MallowTheClouds Official Map Making Guide

[the_new_simman 5]

Alright, time for a tutorial of how I make international maps. I will show an example with Las Vegas. I know it's not international, but it's the same process.

First, the tools:

http://www.globalmapper.com/global_mapper7_setup.exe

Landscape Designer

http://dw.com.com/redir?pid=10491149&merid=59333&mfgid=59333&ltype=dl_dlnow&lop=btn&edId=3&siteId=4&oId=3040-2192_4-10491149&ontId=2192_4&destUrl=http://www.download.com%2F3001-2192_4-10491149.html

http://www.phylomortis.com/resource/x-zone/idraw.zip

http:// <---This file needs to be in your SC4 Plugin directory

MS Paint

And of course, Sim City 4

Alright... well first you need the .hgt information. So, you will need to know the latitude and longitude of the given location. We will look this up on Google. One easy way I've found to search is to put the city name, then longitude.

So, for this we will go to Google and search for 'Las Vegas longitude' (without quotes).

The first result shows as Xah: Las Vegas Travelog and right there, it says our coordinates are latitude 36.1941 N and longitude 115.2220 W

Now, we will go ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/ to get the height information. Now, one thing to know about this site is that the format it uses is N15W120, for example. This is the bottom left corner of the data. So, this parts a little difficult to explain... I'll try to break it down.

If your longitude is west, round up.

If your longitude is east, round down.

If your latitude is south, round up.

If your latitude is north, round down.

So, Las Vegas is N36.2 W115.2

Using our above rules, we round up for the W, and down for the N.

So, now we have Las Vegas as N36W116. This is the file we are looking for. Also, keep in mind that if the city is near the border of a longitude or latitude line, you will need two files. For example, let's say Las Vegas was at 36.19N and 115.02W ... see how close the west is to 114.8? You will want both N36W116 and N36W115 for this, then.

Now, we're at ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/, so we want to click on the link for United_States_1arcsec ... you have to click the next link which is 1arcsec as well.

Most browsers should have a find tool in them, and often it is CTRL-F ... so use CTRL-F and in the find dialogue box, search for N36W116.

Ah, there it is:

Now, save this file to your disk. When that's done, unzip it and open it with your dlgv32 Pro (Global Mapper) 5 program.

First of all, get rid of the two white boxes (elevation and scale) by right clicking and closing them. Your screen will now likely look something like this:

Now, there are three major changes we need to make here. First of all, see that button in the upper right, that looks like a mountain with the sun above it? Click that to turn shadows off.

Next, we want our own greyscale file, not a color file. So, where it currently says Atlas Shader, scroll down to Add custom shader...

With the height mod, mentioned above, I have found that the perfect shading is this... where it says Height: 0 ... to the right of that there is an Add button. Click that.

Now, as shown in the below screenshot, change the values for RGB to 30 for each. Then click OK to close the color menu.

We have one other to set. Change the text to where it says Height: 2250 representing 2250 meters. I know it says 4000 on the picture, but 2250 is actually accurate. Now, select Add again and click on the white color, as shown in the screenshot below.

Now, click OK again to close the color menu, and rename this if you want. Then, click ok. Mine is called Final so this is what my screen now looks like:

Alright, changes one (getting rid of shading) and two (setting greyscale heights) are complete.

We need to change one more thing, the scale. For this tutorial, I have set my screen resolution to 800 x 600 so my printscreens will fit. However, it is best to set your monitor's resolution as high as possible for this step.

What we need to do is zoom in to the Las Vegas area. After all, the full square is almost 90 by 90 km. That would take way too long to render.

So, we need to find at which part of this map Las Vegas is located. Looking back at the coordinates, we see that it's at latitude 36.1941 N and longitude 115.2220 W ...

There are seven tools just to the left of the color settings where we changed our map to greyscale. Using the pointer tool (the one in the middle) and hovering over areas of the map, we can see where this location is:

The yellow box shows the coordinates, and the red circle shows where on the map that is.

So, let's zoom in some to this area. First select the zoom tool... the furthest left of the seven tools we have been using.

I'll guesstimate, and zoom in here:

So, my screen now looks like this:

Lastly, we need to know how big this region is. Of the seven tools we have been using, the third is a ruler. Using the ruler, right click somewhere in the image and select the option Use Metric Distance Units.

