Izidor44

Part 3 of 3 drunkapple 434 Replied: May 14, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, I'm just about re-hydrated, took a couple of cases and a few bottles though. Okay the dem is in .adf format so you'll need to use gmapper rather than 3dem and export it out as a 32bit tiff. I've included 4 tiles Canberra is just below and left of the centre. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ccair/SC4/Izi/CanberraDem.zip Good to see you are getting a few requests, the more the merrier I say. Cheers drunk(still) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: May 14, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Just downloading your little present while typing this message ! Thank you very much for these datas ! Have your tried the Google map saver program ? Actually, I don't use anything else anymore for satellite picture gathering. Just a dumb question too about rendering those tiles in SC4. You know I'm way too lazy : and I wonder if there is a way to open tiles by a kind of automatic process... ...or converting my map in 8 bit, just to let SC4 render it by itself and generate a preview file... ...I'm very lazy, as you have noticed Cheers, Izi Quote Edit drunkapple 434 Replied: May 14, 2012 · Report Cool Izi, I have been using map saver, I can suck in 10000px and save in .tga format. I don't know why he put the 12000px option in, it is only a 32bit proggy and runs out of puff at 4GB of memory. But still it beats 5000 by 1440, I use 15x mag and that is about 200m res. Way way easy, a great find there mate. Probably convert to 8bit would be the easiest although you can't have very high maps as the steps will look utter crap, I sometimes cut them in 4 and render the four small maps then join the pic together. I can render a 10 x 10 map in about 25minutes compared to a 20 x 20 map in about 2 and 3/4 hours. the difference is the time SC4 takes to produce the region image after saving it can vary by about 8-10 seconds per tile. so an extra 8 seconds per tile is about 50 minutes. Cheers drunk(again) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: May 22, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Glad that GMS software is usefull in your work ! I'm currently looking on the internet to find some other elevation datas goldmine... Sadly, for the moment, french datas are not free on the official IGN site (IGN for National Geographical Insitute)... However, Canada is more generous than those wine-drinkers : http://www.geobase.ca/geobase/en/find.do?produit=cded You need to register, and then the entire country is available to download. Data resolution seems to be nice (1 arc second or even more accurate), let's see a work-in-progress preview of a map generated from geobase files : Happy Valley Goose Bay (Newfoundland and Labrador) - coord. 53.298056,-60.32753 Reading at the information files coming with the datas, I finally noted that resolution was 3/4 arc. Did you know this website (and do you know others of that kind ) ? Rainy, rainy, rainy weather here since entire days... ...all this water makes me think about something to drink, hips ! Cheers, Izi Quote Edit Izidor44 91 Replied: May 31, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Hope everything runs smoothly for you. I continue my elevation data hunt over the internet, looking for better resolution datas that those 3 arc resolution HGT files. Yep, I've tasted the high resolution with some recent US maps, and now I'm only thinking about that everytime (well, almost everytime if I'm not thinking about beer). As you know, I have found canadian datas that are very nice, but today I found some interesting UK datas, always free and called "Land Form Panorama" : https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html I downloaded the whole thing and decided to make a test. Here is the comparison between these new datas and the 3 Arc HGT files of the same spot. Have a look : 3 arc DEM : Ordnance survey stuff (I guess about 1.667 arc resolution). The red zones represent spots 15 meters above see level (265 meters in SC4T).What do you think about that ? Another probable interesting stuff is about Finland : https://tiedostopalvelu.maanmittauslaitos.fi/tp/kartta?lang=en The main webpage indicates that june 4th, elevation datas will be released on this interface, so I will give it a try and keep you informed. See you ! Izi Quote Edit drunkapple 434 Replied: June 4, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, You have been a busy web ferret. The Canadian data I have been using since Sault Ste Marie. I made that with SRTM., I found the Ordinance dept ages ago before they released the land former data and had never been back. It does look promising though along with the Finnish site. It looks like the Mexican 1 second dem is gone. Their site has changed and I cannot find it anywhere. To be truthful though some of it was a bit hit and miss in the quality stakes. They used to have an English button also to help me navigate, but i've been clicking all the links and cannot find anything. http://www.inegi.org.mx/default.aspx And there is this from Ecuador, in a variety of resolutions. http://www.rsgis.ait.ac.th/~souris/ecuador.htm#DEM Cheers drunk(again) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: June 5, 2012 · Report Hello dear master, Some more news about finnish datas, which are available now at 2 meters resolution : https://tiedostopalv.../kartta?lang=en You just have to enable the "Elevation model 2 meters" layer, on the left of the screen, then pick up the tiles you want. I did a test and downloaded 2 tiles. Thoses datas were available as zip files, which I both opened in Global Mapper, then export as one 1 arc HGT file. Choosing your tiles is rather easy, compared to the Mexican webpage you told me about. Reading spanish is not too difficult for me (I'm french native speaker), but gathering the datas is a bit tricky. I finally found that page : http://www.inegi.org...l/Descarga.aspx You can select the datas in various way, I was myself used to pick tiles (clave in spanish), but I didn't find anywhere a global map showing the whole mosaic... Anyway, I finally succeeded in grabing 2 tiles and opened them in GM, then generate a 1 arc HGT file. Nicey, no ? I also have a question for you : In Global Mapper, I can export the datas as a GeoTiff file. This file is huge (12.000 x 12.000 pixels) and looks gorgeous. Please look at this detail (it comes from the finnish test I did). The picture is not downsized, I just picked a 800 x 800 pixels area : The problem is that I just cannot figure out how to scale properly this beast. Do you have an idea ? Cheers, Izi Quote Edit drunkapple 434 Replied: June 13, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, Thanks for finding the Mexican page, Spanish unfortunately is not my strong suit. That Finnish data looks terrific, that was a great find there mate. To find co-ordinates in g-mapper click Tools and in the menu click Control Center (Yes it's not the way I would normally write Centre). In the dialogue at the bottom click the Metadata Button. Another dialogue will pop up and you can scroll down and get all sort of good info like north, south, east and west headings, highest and lowest points etc,etc, etc. Also that nicebutevil fellow is a bit of a time waster. Last month he pm'd me if I would make the map. I said I would but it would be a little while, then a week later he asks if I could extend it to the border. I replied ok. Then a week and a half later he posts it on the request board without even a "by your leave sir you've been sacked". How long does he think it takes to capture 120km coast, innumerable islands, rivers and what not? 2 seconds? I think if I finish it now I will pop it straight on to Plan B. I'd take my time and make him wait a while for it. Some people just have no idea. Cheers drunk(again) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: June 21, 2012 · Report Hi dear master, 'wish everything run smoothly for you in your part of the globe... ...here, weather is stormy, wet and hot (if we can say that 25°C is that hot). The little ferret is busy again, putting is nose everywhere all aroud the internet : NEDF Search webpage (Australia) : http://nedf.ga.gov.au/geoportal/catalog/search/search.page I registered there and ordered some part of eastern coast of the country. I received an email, saying that my order succeeded, and giving me a direct link to a zip file. Here it is : http://nedf.ga.gov.au/download/1339591561718/1339591561718.zip It also gave me a password, as this zipfile is encrypted : nexfexqsfux Unfortunatelly, I just don't figure how to unzip this stuff ! Tell me, if you have enough free time, if you could have a try with it... EDIT: about the Mexican site ! Just found a kml file which shows all the "claves" of the mexican territory. You can now download very specific tiles of terrain http://www.conabio.gob.mx/informacion/metadata/gis/indi50kgw.xml?