Wanting to create this map

[Dracoceros 33]

Hello! I'm wanting to create a map of the greater Kanto region in accurate scaled size. I already created a smaller version of this, which includes parts of Chiba, Tokyo, and Kanagawa.

 

However, I forgot the steps of how to do this, how to create this data. Also, I don't know which site to go to to get the black and white and colored pictures of these maps.

If someone can create a good, clean tutorial below on how to do this myself, that would be great. I've looked at other threads, but most are either dead links or I can't read the writing the people have posted.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

Hi @Gondracorn

Although I've not yet followed the steps myself, maybe the info in this topic could be of help:
 

 

[Dracoceros 33]

19 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Hi @Gondracorn

Although I've not yet followed the steps myself, maybe the info in this topic could be of help:
 

 

Unfortunately, there is a problem with that tutorial when using USGS Earthexplorer view.

 

As seen attachment, the advanced view shows different options. They must've changed how it works.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Just now, Gondracorn said:

As seen attachment, the advanced view shows different options. They must've changed how it works.

Grrr. That complicates things.

[Dracoceros 33]

Just now, CorinaMarie said:

Grrr. That complicates things.

So I assume a new tutorial is going to have to be made? Is there any other site that does this?

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

1 minute ago, Gondracorn said:

So I assume a new tutorial is going to have to be made? Is there any other site that does this?

That's the only tutorial and the most recent that I'm aware of, so I'm not sure what else to suggest for this.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya @Gondracorn,

I just knew this word "Digital Elevation Models" from @CorinaMarie, it's interesting since I have seen people used this even to create terrain in 3ds max, but I knew nothing about it (too professional), just hope these links would be helpful to you:

5 Free Global DEM Data Sources – Digital Elevation Models

https://www.gsi.go.jp/antarctic/13-e.html

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/topo/globe_japan.html

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/28762

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[ohdude 2,353]

WOLOLOLOOOOO!!!!

You can download from this link elevation maps clicking the square you want and then open and edit the elevation map with VTBuilder, saving it in 8 bit grays scale, opening it with SC4Mapper, resaving it to 16 bit png grayscale, editing with photoshop, saving it again and loading to SC4Mapper and exporting to SC4!! yeah!

http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/Coverage map viewfinderpanoramas_org3.htm

The tutorials how to made it step by step are shown in the next links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyCe_vldIis (part 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FRASnOzE7Y (part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsFSGFBlaY (part 3)

VTbuilder page: http://vterrain.org/Doc/VTBuilder/overview.html

 

Some pics of what you will see in the proces:

 

WATCH THE LINKED  VIDEOTUTORIALS TO LEARN THE WHOLE PROCES (THERE ARE EXPOSED DIFFERENT WAYS IN THE VIDEO SO CHOOSE THE VTBUILDER ONE)

[Dracoceros 33]

On 6/23/2021 at 7:07 AM, ohdude said:

WOLOLOLOOOOO!!!!

You can download from this link elevation maps clicking the square you want and then open and edit the elevation map with VTBuilder, saving it in 8 bit grays scale, opening it with SC4Mapper, resaving it to 16 bit png grayscale, editing with photoshop, saving it again and loading to SC4Mapper and exporting to SC4!! yeah!

http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/Coverage map viewfinderpanoramas_org3.htm

The tutorials how to made it step by step are shown in the next links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyCe_vldIis (part 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FRASnOzE7Y (part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsFSGFBlaY (part 3)

VTbuilder page: http://vterrain.org/Doc/VTBuilder/overview.html

 

Some pics of what you will see in the proces:

 

WATCH THE LINKED  VIDEOTUTORIALS TO LEARN THE WHOLE PROCES (THERE ARE EXPOSED DIFFERENT WAYS IN THE VIDEO SO CHOOSE THE VTBUILDER ONE)

The video shows how to import, but not how to save. How would I go about saving this?

I figured out how to save, but I still don't understand how to use this bitmap

Also, the map size seems small.