Now, start at the far left (the farthest left you can go without the left arrow showing up), click, and you can now stretch your ruler to the far right and see the distance on the bottom:

You can see my distance length says 41.4 km. I will assume it's 43 km from the very left part of the screen.

Now, you need to take a printscreen. So, hit the button above your NumPad that says something like Prt Scr/SysRq. You can now close dlgv32 Pro. Now, open IrfanView. Hit CTRL-V to paste your printscreen, and you will now have a screen that looks something like this:

Next, we need to select only the greyscale image... so starting in the top left of the greyscale, click and drag until you have the entire greyscale image only selected. Using CTRL-Y, crop the image:

Now, we need to convert this image to a true greyscale image, so go to the menu Image and go down to Convert to Greyscale. Save this file as LasVegas.bmp .

Close IrfanView and open iDraw. Open LasVegas.bmp and have a look at it. You will want three options under the View menu checked: Show Tools, Show Pen, and Show Pallette.

Your screen should now look something like this:

You can see that there's some missing data (showing up as bright areas). Zoom in, and using the tools do a little touching up to get rid of this missing data. One thing that makes this easy is, right click on the area just next to the missing data. This will select that color, and you can now paint over it with that color. Your picture should now look something like this:

Now, on the pallette, select the option used to see all the colors that are used. If the lowest one is 30 for each RGB, good. This is usually the case in areas near the ocean.

But, Las Vegas is not near the ocean, so the lowest used is 56 of each RGB. That's 26 above what we want... so first, deselect the used filter. Now, double click on the lowest used one (56) and change it to 30 for each RGB.

Now, we need to also subtract 26 from the highest used (168 in this example)... so we need to change that one to 142.

Next, left click on the lowest used (now 30) and right click on the highest used (now 142) so you have both selected.

In the upper right corner of the pallette box, there is a handy gradient tool to fade from your left click selected color to your right click selected color. Click this.

Now, save the file and quit iDraw. Reopen the file in IrfanView.

The reason for this next part is hard to explain. Let me at least try...

Though we changed the pallette in iDraw, the greyscale data doesn't care about the color. It cares about the order of the colors on the pallette. We didn't change the order.

But, what we can do is raise the color depth in IrfanView, then drop it back down to a greyscale. This will trick the file in to making the pallette shift.

In other words, now that we're in IrfanView, we want to go to the menu option Image and down to Increase Color Depth. Increase the color depth to 24 BPP. Now, go back to Image and down to Convert to Greyscale...

Save the file again.

We now have a nice, accurately scaled (elevation wise) version of the Las Vegas area:

There are still two things we need to do, though. One is minor, the other is major.

First, the minor part.

We need to resize the image to an accurate scale. We found earlier that our image should be 43 km. Well, what does that mean? For SC4, we need to multiply km by 64 to get pixels.

So, using the Windows Calculator, 43 times 64 is 2752. We need to make the image 2752 pixels wide.

Still in IrfanView, hit CTRL-R. This will bring up the resize dialogue box. My image is currently 682 pixels wide.

Make sure the bottom left check box (Preserve aspect ratio) is checked. Also, make sure the bottom right (Resize) option is selected. Now, type in the width as 2752 (or whatever you calculated).

My screen now looks like this:

Hit OK and your greyscale is now the right size!

Unfortunately, all the above that I have just explained may be less than half the work, because now we have to add the water.

You see, these .hgt files have a peculiar habit of screwing up sea level. So, areas near the ocean (this is not the case for Las Vegas) will still look strange. Areas higher in elevation (like Las Vegas) will not even show any water. In fact, that's the reason we subtracted 26 from the height, to bring the lowest elevation down to the SC4 sea level.

On to the hard part.

You have to go to google and find a map where the water in the area is a solid color. If you can find one with a scale that's even better. Here's what I found for Las Vegas:

Now, do a printscreen, paste it in to IrfanView, select and crop the image like we did with the dlgv32 Pro image.

Save this file as LasVegasTemplate.bmp so your screen should now look something like this:

Now, we want to go to Image on the menu, and Decrease Color Depth... Choose Custom and set it to 64 colors. This will make it easier to select the water color later:

Now, save the file again. We also want to find out how many pixels the scale is... see the scale at the top of the image? It says five km. Well, when you select an area in IrfanView, at the top it tells you how many pixels it is. It turns out the 5km scale at the top is 38 pixels wide.