_httpcache=yes&_xsl=/db/metadata/xsl/fgdc_html.xsl&_indent=no This rain on the window makes me think about little drops of beer... ...mmmh... ...beer !! Gotta go to the fridge again ! Cheers, Izi Quote Edit Izidor44 91 Replied: June 25, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk', Some more pictures of my recent experimentations, about datas I downloaded from the Finish source you know. It's all about the processing I used to have with datas... In fact, when downloading datas from the site, I opened them with Global Mapper and exported them as a 1 arc HGT format file. This format has many advantages for me : - north orientation is automatically done - all datas can be merged into one resulting file (Geotiff) - it is possible to crop a part of the map, exactly knowing coordinates of each corner of the selection : calculation of SC4 dimensions is easy this way However, at least with these very accurate datas, the exportation into HGT file reduces the accuracy of the map ! I discovered that it was better to export the datas from Global Mapper directly into a GeoTiff file, openable in PS or Photoline. Here is a comparison of the same part of a map, from the same original datas : 1/ map obtained from a HGT file (itself obtained from an export of Global Mapper) : 2/ map obtained directly from a GeoTiff file exported from Global Mapper : Have you seen all those nitty details (road access ramps...) ? Unfortunatelly, calculation of the dimensions is very difficult for me as I don't clearly see how to know the coordinates of each corner of the map (I still need to experiment)... What do you think about that ? Izi Quote Edit drunkapple 434 Replied: June 26, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, That's a nice find, It's the aussie 1 second data. Excellent to see they have put it on the etherthingy for everyone. The folder with the s tag is the smoothed dem, not really sure of the difference though as the 1 second maps I have done so far I used the standard version. I like the small humps and bumps though it means some in-game terraforming for the players. The Esri files are ok to use with g-mapper to make a 32bit tiff. 3dem is a bit limited to what it can open but is handy no less. The 2m Finnish data is very accurate, it is a shame they don't have complete coverage yet and as you have noted data is lost when it is down sampled to SC4 size. The 10m data is probably just as good in the long run and covers all Finland, it is still down sampled from 10m to 16m. I am re-making the Turku map with the 10m data and new go-ogle images as they have been changed since I started it and are better quality. So hopefully that will be finished soon. A couple of things I noticed with the projection, when first loading into g-mapper set the zone to 35 (it opens displaying 15) for correct latitude and longitude. Also it is a bit odd to overlay go-ogle images on and they need to be skewed and dragged and stretched and warped to fit properly, no easy task that one. Another thing after you located GMS I trawled around and found this: Proggy.It's not free and a few things are disabled but you can set the north and south latitudes and east and west longitudes to end up with a single image of the area of interest. The magnication uses go-ogles and is quite handy dandy. It is a little slower than GMS but there is no need to second guess where the images overlap etc so invariably does save a little time and farting around joining images and what not. Mmmm, beer o'clock! Cheers drunk(getting) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: June 26, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, How did you manage to open the zipfiles from the Australian site ? I just don't figure out how to extract the datas... Please help me about that...! I will have a look at your new program, it looks very promising and probably easier than GMS as it combines various pictures... ...thanks ! Oh oh ! Beer'o clock too on that part of the globe (it's always beer time, finally). Cheers ! Izi Quote Edit drunkapple 434 Replied: June 27, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, Gee I don't know what happens to the formatting with my posts? I use a very old version of winzip number 9. Open the file with winzip, click 'Actions' and in the menu is 'Extract' or I use 'Control e'. In the dialogue type where to send the package. then click the 'Extract' button. Another dialogue will pop up asking for the password, copy and paste the password into this field and click 'Ok'. Off it goes and extracts everything. Cheers drunk(again) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: June 27, 2012 · Report Thank you Drunk' ! I downloaded that old version of Winzip and everything went smoothly ! Now I can map Australia, yum yum ! Izi Quote Edit drunkapple 434 Replied: October 29, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, How's the plonk? Moved? Very far? Anyway, yes you've made a Kalispell map, I'd made it for Cathoderay and sort of forgot about it, then seen yours on your thread so held off and decided to put it on the lex. It's not compressed, I have other techniques for getting smoothe river banks up to about 40m asl ;<) And Manchester, that fellow sent me a pm just as I was heading down to Tassie with the typical gushing sentiments and sent another before I returned to cancel it. That is why I never acknowledged the time waster as the requestee. The ingrate then decides to question it's accuracy including the width of the rivers which if he had bothered to measure would have found to be very accurate. The quay in question is about 75m (a shade under 5 pixels in SC4 terms) . On the map it is 5 pixels which I think is accurate enough for the game. Having trouble rendering? I have a new mod which will cut rendering times significantly. Used in conjunction with a ball bearing or other heavyish object to hold down the f8 key makes rendering each tile a triple click affair. I just need to finish the readme and I'll send you a copy. About the technique you used for those maps in Florida, I used that sort of technique early on. South Georgia was the first map I made using it, Paradise Bay was the last (I used it for Para Bay because the dem is a bit crappy anyhow). You need to be a little careful with it, If you look at some pics of Florida you will find some parts that should be land have sunk beneath the SC4 seas. I have found that some of the Canadian dem is the best for using this type of technique with. Have another drink on me. Chin Chin Cheers drunk(still) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: October 29, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, How do you do ? Yes, I finally moved from one town to other about 30 km southward, and still 40 km west of Paris, just here I'm still at 1 hour from house's door to desk in south Paris by train. Region is hilly, full of forests, lakes, horses and almost noiseless. Sometimes, city lights are not working at evening, making those village streets completelly dark ! Creepy ! About Kalispell, just don't worry, as I find very interesting to see what you can do with the same area as mine. I was simply astonished with that river which runs way more northward than mine, from lake to the mountains. Then, you can imagine that I feel curious about those techniques, please don't tease me ! Manchester map was also requested to me by a guy named Bonobo. I was at the beginning of the making (extracting the datas and cropping the Tiff file) when I saw that you released the same spot. Then, I came back in my discussion with him saying that, as my master released exactly what he wanted to have, I didn't feel obliged to continue the work. He replied that it could be interesting to have my map too, in order to compare accuracy between your map and mine ! I simply gave it up... Your map is excellent, what does he expect from me ? I feel also very impatient to have your tutorial about "fast rendering process" : you know how the heck I can be lazy at opening those hundred of tiles ! Many maps are waiting in my hard drive for months just because I prefer to drink beer rather than opening tiles ! Oh damn, I'm speaking about beer now... ...my brain won't think about something else anymore ! Cheers ! Izi

Part 2 of 3 drunkapple 434 Replied: January 30, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, Well the party's over. I told you he would be back and like a seer from the future, guess what??? You're correct, yep he logged in today and has started sticking his grubby little 1 start paw print on the maps again. He's lucky he lives in America and not in my street or he'd have a bad limp by now. Chin, chin. Cheers drunk(hic) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: January 30, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Hope everything is OK in your southern part of the world. here in Paris, we enjoy, at last, some real winter temperatures (from 2 to -6°C scheduled this week). Wind, wet, cold... ...and I've catched a cold too ! Snif... Maybe a small shot of russian vodka will help here...! Or maybe two. I carefully read your long message about SC4 Devotion and felt from the chair when reading that you've waited during months before uploading anything there ! Ouch. Comparing with STEX, which is really much more easy and welcoming, I think I will only post some pictures of my maps on SC4D and upload maps on the STEX. Some guys replied on my SC4D thread, maybe someone will request for something too... ...well that's enough for me. If they are interested about my work, they will register on STEX, ah ! The "Official map request thread" at Simtropolis is interesting too, but not very active. On the contrary, reviews posted on STEX pages are much more fast, so I'm tending to think that the threads I've created could be more considered as a "collection book" rather than a real dialog between mapper and requesters, no ? Anyway, I've seen that my thread has been seen about 700 times, so I feel myself confident. About technique : I'm still trying various ways of editing descent shorelines and smooth sea bottoms. With the Dubrovnik map, I just tried that : - follow your way in downloading .hgt file, using 3Dem and SC4T until I have a nice 16-bit PNG file with elevations ranging from 250 to xxxx meters. - I generate of view of the map in PNG and use it to collect the sattelite views from Google map. - I then have a file with 2 layers : background is the map view itself, and an "Image layer" which is the collection of images I grabbed. - I create another layer over the "Image layer" and lassoing every patch of water I can see. I usually edit the transparence settings of the "Image layer" to 50-60%, in order to see both pictures and background. The goal is to have all the sea surface represented as a black color (I use the black color 3.8%, which represents something like -10 meters above sea level in SC4T). - I paste the black layer on the first PNG file and import the whole thing in SC4T. I have then a map where everything under sea level is at almost -10 meters or something else. - I set the compressor at 248/250/xxxx where 248 is the lowest elevation of the map, 250 is the unchanged value and xxx the max value of the map. I have then a map where sea is everywhere at 2 meters under sea level. - I export this new PNG file. - Returning to my black layer representing the sea, I select the entire black zone, reduce it by 2 pixels and create a new layer where this new zone is filled with pitch black (000000h or -248 meters in SC4T). - I duplicate this layer and edit a gradient effect ranging from pure white to pure black in the zone. Then, I use the "soften" filter a bit and set the property layer as "Multiply". - Then, I merged the three layers in one (the gradient one, the "pitch black" one and the last PNG file exported from SC4T) obtaining a final map where sea zones go from 3.8% to 0% (from -2 to -248 meters in SC4T). The rest of the map is untouched. - Save it as a new PNG file and import it in SC4T. Et voilà, c'est prêt ! However, I still have some drawbacks I try to resolve : - the gradient effect is applied on the entire zone I've selected. This means that the border of the map where you should find plain deep ocean is affected too. I then have to flatten eveything in SC4T - the gradient effect is still a bit "rude", I mean there's still a "step effect" which is not very pretty in my opinion. I should use a stronger softening effect ? ** Have you seen this web site ? http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/dem3.html There are hgt file of northern parts of Russia, Canada, Groenland... This main page is a bit messy, but maybe helpfull... I have downloaded the Murmansk (Russia) spot... ** Call me dumb, but I've just recently discovered how to vote in the STEX... ...so now, you can consider EVERY upload you'll post as a 5-stars-voted-work from me. So now, I finish the bottle of vodka (two shots were not enough), and return to Pula mapping ! Cheers (hic !) Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: February 1, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, Bloody hell -6, I can feel icicles forming on my teeth. Brrrr. This week sees me in Tasmania visiting my sisters. It is cool but dry. I think I'll have a vodka with you or two or three. Mmmm that warms one up. Yes the lex thing for me just became a battle of wills in the end I think. Like I'm not going to let you bastards win, period!!! I see you've had a response in your thread, very cool and a lovely map of Pula to boot. Yes they will come they just need time. I always feel views are much more important than replies. Yeah I post most of mine still on the STEX and a variety of different ones on the lex plus a couple are doubled. With most those that have been rotated I post one version on the STEX and one on the lex. I was going to post the site to you but thought if he looks he will find it, I'm glad you did. That is a very cool site. The files are all in .hgt and will open in 3dem. SRTM over 6000m has been repaired, along the top of world has been made. He also has some 1 second stuff but I am not so keen on it. The only thing I do ask of you though is I promised Glenni some time ago to make some maps in southern Norway (which I have never done so far). after I have cleared all the maps from my lists (probably by the end of February) I will make some of s. Norway for him. Will you not make