SCO LIDEX v1.100

SCO LIDEX Terrain Builder

SCO LIDEX is a Windows terrain-building utility for Open Rails and MSTS route developers. It discovers route coverage, obtains USGS elevation data, builds normal terrain and optional TSRE-style distant mountains, validates the work, and writes terrain back into an existing route.

Release highlights

v1.000 — Complete feature set

Terrain generation and source data

• Builds normal Open Rails/MSTS terrain from USGS 1-meter 3DEP elevation data.
• Falls back through USGS Original Product Resolution data, displayed as 5m~, and USGS/NED 1/3 arc-second data, displayed as 10m, when finer coverage is unavailable.
• Samples the native ORTS 256×256 height grid at true 8-meter post spacing. The 256 stored posts cover 2,040 meters inside a nominal 2,048-meter tile; the neighboring tile supplies the next boundary post.
• Uses GDAL windowed raster reads so only the needed parts of source products are read instead of downloading complete DEM files.
• Merges generated terrain in a bounded rolling window to support large routes without retaining the entire route in memory.

Coverage and tile selection

• Uses existing route terrain tiles as coverage.
• Accepts exact tile names from ROUTE\SCOLIDEXTiles.txt.
• Builds coverage from the route marker file, KML coordinates, or track database references.
• Provides configurable normal-terrain and Distant Mountain coverage radii.

Normal and Distant Mountain terrain

• Creates or updates normal route terrain in Append or Overwrite mode.
• Creates TSRE-style Distant Mountain lo_tiles from 10-meter elevation data.
• Detects and replaces incompatible DEMEX-style distant mountain terrain when Distant Mountain generation is selected.
• Preserves existing texture, water, overlay, and patch choices during normal updates whenever the source tile layout can be patched safely.
• Includes clean normal-terrain and lo_tile templates for first-time creation and recovery from unsupported or damaged terrain files.
• Provides the explicitly destructive Clean Tile Wipe option for rebuilding a tile from a clean template.

Projection, placement, and calibration

• Supports the standard MSTS/Open Rails interrupted Goode homolosine world-tile projection.
• Detects and honors route-specific TsreGeoProjection entries for DEM sampling, coverage bounds, markers, KML, and Distant Mountains.
• Provides meter-based north/south and east/west Advanced Geo Bias controls for route-specific calibration during DEM generation.
• Includes Commit/Post Processing for quickly testing offsets by resampling existing normal or TSRE-style Distant Mountain height grids without another USGS download.

Safety, validation, and recovery

• Performs a read-only Scan before Run and validates route paths, selected tiles, raw-grid readability, decoded coordinates, templates, and a representative USGS service request.
• Provides Scan Override for deliberate advanced or known-good workflows.
• Marks retryable failures so Append can retry them automatically.
• Prints paste-ready failed-tile lists for targeted SCOLIDEXTiles.txt retries and separates unmappable failures that cannot be retried by tile name.
• Provides live totals for processed, skipped, failed, 1m, 5m~, and 10m work.
• Supports Abort and stops before the next tile or write step.

Application and diagnostics

• Provides a Windows WinForms interface with a formatted, read-only Help viewer.
• Prevents multiple GUI instances from running simultaneously.
• Writes SCOLIDEX.log to the user's Desktop with selected settings, projection details, source usage, elapsed time, failures, and an estimated USGS data-read total.
• Writes SCOLIDEX-startup-error.txt to the Desktop if startup fails before the GUI opens.
• Ships as a self-contained Windows x64 distribution with GDAL, clean terrain templates, documentation, third-party notices, and a desktop shortcut helper.

v1.100 — Additional work

• Corrects standard-projection terrain placement by 16 meters east and 16 meters south to match the TSRE map-coordinate convention confirmed across multiple test routes.
• Applies the correction at geographic sampling time to both normal terrain and Distant Mountain generation, preserving consistent tile transitions.
• Leaves route-specific TsreGeoProjection mapping unchanged; the correction is only the standard-projection baseline.
• Treats Advanced Geo Bias values as additional route-specific offsets on top of the corrected standard baseline.
• Adds GEOMETRY_PLACEMENT_CORRECTION.txt with the coordinate comparison, 256-post/8-meter grid explanation, and implementation details.
• Aligns the Windows executable file, assembly, and product metadata with version 1.100.
• Restores a tracked and distributed docs folder and adds this Markdown README for GitHub and release-page presentation.

Installation

1. Download SCOLIDEX-v1.100-win-x64.zip from the v1.100 release.
2. Extract the complete archive to a writable folder.
3. Run SCOLIDEX-win-x64\SCOLIDEX.exe.
4. Optionally run AddShortcutDesktop.cmd from the extracted top-level folder.
5. Back up a route before using Run, Overwrite, Clean Tile Wipe, or Commit.

Requirements and limitations

• Windows 10 or newer, 64-bit.
• Internet access while requesting elevation data.
• USGS elevation coverage is United States focused.
• Large routes can require substantial processing time and disk space.
• Clean Tile Wipe and post-processing terrain shifts modify route files; always work from a backup.
• KML polygon filling is basic and should be considered experimental.
• SCO LIDEX reads TsreGeoProjection when present but does not create or modify that route setting.

Documentation

The docs folder contains the complete instructions, changelog, known issues, build notes, geometry-placement technical note, sample tile list, license, and third-party notices.

License

SCO LIDEX is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. Third-party components remain under their respective licenses.