Close IrfanView, and open your LasVegasTemplate.bmp in iDraw.

We want to make ALL the water the same color, but right now there are some words and stuff covering parts of the water. So, using our handy tools, right click on the water color to select it, then draw over the words. Also, we want to paint with a different color over the interstate symbols, in case they share any colors with the water... here are two pics... before, and after:

Now, we want to set the water color to a grey, with 20 for each RGB. So, right click on the water to select the color, then double click on the color to change it:

Next, we want to set ALL the other colors to white. So, the easiest way to do this is to set the first color to white, set the color before the water to white, set the color after the water to white, and then set the last color to white. Then, using the gradient tool mentioned above, fade the white to white... see the images below:

Notice that I forgot to paint over one of the interstate symbols, so I have a ring of dark up near the top of my image. I will fix that by hand painting white over it.

Now, save your LasVegasTemplate.bmp, close iDraw, and open the file in IrfanView.

We want to increase the color depth to 24BPP, and then convert to greyscale like we did with the other file.

We also want to resize the image like we did with the last one. Remember the 5km scale? Well, 5 x 64 is 320, so it should be 320 pixels wide... but ours was only 38. So, we need to find out what scale we need to resize it to...

Using Windows calculator, 320 divided by 38 is about 8.421. So, we need to multiply our image by 8.421... right now the template is 461 pixels wide, and using windows calculator to multiply 461 by 8.421, we get 3882. So, we need to increase this template to 3882 pixels.

Save your image.

Keep in mind, my template is from MapQuest and was at a zoom that makes it to where the water when resized will be very blocky.

If you have your monitor resolution a lot higher, and you find a bigger map at a closer zoom, your water will not be as blocky.

Finally, we need to merge our images. For this we can use our trusty MSPaint which comes with all Windows computers.

First, open your LasVegas.bmp... then go Edit in the menu, and Paste From... . Choose your LasVegasTemplate.bmp and if it says it's too large, do NOT resize your image.

Now, on the left there will be two little image icons under all the tools... select the second one. This will drop all the white to the background.

The next part is easiest to do when you can obviously tell where a river should go. With Las Vegas, I am going to have to guesstimate... What you need to do is drag the pasted image to where the water is in the right place:

IMPORTANT NOTE: Often, the scale of the template map will be off. So, you will almost always have to do some tweaking with the size of the template. Do this in IrfanView. Make sure you deselect Preserve Aspect Ratio when resizing, because sometimes the water will need to be stretched vertically or horizontally.

This is where you have to use your best judgment to get the water in the right place. It will take a lot of trial and error, and may even take some research.

Next, you will want to save your LasVegas.bmp again.

Now, reopen it in iDraw and make sure there's no water in high elevations... on my LasVegas one, I do have to fix one such area:

After fixing those water-in-high-elevation issues (which are rare, I might add)... we are almost done!

Open Landscape Designer. Select Region Name DB and in the bottom right, type the name of your region. Then click the Write Region.ini button.

Now, select Terrain Generator. Hit CTRL-R and open your file (mine is LasVegas.bmp)... it will then ask you to choose a size. Click Nearest Dimensions and then click OK

Now, hit CTRL-O, create your config.bmp file, hit CTRL-C, and quit Landscape Designer.

Finally, open your SC4 game, open your new region, hit CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-R, go to the region folder (likely C:\My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions\), go to the newly created folder of the city we're working on, and select the .jpg file that was created.

This should start the rendering, and you should have your region!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You've done it. Wanna see how Las Vegas turned out? The water is a bit blocky, but I didn't have much to work with...

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Good idea, to post this in it's own thread!


I might add a few things here that I have learned. First of all, to fill in the missing data, there is another method that works quite well. Download the Large Scale DEM data and load it first, then load the small scale .hgt file on top of it. It will automatically fill in the missing .hgt file data with the (less precise) large scale DEM data. You will have to zoom in, though.


Also, I realized that the vertical dimensions are important to scale as well, as the further from the equator the map is, the less accurate the horizontal to vertical proportions of the map are.

In other words, when you measure the width of your map, also measure the height.


Finally, I found a great place for larger international maps...

http://www.multimap.com/

You can set the map size to 'large' to get a bigger section of the map.

On the tutorial, I didn't mention it, but sometimes for larger regions I will stitch many maps together to make a larger, more accurate template.