 

When I attempted the long way, via the USGS, It definitely is different, as I cannot get a dem file from that website.

 

 

Are there any other high res alternatives or will I have to take my lumps now?

[Odainsaker 2,134]

On the EarthExplorer you will need to change your chosen Data Set, as the EDNA set, though very high in resolution, specifies in its info button that it only covers the U.S.

In the Data Sets tab selection tree choose instead NASA LPDAAC Collections, and from its expanded tree choose ASTER Collections and then choose ASTER Global DEM V3.  Developed jointly by NASA and Japan's METI, the ASTER Global DEM V3 data set covers most of the globe at 30-meter postings in 1x1 degree tiles in GeoTIFF format as ZIP downloads.

__________

Be aware that the area you are selecting is going to be gigantic, involving at least ten 1x1 degree tiles and spanning roughly 200 km x 235 km.  If made into a single SimCity 4 region, it could make a region of about 49 x 57 large city tiles and would not be fully scrollable in game as the region scroll interface becomes buggy with widths extending greater than 31 tiles.  Additionally, the area would yield 2,793 large cities, which, if a player diligently played 1 new city every day, would take over 7.6 years to play them all.

While the game has a region view horizontal scroll limit of about 31 tiles before tiles in the corners become unreachable and the scrolling action becomes untenably buggy and sticky, the vertical scroll limit is more generous, with @archemediesx having determined a vertical limit of 61 large tiles for a map 31 large tiles wide.  I have made and settled on flat test regions of 30 x 46 large tiles where the corner cities are still easily accessible and scrolling action jitters are minimized.  Of course, that is still 1,380 large cities, and the game may yet still croak when using developed city tiles and a bulging plugins folder.  Other sizes are still possible, and your mileage may vary perhaps depending on your system:  I've tried flat test regions of 30 x 48 and 29 x 50 large cities, with 29 x 43 being most stable for me and larger sizes becoming more likely to show region view scrolling action jitters with increasing magnitude.

Here is a quick Google Earth Pro mock-up of how a scale-accurate, 122,880 m x 188,416 m portion of the Kanto region might be fitted into a SimCity 4 region of 30 x 46 large cities:

This is definitely only for a 4GB-patched SC4 Mapper.  A quick mock-up of what the region view perspective might look like:

Beauty shot without the large city tile grid making things look like Shogun: Total War Chess...

I had tried to include areas I personally thought would be interesting, such as Odawara, Narita International Airport, and Lake Chuuzenji, while also trying not to savagely slice through other important features with city tile borders, such as the Imperial Palace, Enoshima, or the Shinjuku skyscraper district.  You might instead want more of Mount Nantai and Mount Nikkou-Shirane to the north, and can do without Atami Castle in the south.  At this size the curvature of the Earth starts to have a noticeable affect on the accuracy of the flat map, particularly at the extremities, so your own cropped maps may have subtle differences from this one, particularly around the edges if attempting to align with other maps.  It's still stunningly gigantic, and hopefully it will give you an idea of what is still possible within SimCity 4's region view constraints.

 

[Max4k 721]

On 6/22/2021 at 6:24 PM, Dracoceros said:

Unfortunately, there is a problem with that tutorial when using USGS Earthexplorer view.

 

As seen attachment, the advanced view shows different options. They must've changed how it works.

 

 

That USGS site is a Rabbit hole, I have like 5 different bookmarks for that site and each map/navigate program is different than the other, some require an account.

Kinda sucks, some of the zoom features is limited and wish I had a 4K Monitor to really crop things out in better detail.  It's crazy how much map stuff there is, and it's all been changed.  There used to be government contracts and they were originally using Nokia Maps and things got mixed in a blender when Microsoft got involved and then Nokia spinned the department off to Here Maps as a different company and ended up just selling it off, then while Microsoft also abandoned it and now using TomTom maps for their Bing Maps....

