google maps and TS2020

[timred]

gday everyone...Have reinstalled TS2012 for the first time in awhile and steam automatically upgraded it to 2020, at the same time got meself an API key did all the right things added it to TS2020 settings..................blue circles.........
so does any one think the up grade from 2012 to 2020 have anything to do with this, also is there a current.......not some outdated tutorial about how to get overlays
using google earth/static maps and of course API and its correct use of.....

thanks

[BoostedFridge]

Did you copy/paste the API key in to TS, or manually type it in? It is VERY case sensitive.

Which map API did you get from Google?

[timred]

I have Maps static and street view static

[Sessemerboy]

You have to set up billing for GoogleAPIs. Its free for one year for the email you have, and really you can just make another email do get it again after one year. It just needs a credit card on file is all.

[BoostedFridge]

You have to set up billing for GoogleAPIs. Its free for one year for the email you have, and really you can just make another email do get it again after one year. It just needs a credit card on file is all.

It remains free, even after one year. I've been using the same API for six years, and since setting up my billing info, I receive a 'bill' for $0 every month. As I have said on here before numerous times, even if you spent 8 hours a day route building, every day of the month, there is no way that you would exceed the free allotment of API usage.

[SAR704]

In reply to the above post, are you serious?

I have intentionally lowered the resolution to prevent going over the monthly limit. I don't have a billing account setup, as I grabbed an API key several years ago before mid 2018.

So are you saying that I would have to use an insane near inconceivable amount of data to exceed the free limit?

Edited to correct typo

[BoostedFridge]

In reply to the above post, are you serious?

I have intentionally lowered the resolution to prevent going over the monthly limit. I don't have a billing account setup, as I grabbed an API key several years ago before mid 2018.

So are you saying that I would have to use an insane near inconceivable amount of data to exceed the free limit?

Edited to correct typo

Correct. The most I've ever used in a month was 11% of my free montly allotment. That was route building a few hours each day, every day.

[Tomcat]

In reply to the above post, are you serious?

I have intentionally lowered the resolution to prevent going over the monthly limit. I don't have a billing account setup, as I grabbed an API key several years ago before mid 2018.

So are you saying that I would have to use an insane near inconceivable amount of data to exceed the free limit?

Edited to correct typo

Correct. The most I've ever used in a month was 11% of my free montly allotment. That was route building a few hours each day, every day.

I never bothered to set up a billing account, more out of laziness than anything else, and the overlay has always worked using the API I set up sometime in 2010. The Powder River Basin is a huge route and if I'm in the editor then I have the overlay enabled using a satellite view, 5 X 5 grid and resolution of 1280 X 1280 and my experience is on par with BoostedFridge. If I were to use the overlay 24 hours a day I believe I would still fall short of the monthly free allotment limit. Google is almost certainly targeting commercial users of the data and I would think users such as us are not even on their radar.

[SAR704]

I know that this in an old topic. But I have very limited data at the moment due to a pre-stone age style installer gobbling it up.

Just wondering, how much does the GE overlay actually use per day with frequent use at a relatively low resolution?

Thanks

[BoostedFridge]

I know that this in an old topic. But I have very limited data at the moment due to a pre-stone age style installer gobbling it up.

Just wondering, how much does the GE overlay actually use per day with frequent use at a relatively low resolution?

Thanks

Your question piqued my curiosity, so I have done some testing to put real numbers to this.

Each persons work styles or habits within the route editor will be different, so I have broken down the data usage into the actual amount of data transmitted per set of tile overlay loads. I use the 'Satellite' setting for the map overlay which does not load road or place names. The data below reflects this.

At 1280 x 1280 resolution, each single tile overlay downloaded is ~375 Kilobytes. I typically work with the 5 tile x 5 tile grid size, so loading a batch of 25 tiles results in 9.375 Megabytes downloaded.

At 640 x 640 resolution, each single tile overlay downloaded is ~100 Kilobytes. So a 5x5 tile grid of 25 tiles is 2.5 Megabytes downloaded.

Its worth noting that the game caches some of this tile load data, as moving from one 5x5 grid area, back to another that I had previously loaded resulted in an instant load, and no additional data downloaded.

This 5x5 tile grid is 2.58 kilometers long x 2.58 kilometers wide (1.6 miles x 1.6 miles) covering a 6.65 square KM, or 2.56 square mile area. If I'm putting in detail scenery, I would likely only be working in one, or two of those 5x5 grid areas in a route building session. For track laying I can put in 20-30miles in that same time. You can see how the amount of data downloaded for each session would vary accordingly.

I strongly recommend using the 'play' and 'pause' buttons on the Google Overlay flyout menu to hold the loaded overlays in place while you are working. That way you won't be constantly loading additional tiles at the edges of your tile grid as you move about the map.

[SAR704]

Thanks for this summary and the tip. It will be something I'll try to remember when using the overlay in the future.