I hope this doesn't confuse anybody.

[l3illyl3ob 0]

For some reason my regions aren't showing up in SC4. I have the region folder, the region.ini, the config.bmp, and the region map I want to render, but for whatever reason it doesn't display the region folder. Also, I don't know if this is an option only after opening the freshly made region, but whenever I press ctrl+$%&^!+alt+R at any of the other region maps, nothing happens. I'm running off of Sim City 4 Deluxe, is that why or what? I don't know what i'm doing wrong.

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Hmm, that is pretty odd. So, in the region view when you load SC4, nothing happens when you press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-R? Try using that combination in a city. If it does nothing in there as well, it's a keyboard problem. That's because in the city, pressing Crtl-Alt-Shift-R is supposed to bring up a (not important for map-making) dialogue box.


And, the regions aren't showing up at all? Technically, the region.ini file isn't needed, but regardless, if you have a folder named 'Las Vegas' in your \My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions\ directory, then there should be a Las Vegas map in SC4. Check to make sure that the folder is in the right place.

So odd. Good luck!

[l3illyl3ob 0]

I don't know what I did, but after a computer restart I could see my custom region. Still no luck on the keyboard shortcut though, I tried it in city view and nothing happened. Is there a way to change it to something else?

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 7/1/2005 7:08:03 PM
Author: l3illyl3ob
I don't know what I did, but after a computer restart I could see my custom region. Still no luck on the keyboard shortcut though, I tried it in city view and nothing happened. Is there a way to change it to something else?

quote>

Hmm, how strange. There's no way (that I know of) to change the keyboard shortcut... go ahead and try that ctrl-alt-shift-r on a city, and see if it does anything there.

[dmrsunz 2]

When this happens to me it's because I forgot to convert my RGB creating image to a grayscale importing image. I get an error message when the image is not the correct size but no message about any other image problem. Check the color mode first.

[aasim45 1]

I am having a slight problem. In the last step of the Global Mapper program, you have said to press the 'Print Screen' button on the keyboard and then open IrfanView and paste (Ctrl + V) the image there.

But when I press 'Print Screen', the Print Options come up (the one under File Menu). It doesn't seem to copy the image onto the clip-board. Is there any other way to do this?

 

P.S.: I don't have a Printer.

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 8/1/2005 4:28:09 AM
Author: aasim45
I am having a slight problem. In the last step of the Global Mapper program, you have said to press the 'Print Screen' button on the keyboard and then open IrfanView and paste (Ctrl + V) the image there.

But when I press 'Print Screen', the Print Options come up (the one under File Menu). It doesn't seem to copy the image onto the clip-board. Is there any other way to do this?

P.S.: I don't have a Printer.

quote>

Well, there are a few things we could try.

First of all... usually, Print Screen only tries to send the information to the printer if you're running DOS... so I have no idea why this isn't working for you.


However, here are three things you could try:

1) Alt + Print Screen... this function is supposed to just take a screenshot of the window rather than the entire screen.

2) The IrfanView method... Open up IrfanView first. Go to the 'Options' menu, then down to 'Capture/Screenshot'. You can leave all these options at default... except if the Include mouse cursor option is checked, make sure to uncheck it. Look at the top right of that screen where it says Hot key:... it may be 'Ctrl + F11'. Click 'Start', then go to Global Mapper, get the image that you need, and hit 'Ctrl + F11'. This should capture the screen to IrfanView directly.

3) Download a program like SnagIt which is specifically meant for Screen-Captures. I am unsure how to use this program, but I know that this is what it is meant for.


I hope this helps.

[aasim45 1]

Thanks MallowTheCloud, I almost made the map. Though a problem occured in the end. An error message popped up in the game saying that the Region size should be 1 X 1 while mine was 4097 X 4097. Or something like that.

 

I guess, I must have screwed up somewhere in between. But the initial problem of taking screenshots was solved by your methods. Thanks again!!

[thegrindre 28]

Another 'print screen' program is,

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/?prnscr

It's called, Gadwin Print Screen. It's a wonderfull utility.
It's free and is extreamly easy to use and set up. I've been using it for years and have never had any trouble with it. I highly recomend it to everybody here. When I say easy I mean it. I tried others but this is the greatest print screen utility/program I ever used.