any from there until after please. I also made some from Antartica but never released them because there is dodgy dem and I never returned due to request commitments. The STEX list I would just like to see cleared, Blade just used to pick and choose his way through ad hoc. but I think it is a good project. For the technical stuff I shall reply when I get home and in front of my desktop as I am typing this on my sisters lappy. Get well soon mate Barkeep, another round please. Chin, chin Drunk(soon) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: February 1, 2012 · Report Wooaah !! Tasmania ! Sounds quite exotic for me No problems about southern Norway, I did enough pesky little islands and fjords in the Adriatic sea with the last maps... Still about technique, I tried something slightly different from the last description I did yesterday, and here is my illustrated rerporting : First, I have strictly followed your instructions and obtained a map ranging from 250 to 1062 meters. I won't talk about image collecting and lassoing technique, and just show the final result of the lassoing stage on PL, where sea/water is represented in black (value 3.5% = 230 meters) : I copy this sea layer onto the PNG map I had before (the one ranging from 250 to 1062 meters), merge layers and import it in SC4T. I then fire up the compressing and enter the settings 248/250/1062 : I export a new map from SC4T and return to my original sea layer in PL. I then select all the black of the layer in order to create a mask. ...then contract the zone by 1 pixel... ...and finally create a new layer where I fill the contracted zone with black (still 3.5%). Then, I use the "Inner blend" style effect : Copying this new layer onto the last map exported from SC4T : ... and set the layer property to "Multiply" at 50% : Again, merge the layer with the background map and import it in SC4T. I open the compressor and set the values at 2/250/1062 At this stage, I usually consider map to be finished. I then fly over the whole area, looking at small details to be corrected. BUT there's still thing to be ameliorated. For example, I still think that shore line countour is still a bit ruggy, geometrical : I can try the "Equalize" tool, which can give pretty good results, but I usually lose small details, look : ...and elevations, after equalizing, always look a bit smooth : What can I do ? Create a specific layer for small details (harbor mostly) and put onto an equalized map ? Please note too that the blending effect runs along the edge of the map, which is something I have to correct in SC4T (I would like to correct it before, in PL)... (phew ! I need something strong this time...) Cheers, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: February 1, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, First that looks like the beginnings of a great water technique and when it is sorted completely I think we should release the tutorial as a combined effort from you and me. what do you think? I'll start with the last first The blended edge you can get rid of before terraformer by lassoing and repainting it the darkest sea colour. For the geometric coastal edges when you create the mask can you also find a command like feather. This should paint more transparent pixels along the the edge of the mask. I don't use equalise myself as it is the beginnings of changing the dem and although only small could lead to a belief that a second, third or fourth click will not do much harm either. I applaud you on your contiuing investigations, well done mate. Also the data from viewfinder underpants is what I use a lot for patching the SRTM files because where there are corresponding files they overlay exactly. Not that all their SRTM equivalent tiles are completely patched, only the hilliest bits. Mmmm Cheers drunk(now) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: February 2, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Everything's fine in Tasmania ? Here it's cold : -6°C today and same thing is scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday. But a shinny sun. Vodka is definitly needed against this particular weather. This small post about geometrical edge of coastline we talked about : PL has an antialising option. It wasn't enabled at first, so I make it shine now I've applied this little new trick for my Murmansk map : ...and a closer view from SC4T here : Things are getting better, no ? Brrrrrrr...! Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: February 2, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, -6! I can barely move just thinking about that! I think you had better have my share too. Those pics mate are definately looking better. Cheers drunk(later) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: February 15, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Hope everything is OK, how was the return from Tasmania ? Here, after almost 2 complete frozen weeks (from -2 to -7°C in Paris), weather is "warmer" now, as we enjoy a wet +6 ! Where's the shore ? Just this small post about Earth Explorer : they have made an update some days ago. Now you can download 1 Arc Aster global Dem .tif files from them. I guess this includes the global area of the map (meaning not extreme northern and southern regions), but I didn't check yet. Tell me what you think about Cheers with a beer (finally the drink I prefer, I confess), Hips, Izi Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: February 24, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, I don't know if you have read my last post, you're probably out working somewhere... Anyway, I've tested this ASTER files and feel a bit disappointed about it, as maps generated from ASTER are very hilly... Another trick about the feather effect : after creating this blending layer, I set the histogram curves from 0 to 3.8%, which means from 2 to 249 meters. The result is way more better... See ya, Ups ! Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: February 26, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, Sorry I hadn't replied to your last post, I had read it and yes Aster is kind of crap. It is full of artefacts not only little bumps but hollows as well. It can be useful to patch voids in the SRTM data ((sometimes): Check it very carefully though!!). If you do use it scale the Aster back to 3 seconds ie. 1201x1201 rather than scaling up the SRTM. Of interest the Mandurah map I made is Aster data along the coast and SRTM data in the hill section :<)). Your latest maps looked fab mate and one of these days I am going to re-read through this post and make a map with all your photoline techniues ;<)) Another thing what computer are you using? More to the point I'll make a questionaire. Computer? Desktop or Laptop. OS? Win3 2bit or Win 64bit. Ram Amount? Ram Module Size? The reason I ask is because I discovered some quirks with mapper and terraformer. (What you didn't think there were any?) Both appear to be only able to access a single ram module, be it a 2GB or 4GB module and hopefully 8GB modules. Multiple modules or ram do not increase the map size either is able to produce. A single 2GB module or 2x2GB modules in a 32bit windows machine can produce a 20x20 tile map with mapper, a single 4GB module can produce substantially larger (not sure yet of the exact size), all my largest maps except Toronto-The Golden Horseshoe can be inmported. A single 4GB module in a 64bit windows machine will produce maps up to 24x24 tiles,(the size of Toronto) with no change for multiple modules ie. 4x4GB or 6x4GB. So I am hoping that 8GB modules will step the size up again and ultimately this will be the largest maps possible I suspect. Hopefully the step will be greater than the 2GB-->4GB step. (cue the maniacal laughter). The only downside will