铁路上的Sheringham（谢林汉姆）。
世界坐标有各种各样的格式，所以重要的是确保您使用正确的适用于TS2014版本的（坐标）设置。正确的格式是“十进制度”。如果您使用Google地球应用程序来获取我们的坐标，则可以通过转到“工具”，“选项”并将“显示纬度/经度”设置更改为“十进制度”单位并报告（或确定）它们。
对于Sheringham（谢林汉姆）而言，纬度为52.941728，经度为1.207392。我非常简单地从Google地球应用中获得了这一点。对于您的路线，找到合适的中心位置作为起点，并确保您具有适用于此的纬度和经度。
现在我们准备建造了。
首先，从前端屏幕中单击BUILD（建造）菜单。
从这里，单击新建线路。
在此屏幕上，选择要用于拾取基本纹理，轨道类型等的线路模板。这通常是在您拥有的电脑系统上创建线路，并且与您觉得最符合您要创建的线路样式是相匹配的。
重要的是您首先选择地面的纹理，然后再输入纬度和经度，因为选择地面纹理设置将使用所选线路的默认原点覆盖纬度和经度。
输入lat（纬度）和long（经度），每次输入完毕以后按确定键。
最后单击“创建”，在询问时输入线路名称，然后单击“确定”进入（TS2014自带的）世界编辑器界面。
启用Google地图覆盖（或叠加）层
进入世界编辑器后，您只需按CTRL + G即可启用Google Maps Overlay。
沿着正常路线飞行，确定自己的方位，当世界被放置在你身下时，（你会感到）这很容易！
您可能会发现有必要在世界编辑器中重新输入lat（纬度）/long（经度），然后跳转到该位置。您可以通过打开顶部的罗盘盒并输入详细信息来做到（确保在输入每个数字后按Enter键），然后单击右手侧的白色三角形即可。
调整（或校正）Google地图覆盖（或叠加）层
当覆盖层启用时，右下角出现一个新的弹出框，将鼠标移动到其上，待其消失而使用之。
第一个滑块控制叠加层的不透明度。一直到左边的覆盖层完全看不见，还有一直到右边的覆盖层能完全挡住下面的地面为止。通常你会发现最舒服的设置在中间的某个地方，但这取决于你想要做什么，所以在编辑的时能够快速地改变它是很有用的。
覆盖层的第二个滑块高度在地平面以上。一直到左边意味着最低，而一直到达右边意味着最高（左低右高）。
暂停和播放（进行）按钮可用于暂停或恢复数据流。如果你立即尝试从路径上的一点飞到另一点的话，就不需要叠加层了，你可能会发现这样可以更快地暂停流数据，从而到达你要去的地方，然后再次按播放（进行）键而恢复它，而不是尝试下载你并不想要（或需要）的数据。
现在开始建设吧！