[ldvger 19]

I started downloading and installing the list of software tools listed at the beginning of this tutorial and have run into 2 problems so far.  I'm not that far down the list yet, because I have a dial-up connection the the downloads are sizeable, so I've only downloaded two so far. 

 

My first problem is the third link, IrfanView , takes me to a blank web site. 

 

My second problem is that another link further down in the tutorial doesn't seem to work. 

 

<<Now, we will go here to get the height information.>>

 

When I link to here, I get a warning that I am attempting to enter a government site without authorization.  YIKES!

 

My third problem is the Global Mapper software is not freeware and costs $250 for access to the registered version.  I love this game, but I'm not going to spend that kind of money for a game.  Maybe I don't need to, as the unregistered version seems to have a lot of capabilities, however, without paying the bucks I will not be able to export any of the work I create.  I admit I have not fully read every single word of the tutorial, so maybe I don't need to be able to export files out of the Global Mapper software.  Maybe using the unregistered version allows me to save a file in Global Mapper and then open that saved file in another application?  In which case, no problem.

 

Lora/LD

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 9/9/2005 3:44:38 AM
Author: ldvger
I started downloading and installing the list of software tools listed at the beginning of this tutorial and have run into 2 problems so far. I'm not that far down the list yet, because I have a dial-up connection the the downloads are sizeable, so I've only downloaded two so far.

My first problem is the third link, IrfanView , takes me to a blank web site.

quote>

Hmm... that should lead you directly to the download. It may be a blank page, but if you wait just a second or two, the download dialogue box should come up. Maybe it's just being extra slow because you're on dial-up. If nothing else, get to the download indirectly by going here .

My second problem is that another link further down in the tutorial doesn't seem to work.

<<Now, we will go here to get the height information.>>

When I link to 'here', I get a warning that I am attempting to enter a government site without authorization. YIKES!

quote>

Hmm... well, it is a government site, but it's free. Can you select okay or something? It's just an FTP site where you can download the DEM data. You should be able to log in to it anonymously, according to the site.

My third problem is the Global Mapper software is not freeware and costs $250 for access to the registered version. I love this game, but I'm not going to spend that kind of money for a game. Maybe I don't need to, as the unregistered version seems to have a lot of capabilities, however, without paying the bucks I will not be able to export any of the work I create. I admit I have not fully read every single word of the tutorial, so maybe I don't need to be able to export files out of the Global Mapper software. Maybe using the unregistered version allows me to save a file in Global Mapper and then open that saved file in another application? In which case, no problem.

Lora/LD

quote>

Ah, this is the easiest question of the three.

The whole point of my tutorial was to have a way to create these without paying money... in other words, with all free software. So, no, don't buy the software.

You don't have to export the image as long as you use the Print Screen key. I explain it step by step later in the tutorial.

[vhsleite 0]

Hi there, i seem to be having a problem with idraw, i can't open any file with it, it shows a message box with some characters.

I skimmed some parts after the one were i had to stop and it seems that i really need idraw, or is it possible to use other application such as paint?

EDIT: Problem solved, i missed the part were we conver to grayscale using irfanview

[Mystyx 0]

Hi, I was playing with some settings in AdobeCS and found there are alot of settings that all change the outcome of the final region map.

I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me a bit of some of the settings to save the BMP (or convert to JPG) that they have found for the best results? I can set my own greyscale Hieghts after, but cant seem to find the best results saving as a JPG file.

I dont really want to use a bunch of programs that arent really needed for my own custom map. just need the paint program. 

Here is a pic of 2 (of many) settings I have tried,

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Test%20Isle%20Rock%20pix.jpg align=baseline>

the large pic is greayscale 8bit BMP, (the small pic is greayscale JPG quality 8 baseline standard) noticed the quality and optimized give diff. results.  both pics were beach 89, output level 0 to 24 before saving. 

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 10/26/2005 9:17:44 AM
Author: Mystyx
Hi, I was playing with some settings in AdobeCS and found there are alot of settings that all change the outcome of the final region map.

I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me a bit of some of the settings to save the BMP (or convert to JPG) that they have found for the best results? I can set my own greyscale Hieghts after, but cant seem to find the best results saving as a JPG file.

I dont really want to use a bunch of programs that arent really needed for my own custom map. just need the paint program.