be file size, what with Simtrop having a hardwired size of 20MB since the change to version 7. Bugger!! And well SC4D is a lost cause in this too with an allowance of only 8MB unless you pm the admins with the request. Hmmm. Chin chin Cheers drunk(already) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: February 27, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, In fact, the PL technique still needs some more experimentations, in particular about the gradient effect. I still don't manage to create a correct gradient which not continue along the map borders, but goes out of the map... I still correct this drawback manually, both in PL and SC4T. However, while manipulating the histogram curve of the gradient layer, result is way more better in my opinion. The other point it creating rivers correctly, without making too much corrections in SC4T. For the moment, I still need to check them carefully in SC4T, sometimes re-drawing them at some specific points. I have slightly modified your SC4T color setting, in order to keep elevations between 250 and 261 meters in a light yellow - green gradient. This way, I only draw river in these zones, as I think that rivers are too much more sunken in the ground beyond this 261 meters limit. The computer : HP desktop with Intel® Core 2 duo CPU E8400 at 3 Ghz, 1,93 Go RAM. Runs with Win XP service pack 3. And about you ? Everything is fine I hope. I've read (in SC4D I think) that you work for a period of 6 months... ...right ? And what about a glass of french Calvados ? Cheers, Izi Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: February 29, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, I keep thinking about your idea of a tutorial for mapping. I just started a VERY rough prototype of small website about the subject. There's many MANY things to do and your knowledge would be very usefull here. I need an email adress from you, in order to make you able to visit and edit this site. Tell me what you think (no, definitly, beer is better) Hips, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: March 7, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, First up congratualations on your trixie, that's are marvellous result. Cool keep experimenting! Well it's no slow poke. The best upgrade for maps would be to buy a single 4GB stick of ram and replace the current ram installed, I am assuming your 2GB is 2x 1GB modules. This would allow you to make maps up to almost 24 tiles square ;<) Yeah, I fly in and out of a minesite and work week on week off. So for 6 months of the year I am without interweb or computer. Calvados, now that does sound good. Bugger the glass, how about a bottle? I think that's a dead good idea a tutorial. an email address bigsnag@hotmail.com Mmm beer is best. Chin chin drunk(again) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: March 7, 2012 · Report Hello Drunk, Thanks for the kind words and congratulations too for your awards You should have received an email from me, and a link to a Google powered website. Please have a look to, but have in mind that it's a complete rought for the moment and many things have to be wrote. The aim of this site is probably a bit more than a simple tutorial, as I would like to talk about many things : - where to find suitable DEM files - what are the different tools for opening and editing those files - the editing techniques (lasso, layers...) - explaining the 16-bit details level, comparing to the 8-bit one etc... etc.. I would like also to keep a small part about mapping in 8-bit. You should be able to read/modify the entire site at your convinience... ...but I'm sure we will have many things to talk about before editing ! About Calvados, you should like it too as it is made from cider apples, from Normandy... (a famous place for gastronomy, you know how are those frenchies, always talking about food) ! Cheers, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: March 9, 2012 · Report Cool for sure, except I just checked my email and there was nothing from you. Hmm very strange as there was nothing in the junk folder either. not that hotmail actually delivers anything to the junk folder ;<) Chin chin Cheers drunk(again) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: March 9, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, I have transfered to you the message launched at first by Google Site. Anyway, here is the link to the pages : https://sites.google.com/site/mappingtechniquesforsimcity4/ But I wonder how it would be possible for you to edit/modify those webpages... ...maybe easier if you open a Google account Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: March 9, 2012 · Report G'day Izi, What a great start you have made to the the tutorial. I think it could become the premier site for map training globally. Cheers drunk Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: March 26, 2012 · Report Good day Drunk, Hope everything is fine on your part of the globe. Let me tell you how I was impressed about your last releases : magnifique !! No work on the website, sorry, but I just found something that might interest you : Google Map Saver Sorry if you already know that one, but this little free proggy can save huge part of Google map pictures. I just tested it with a 5.000 x 5.000 pixel wide PNG file of Sicilia, corresponding to probably more than 50 single screenshots... ...that can save time, no ? Tell me what you think ! Nice weather today, we call it spring here. But no rain, so I feel thirsty... what's in the fridge ? Cheers, Izi Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: March 26, 2012 · Report Hi again Drunk, I've launched the mapping machine to see what would happen here : Brunswick, Georgia This map was obtained with only one Google map terrain view, paste onto the dry map and correctly scaled. I then created a "Sea Layer" by selecting the blue color of the screenshot and fill this lasso in black... and cleaned it up a bit. Of course, a complete lassoing session can be done with a sattelite photo. This map is just testing. What's your feeling about that ? Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: April 6, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, You have been busy mate with some great looking maps, I haven't seen that google map saver before. I shall download it when I get home from Perth, does it save the sat images as well or only the map images? It would certainly save a few hours work pasting bloody pics together. 5000 x 5000 would be like 10 images, 2 wide and 5 deep. A cool find mate. I had a look at your brunswick map at sc4d, it looks great and will fool most (I checked it against sat pics) certainly better than water blade ever produced. I don't mean to sound harsh or off putting as sometimes the map image water from google is very accurate compared to sat pics and other times it gets a bit hairy mary if you know what I mean. You just need to check it carefully or else you can end up with water where there is supposed to be islands (etc,etc). Brunswick is not overly accurate (America is not overly accurate when it comes to positioning water on the map images). In saying that magic wanding the water is a damn sight quicker than lassoing for sure. So my overall feeling is if it lays on the sat image perfectly, it's the way to go. If it deviates from the satellite, use lassoing. Aside from that your map above looks great anyhow and probably none would be any the wiser ;<) Perth was a bit rainy when I got here and also yesterday but started to clear up and get a bit warmer although that would probably be like toast for you. Then when I get home I'm only there four or five days before driving to Sydney for 2 weeks. A busy busy drunkard. Hey you've started to get requests, that's very cool mate. Soon you'll