Also there was some lawsuit with Nokia and Google using Nokia code, and now Google really changed their maps now and it sucks. Google Earth allows you to save super high resolution images in 4K but not the same options as USGS...lol, it a merry-go round.

USGS is really great though and soo many layer options to show the wetlands of areas.  I also use the very last version of Microsoft Map Point 2013, which is not supported anymore and no more future versions.  With this version though, I can at least right click an area on map and it automatically takes me to Bing Maps live on the internet web browser

 

[Odainsaker 2,134]

The ASTER Global DEM V3 data set covers most of the globe at 30-meter postings in 1x1 degree tiles in GeoTIFF format and is freely available as ZIP downloads.  You will have to create a user account with password on the USGS site to download, but accounts there too are free to create.

For those having difficulty navigating the Earth Explorer map interface and its plethora of professional and research options, you can download ASTER data directly from the USGS public LP DAAC Data Pool via HTTPS.  You will still need a USGS user account to download, and the downloads list itself is pretty lengthy with thousands of files and will take a few minutes to fully load.

From the LP DAAC Data Pool homepage the path is ASTER --> ASTGTM.003/ --> 2000.03.01/

Or you can use this direct link here:  https://e4ftl01.cr.usgs.gov/ASTT/ASTGTM.003/2000.03.01/  (Warning, this is a long opening page!)

You will need to know the grid longitude and latitude of the area you need, as the downloads are organized by 1x1 degree grid tiles identified only in the filename.  Each grid tile will have downloads as *.jpg *.zip, and *.xml.  The JPG is only a small reference helper image and the XML is additional location data, so do not worry with them.  You only need the download ending as *.zip.

For example, Google tells me Tokyo is at 35°41′23″N 139°41′32″E (apparently that is centered on the Tokyo Metropolitan City Hall), and, after ignoring all the minutes and seconds, we learn that the data set references 35°N 139°E as the bottom left corner of the grid tile N35E139.  Therefore, the download labeled ASTGTMV003_N35E139.zip has ASTER Version 3 data for the grid tile N35E139 whose bottom left corner is at 35°N 139°E, and we can see the similarly named helper image ASTGTMV003_N35E139.1.jpg shows this includes most of Tokyo and Kanagawa.

Moving 1° east from Tokyo, a tile with a bottom left corner at 35°N 140°E should include Chiba and that would be tile N35E140, and so we would look for a download labeled ASTGTMV003_N35E140.zip.  Moving 1° north, two tiles N36E139 and N36E140 would indicate tiles with bottom left corners at 36°N 139°E and 36°N 140°E which would complete the area needed for the previously shown Kanto map with Gunma and Ibaraki, so we need downloads labeled ASTGTMV003_N36E139.zip and ASTGTMV003_N36E140.zip.  Those are the four ZIP downloads needed to the make the previously shown Kanto map, and they will each unzip as 3601 pixel x 3601 pixel *.tif files in GeoTiff DEM format that can be opened and combined by a DEM program.

The Earth Explorer map interface just makes this all more visual with a selectable grid tile map.

__________

UPDATE:

ASTER Global DEM V3 data can also be downloaded freely without login from Japan Space Systems.  Their tiled map interface has English, while placenames on the map will be in Japanese.

Similar ALOS ver. 3.2 DEM data can be found from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which is also provided in 30-meter postings as 1x1 degree tiles in 16-bit GeoTiff format and is freely available Zip-compressed with registration from JAXA's ALOS Global Digital Surface Model  "ALOS World 3D - 30m (AW3D30)" portal.  ALOS data is more recent, generally more accurate, and more carefully corrected with respect to coastlines and other features pertaining to Japan than is ASTER.  However, available ALOS data is not filtered for buildings and structures, and so will need much more post-processing either during mapmaking or in SimCity terraforming.  While ASTER is more filtered and smoothed in this regard, it's filtering seems to have left a general lumpiness which becomes very apparent in SimCity.  On the other hand, building and structure artifacts could potentially be useful if making an accurate city recreation.