Here is a pic of 2 (of many) settings I have tried,

...

the large pic is greayscale 8bit BMP, (the small pic is greayscale JPG quality 8 baseline standard) noticed the quality and optimized give diff. results. both pics were beach 89, output level 0 to 24 before saving.

quote>

Hmm.... unfortunately, I don't know much about Photoshop. Is there anybody who knows more about it that might be able to answer this question?

[chriscf 0]

What format is the DEM data I need for this? I have a choice of ESRI Grid or ASCII Grid. I would normally suck it and see, but I can only grab them in ing huge blocks (around 100MB each).

[TheCrybKeeper 301]

Mystyx: I haven't found a good setting for jpg.'s, in PS. I ended up sticking with bmp.'s. Unfortunatly SC, seems to rag the edges of every mapp, I have ever made. Straight lines seem to be, impossible with PS/8bit GS bmp's.

 

I really wish I could help out more than this, Mystyx. Sorry.

 

 

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 11/24/2005 8:07:48 AM
Author: chriscf
What format is the DEM data I need for this? I have a choice of 'ESRI Grid' or 'ASCII Grid'. I would normally 'suck it and see', but I can only grab them in ing huge blocks (around 100MB each).

quote>

Hmm... what site are you looking at?

[chriscf 0]

It's an internal service at my university. They have an ask no questions policy.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I am reworking my LOTR Map for the shire. Does anyone know where to find a grey scale guide for heights so I can do my hills better this time and the mountian ranges... I remember seeing it once but now I can't find it...

 

Any advise will be helpfull.

 

Lynks

 

[chriscf 0]

Date: 11/25/2005 1:40:50 AM
Author: MallowTheCloud

Hmm... what site are you looking at?

quote>

Actually, scratch that. I think I may have found an answer to that. Global Mapper supports ArcInfo ASCII Grid format, though I doubt anyone else will find that info useful, since I doubt anyone else has access to the same data source ;-)

[tungston 19]

Date: 11/25/2005 7:58:30 AM Author: pmiller19574

I am reworking my LOTR Map for the shire. Does anyone know where to find a grey scale guide for heights so I can do my hills better this time and the mountian ranges... I remember seeing it once but now I can't find it...

Any advise will be helpfull.

Lynks

quote>

These are the values furnished by Mallow:

 

Greyscale 0: 252 meters (827 feet) below sea level
Greyscale 84: Sea level
Greyscale 255: 513 meters (1683 feet) above sea level

Other points of reference...

Greyscale 50: 102 meters (335 feet) below sea level
Greyscale 100: 48 meters (157 feet) above sea level
Greyscale 150: 198 meters (650 feet) above sea level
Greyscale 200: 348 meters (1142 feet) above sea level

[topcats69 0]

hi,

New poster here so bear with me I was going to the NASA source for images and noticed the one list in the walkthru is incorrect- it is now ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov and there is a version one and two of the data.

If this info is not correct please delete this.

[Sam 163]

Date: 12/8/2005 4:30:04 PM
Author: tungston


These are the values furnished by Mallow:

Greyscale 0: 252 meters (827 feet) below sea level

Greyscale 84: Sea level

Greyscale 255: 513 meters (1683 feet) above sea level

Other points of reference...

Greyscale 50: 102 meters (335 feet) below sea level

Greyscale 100: 48 meters (157 feet) above sea level

Greyscale 150: 198 meters (650 feet) above sea level

Greyscale 200: 348 meters (1142 feet) above sea level

quote>

I think these are the values for the unmodded game (?), which are what I have previously used, however height is limited to 348? m and many real world locations exceed this.

I know there are mods to alter the sea level, maximum import height and step level (height per greyscale shade), one of which is quoted in the above tutorial.

I've been trying to follow the first part of the tutorial above with the mod in place, but I'm confused with the callibration of the greyscales so the heights of the terrains are accurate.

I'm assuming its saying with the import.dat mod in place water is a grey value of 20 or less (0 m ?), the lowest land is a grey value 30 (approx, 10m ?) and the step is approximately 9.783 m (from the mod file). Yet the maximum height set in the tutorial is 4000 m?

If someone could provide me with the greyscale values/real world heights of the following points I would be very grateful. The italicized values are the ones I am unsure of:

Greyscale 20?: Sealevel
Greyscale 26-30?: Lowest Land
Greyscale 255: 4000 m? (or 2211 m?) (Highest altitute in metres)
Step value: 9.783 m ? per shade of grey (Image Import Scale Factor?)