be getting so many like me that you will be constantly working from a backload list ;<) See keeping your stuff up there front and centre helps immensely. and you've also started to get the interest of some of the bsc which could bode well for being able to upload if you choose to do so in the future. I do know a sneaky way around that if you should ever want to. Well not in the fridge but there was some plonk on the top of my cousins fridge, Mmmmm Cheers drunk(getting) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: April 6, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Always nice to read you here ! Yes, I'm finally thinking that this GMS program could be quite usefull : it can show and save the Google map in standard, sattelite or terrain view. Image size could be very huge (up to 10.000 x 10.000 pixels !) but I'm limited in memory to 5.000 x 5.000 pixel dimensions, which is quite enough I think ! The only drawback I can see is that images have a border you will have to delete before using. I didn't see where it would be possible to unable this particularity. Apart from that, GMS is nice ! The big advantage, in my opinion, is that it's really easier that way to save big sattelite image at 200 meters scale. Instead of copying/pasting hundreds of photos, probably less than 20 will do the job. I'm actually testing the terrain maps (in opposition to sattelite) for very selective areas like big modern american cities. I think those spots are well enough accuratelly drawn to directly use these terrain picture at mapping. But you're right, you will always have to check any possible difference between those terrain maps and their sattelite counterparts. I was a bit naïve at first with terrain maps, thinking that it would be easier and faster to map with them : the magic wander doing everything, and me having a beer waiting in front of the screen. No way ! There is probably more work with that way of doing as your mask will requires lot of cleaning, often pixel by pixel... My actual New York project is of that kind, and I'm starting to wonder if sattelite images would not have been better ! So yes, the lassoing technique is still the best one. For any other spot in the world, satellite pictures are also the best. I've also found, for russian locations, the exact russian clone of Google Map called Yandex. Of course it's in russian, but it was really helpfull for Saratov and recent Shaktyorsk map. Sometimes, Google doesn't have accurate satellite photos and shows blurry old results... ...please have a look at ! Here April has started as usual : some days nice and warm (18-20°) and now cold (12°C). It's the best way for catching a cold no ? So my nose is red... ...and I'm also enjoying the spring pollen invasion too... ...atchaa ! Vodka is the only solution, I will put my nose directly in my glass ! mmff bl bl... Cheers, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: April 11, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, Whew,I'm home. I hope Blade told you about 1/3 second dem. I have been using it for ages when I found a particularly useful interface. (not the silly server) Only trouble is the format is unusable in 3dem. It's either arcgrid or float neither of which will open in 3dem. I haven't been to the silly server site since they stopped doing the rest of the world which was in February 2010. Maybe there is a usable format for 3dem. That's really why I haven't said much about it plus it is only for the US anyhow, no matter how much Blade wants to bignote himself. So it works like this: Make map of the rest of the world, mostly use SRTM 3 second or now and then there is some 1 second data. US you can use 1/3 second data. Maybe from the silly server you can download 1/3 in a format usable in 3dem. If you want I can upload my Aussie 1 second data to my server for you. The only stipulation with that is I'd prefer you not to pass it around to others as I bought it from the government and well they may get a bit antsie to me, if you know what I mean. Copyright and all that stuff etc. Canada also has some very nice dem in 3/4 second of the whole country. Yandex has some clearer images of Russia although I still need to look at other parts of the world but there is a bit of a dodge between map versus satellite images. Again it comes back to checking one to the other for accuracy. And I shall download GMS shortly to save some time. They had a few bottles of red on the plane so Mmmm I thought I'd have a couple. Very nice. Cheers drunk(almost) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: April 17, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, I hope everything is fine on your part of the globe and all you precious bottles to be sleeping quietly in the fridge ! Yes, Blade2k5 sent me a kind of tutorial on a private message in SC4D, which is quite usefull. However, I was too much impatient to wait for his post, so I tried myself to find the 1/3 arc datas. Finding the USGS seamless server was not difficult, but I felt handle the interface to be a bit more tricky (again, I suppose that my alcoholic level interferes here). The important thing is that I didn't notice that you could download the datas in various formats (Geotiff, arcGRID, gridfloat...) so I downloaded all the necessary files in the "by default" format (which is arcGRID if I remember correctly). There was then a dozen of zip files which I opened, creating folders of same structure each (files names, subfolders, metadatas...). Anyway, here comes the magic part : I downloaded the trial version of Global Mapper 13. As you may know, this trial version doesn't allow you to export anything as long as it is unregistered. But I succeeded to use it : I opened GM, it prompted a registering message which I ignored, closed the software and reopened it again... ...and then I was **REGISTERED** I just don't manage to explain that I finally managed to open successivelly my 11 specific files (all named "w001001.adf") to create a mosaic in GM, which I exported as 2 distinct "1 arc" HGT files (respectivelly N40W74 and N40W75). Finally, this composite file was openable in 3DEM... ...and you master the rest of the process. I think next time I won't download arcGRID format, but directly Geotiff because I think that the GM episode may be a little hazardous, and I wouldn't want to lose or alterate datas with that kind of process. What's your feeling about that ? Those messages are getting longer and longer... ...I really feel thirsty now ! Pssshhh.....tt ! (opening beer bottle's noise) Cheers, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: April 26, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, I'm glad to hear your bottles are not so sleepy in the fridge ;<) I have just arrived home this morning from my southern sojourn, in 3 weeks I have driven and flown 16,000 kilometres equivalent to almost half way around the world, phew. I am glad to hear that there are ok formats on the slippery server and most glad to hear you have global mapper running, that really does make things easier, why because I know of a great helper to get US data. Much much easier than the clunky snotty server. Go to this page and bookmark it with out fail. http://gisdata.usgs.gov/webappcontent/neddownloadtool/NEDDownloadTool.html?radio=on&State=NONE&County=NONE&Submit=Submit Use 'area' and switch to decimal degrees. Lat is simple 2 digits and delete everything including the decimal point, Long requires a minus (-) sign and 3 digits so use zero (0) for less than 100 degrees. There are only 2 formats arcgrid or float, personally I use arcgrid. Then in global mapper save them out with export raster/image format as a 32bit geotiff and bugger me dead open them in photoline. No more need for 3dem ;<) you can pick off 1/3 data and also 2 second data of Alaska with the page. Really just too bloody easy mate. Thirsty, I feel drier than a dead dingo's donga. I can hear some clinking in the background!! Cheers drunk(soon) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: May 10, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk ! I hope you not feel too much thirsty after all those plane travels... ...conditionned air always changes my throat in an arid hole... gasp ! This small post just to inform you as I continue my 1/3 arc experiences, and all those details just make me mad. This resolution definition can really make map look gorgious ! Someone on SimTrop' just asked for a Canberra map, and I would like to know if it could be possible to you to give me some nice DEM datas (I mean at a better resolution that the usual 3 arc) of that spot ? He's asking for a zone of roughly 40 x 40 km all around the city. Tell me if it's possible to you, I really don't mind if not ! Chin chin ! Izi

Good morning gentlemen ! So many years without a post, you may think I had quit SC4 for good ! But in fact no, I'm still lurking around on the forums and city journals like a ghost... Anyway, I post today here as I just rediscovered a long conversation I had with our map guru Drunkapple (also known as Dobdriver) when I was trying various mapping techniques and discovering the joys of 16-bit mapping techniques. At the time this conversation begun, I had already uploaded some 8-bit maps, elaborated from my own solitary experimentations and get noticed by Drunk who started the chat with me. I thought this long dialogue could be an usefull tutorial for anyone interested about accurate SC4 mapping, finding the good tools, the good dimension formulas and the good spots on the internet where DEM gems are hiding. I'm almost sure that Drunk would have agree to see this text here and, if he reads me (one never knows), let me cheer up a beer with him ! So here it is : a "from the foundry" brutal Copy/Paste of our private conversation from 2011-2012 ! Part 1 of 3 drunkapple 434 Started conversation: November 5, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, That is a lovely collection of maps you are amassing. A couple of things: Do you have or can you get photoshop or photoshop elements? One does need to do work on these maps outside of terraformer etc and ps or elements is about the only software easily available that works on 16bit pngs and tiffs. I downloaded your La Isla Tiburon and Cabo Tepoca map. What formula are you using to scale latitude and longitude? I ask because your map is a little under scaled both in latitude and longitude. After exhaustive experimentation and a lot of walking with a tape measure... ( Nah all bloody lies). Hunting around on the internet led me to some sites with the conclusions that although latitude does change slightly north to south, there was an accepted constant that 1 degree of latitude is equal to 111.325km over the entire globe. This in SC4 is equal to 7124.8 pixels which can be rounded up to 7125 pixels. This is okay to use but as SC4 is binary: 1 pixel = 16m, 64 pixels = 1 small city tile = 1096m, there is an extra 96m in every small city tile so I divide the above figure by 1.024 to give a result of 6958 pixels for 1 degree. Remember this is the same for all maps irrespective of latitude or longitude. Longitude as you well know changes considerably as one travels further from the equator both north and south. The formula I found to determine longitude at any given latitude is: Cosine(latitude) x 111.325 or you can use cos (lat) x 7125 if no binary scaling or lastly cos(lat) x 6958. Again this is 1 whole degree. I usually only scale for longitude at the point of interest in the map with everything else being either slightly wider or narrower, but one can scale over the whole map by using transform-perspective if one desires. The difference in 1 degree of longitude at 60 latitude is about 1.6km or about 105 pixels and decreases as one moves toward the equator. For interest 1 degree of longitude at 60 lat is about 55.66km. I have used that method when making large scale maps over a couple of degrees of latitude. Cheers drunk(always) ps. I'd take what blade says with a grain of salt. Aside from a few individual countries 1" arc data is not available world-wide. Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: November 7, 2011 · Report Good morning Drunkapple, nice to read some words from you. Very honored too, as I consider you and your maps as an absolute model I thank you very much for these advices about dimensions calculations, I was just living in a medieval world, where everything is flat. And you, heretic, come here to say to me that we live on a globe ? In fact, my method is pretty archaic and, shame on me, completelly ignoring the fact that the Earth is rounded : I simply searched around the internet a distance calculator between two geographic points. For each DEM map, I enter coordinates of each corner. According to this calculator, distance between two corners of the same longitude is always 111,122 km on every latitude on the globe. Given that, in my medieval world, 1 km = 64 pixels, it gives 7111,808 pixels, rounded to 7112. This is this number I enter when resizing my original map. Same action was done for longitude calculation. At this point of the reading, you should think : "What a $%&^! ! : only empirical deductions and estimations, and absolutelly no trigonometrical approach for calculation !" So, after reading you, can I say that ? 1 degree distance in longitude is always 111,325 km formula for distance calculation on latitude, in kilometers : Cos(lat) x 111,325 km Example : distance of 1 degree between a point of 47 degrees of latitude and a point of 48 degrees in latitude is : Cos(47) x 111,325 = 75,923 km ...is that correct ? Now, let's convert all those measures in pixels : 111,325 km gives : 111,325 x 64 / 1,024 = 6957,8 px, rounded to 6958 px 75,923 km gives : 75,923 x 64 / 1,024 = 4745,2, rounded to 4745 px A map of 75,923 x 111,325 km will be converted in a 4745 x 6958 px picture. Do you agree ? --- Regarding Photoshop, I don't earn it and only work on GIMP freeware at the moment. I know this program cannot handle 16 bit pictures, but I would be very interested to know HOW your work on this type of files ? At present, my method of working is based on Microdem software, Gimp, and SC4T. I use layers to redraw rivers and streams or specific areas... but I would be curious to know how YOU do the job I've experienced Fantatsicoast a bit, but cannot see where I can put it on my methodology... Cheers ! Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: November 17, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, Thank you Izi. Moi! Heretic, but I'm the president of the Flat Earth Society. Yep, you look like you've got that ok. I presume that was a typo: 1 degree distance in longitude is always 111,325 km. It's latitude is always = 111.325km. North to south or height. Longitude is cos(lat) x 111.325km. East to west or width. eg. Paris is at lat N48° 51' 26.95", the distance of one degree of longitude at Paris is cos(48.86)x111.325 = 73.24km It almost seems there are no free editors out there that handle 16bit images, I certainly haven't found one yet and I've been trying a few out but nothing. I'll keep looking though. Most think dem maps are hard to produce, the hardest bit is converting the files to a usable format and finding a 16bit editor. The part that makes a map shine is the water as you discovered when when you asked Blade to make the French map, dem doesn't really follow the coasts all that well and a helping hand goes along way to fixing that. By the way that is his pretty much stock in trade answer you received. And while his maps are certainly playable and by god he's