I prefer to use different software and methods to create my maps but the mod above would be very useful to me, if I can get the necessary reference points for callibration.

Thanks for your help. And thanks for going to the trouble of writing a very detailed tutorial. I got quite a few good ideas from it

edit: I have checked the thread where the mod was researched but there seems to be some relevant information that was not recorded there. Thanks again

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 12/23/2005 11:38:42 PM
Author: topcats69
hi,

New poster here so bear with me I was going to the NASA source for images and noticed the one list in the walkthru is incorrect- it is now ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov and there is a version one and two of the data.

If this info is not correct please delete this.

quote>

Thanks a BUNCH!

I, too, realized that the USGS site was down, and have been looking for the new one for a couple weeks. I am glad you posted this, and have updated the tutorial to include the new information.

Date: 1/2/2006 3:25:39 AM
Author: sam

I think these are the values for the unmodded game (?), which are what I have previously used, however height is limited to 348? m and many real world locations exceed this.


I know there are mods to alter the sea level, maximum import height and step level (height per greyscale shade), one of which is quoted in the above tutorial.


I've been trying to follow the first part of the tutorial above with the mod in place, but I'm confused with the callibration of the greyscales so the heights of the terrains are accurate.


I'm assuming its saying with the import.dat mod in place water is a grey value of 20 or less (0 m ?), the lowest land is a grey value 30 (approx, 10m ?) and the step is approximately 9.783 m (from the mod file). Yet the maximum height set in the tutorial is 4000 m?


If someone could provide me with the greyscale values/real world heights of the following points I would be very grateful. The italicized values are the ones I am unsure of:


Greyscale 20?: Sealevel

Greyscale 26-30?: Lowest Land

Greyscale 255: 4000 m? (or 2211 m?) (Highest altitute in metres)

Step value: 9.783 m ? per shade of grey (Image Import Scale Factor?)


I prefer to use different software and methods to create my maps but the mod above would be very useful to me, if I can get the necessary reference points for callibration.


Thanks for your help. And thanks for going to the trouble of writing a very detailed tutorial. I got quite a few good ideas from it


edit: I have checked the thread where the mod was researched but there seems to be some relevant information that was not recorded there. Thanks again

quote>

Indeed those were the values for the unmodded game.

The easiest method for what you're trying to do might be to use my mod pack...

Each mod (ignoring import.dat) is named for the highest elevation (greyscale white)... here's some more information for each mod.



(Mx Hgt ASL = Max Height Above Sea Level, ISF = Import Scale Factor... which is the change in meters per step)


For the import.dat file, I believe the numbers are something like this:

Greyscale ~25: Sea Level

Greyscale 26+: Land

Greyscale 255: ~2250m (Highest Altitude)

Step value: 9.783m per shade of grey (Image Import Scale Factor)

[Sam 163]

Excellent, thanks very much for that Mallow. I will try that out ASAP.

Thanks again for the great tutorial.

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 1/3/2006 2:36:15 AM
Author: sam
Excellent, thanks very much for that Mallow. I will try that out ASAP.


Thanks again for the great tutorial.

quote>

No problem! Let me know if it works.

I saw where you got the 4000 from (regarding the import.dat) and have fixed it. I didn't realize I had made that mistake. Thanks for pointing it out!

[Skink000 0]

Just a few things I have noticed . . . .

In Global Mapper

When measuring with the ruler try holding down the left shift key.
   It should override the scroll arrows that get in the way.

Cleaning out old Global Mapper shaders
 
Go to
C:\Program Files\GlobalMapper6

   open the file custom_shaders.txt with notepad
     delete the contents of that file (but not the file itself)
       close and save the file

Next time you open Glabal Mapper all your custom shaders will be gone.
You could also (I have not tried it, but do not see why it would not work)
edit out the shaders you want to get rid of and save those you want to
keep.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Mystyx: To avoid this annoyance at sea level, set your colour to just above sea level.

For instance, if sea level is 84, use 85..
if sea level is 20, use 21... etc.,

It seems to make 1 meter pits around the map for every map that is flat. 'Reconcile edges' will not cure this as they are already reconciled (and very messed up!)

This is not an image compression issue, instead it is just a rendering engine shortcut issue. I wish we could mod the rendering engine-- that would be totally Out of control.

Nice looking island, btw.