made a lot of them, they are neither particularly accurate in scale or terrain and the water is mostly just something else again. My method for collecting water has never really changed. I use the satellite images from google maps at 200 or 500m (depending how good the images are). I also use alt-print screen to capture and paste them into photoshop, on top of each other in layers. (This is so I only have to do one crop to cut them all out.) Once I've collected them all sometimes up to 60 individual images I paste and align them in a new image. You can use the blink method to check the alignment is good, but there are usually distinct pixels on the border. I then merge and save the behemoth. Next take a perfectly good mouse and choose lasso and start drawing around the coasts, rivers and lakes. Again not so hard but can be terribly time consuming. Save often by creating a new layer and painting what you have lassoed. (It does get easier the more you do:))) A good colour to paint it is the 1st or 2nd below sea level. Does GIMP have a transform tool? Next open your dem image in 8bits it should be bright enough to see the detail and copy and paste your painted water layer onto your dem, it will be much larger than the map so use transform to make it smaller. Pulling and pushing on the sides until it fits and aligns with all the features on the dem. If it mostly fits but there are a few places where the rivers jump out of their banks or the coast doesn't quite align, then and only then use a warp command (again I don't know if GIMP has this transform command). This will allow you to pull parts of the water about without upsetting other parts too much. Doing water levels and whatnot has changed considerably over time and I will go into that in more detail in another post. I tried out the first script thing he wrote and it worked quite well, but I never tried fantasycoast as I couldn't be bothered installing dotnet4 and besides I feel I can make better coasts than puter generated ones anyhow. Whew! How's that. Cheers mate. Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: November 17, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, How are you today? Ok ditch your 8bit stuff I've found a 16bit editor that can open and save 16bit pngs ;<). It's not free but relatively cheap at 59euros, certainly a damn sight cheaper than photoshop. It has layers, will work in French and has a 30 day trial period. It supports both 32bit and 64bit operating systems and there is a Mac version also if that is your bent. Allround worth a go I should think. Photoline Now does Microdem export out 16bit files? Because if it doesn't... Well you get the picture. Cheers mate. PS. Here's my basicColors.ini for mapper and terraformer. Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: November 18, 2011 · Report Good day mister President, nice to read you again ! First, thank you for your colors I completelly agree with your point of view about Blade's map of french Brittany. Knowing the region very well, as I spend most of my holidays in this area, I was a 16-bit... ...oops... a bit disappointed when receiving his map. I didn't recognize very well the coastline and some areas... At this time, I was thinking this map was just a rather crude DEM conversion to SC4 standards. Now, I may think we agree about the fact that sea and coastline is probably one of the most important thing on a map. With mountains, sea is the first any SC4 map-uploader guy will look at carrefully before doing anything, no ? My first attemps at ameliorating the shoreline quality were based on GIMP tools. In my file, sea is represented with a "true" blue color, and land is grey. When selecting the blue area and using some specific tools, this selection was very well. But many details were still lacking... So, I started to add layers, with Google map view screenshot, and I repainted in blue over it. After merging the whole blue zones, I had a "sea layer". However, I only redrawn some details, like harbour and streams... ...not the whole coastline ! Now, reading you, I finally admit (you know I'm so lazy) that I would have to draw the whole map ! This is very time consuming as you said, but not impossible of course. I'm now working at a map of Almeria (Spain) with your advices and method. But don't expect to see the map too soon ! About those famous 16-bit... First, let me point you to the Microdem page : http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem/microdemdown.htm Please upload the software, as it is completlly free. Sadly, after reading for hours the help files, I think this program doesn't export 16 images. I please ask you to have a look, as I'm getting lost with all that stuff... I've also download the trial version of Photoline and will have a look to. It looks like GIMP for many tools (here too, you may have a look to this free software), but I don't figure out how 16 bit works... I also have seen the Global Mapper free download, which seems to be the ideal tool, but very expensive ! Well, as you can guess, I'm a bit confused about all that. I can probably improve at making 8 bit maps (which is my first goal for the moment), but 16 bit world is still very foggy for me... dooh ! Cheers from Paris, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: November 19, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, I am not going to load that piece of dinosaur snot on my 'puter ever again. I have three or four times previously and every time I never get it to work. I don't like reading copious quantities of garbled garbage to to get a piece of sh!tty software to work. I have always thought of Microdem as written by boffins for boffins! Anyhow on a brighter note. I'm glad you popped up as it has given me the reminder to continue to develop mapping techniques, I normally use Global Mapper and Photoshop and had progressed to the point where I could churn them out quite rapidly depending on what water there was to incorporate. The paid version of GMapper converts quite well to tiff which of course PS can deal with but as you've found out it ain't cheap, and using it as a one trick pony tends to make it prohibitively expensive. Last year I developed a technique to convert hgt files using a nice little freeware proggy called 3dem and terragen to convert to through a variety of types ending with a raw file which PS could open. (The guys' had PS). 3dem outputs a 32bit tiff while PS can open it, it struggles to work effectively with it. I made one map using the technique to prove it up, (Notorious in two centuries, Tasman Peninsula) and was quite satisfied with the outcome. Now enter Photoline, Photoline is able to correctly open the 32bit tiff from 3dem as a hdr image. The image is ranged from black to white irrespective of actual height (this can be re-ranged in terraformer). The bicubic interpolation algorithm for resizing looks a little better than PS's and does not do spurious dark artifacts around the coast line. Lastly you just need to crop the map out and save it as a .png and make a config. Tonal manipulation is not required if the map is not including the highest part of the dem. Aside from being a frail, shaky piece of crap, unfortunately terraformer has a few bugs that unfortunately Wouanagaine is never going to fix. It amazes me how people bemoan Maxis for not fixing bugs in SC4 yet those very same people are guilty of the same crime with their own software. Anyhow the bug that affects this technique is that terraformer flat tops the final 7% of the greyscale at the white end. ie over 6000m everything is flat, mapper on the other hand will show everything up the the correct 6553.6m. The full 16bit range but alas has no compressor for setting the elevations. Like everything it is fixable: The flat topping started around 2040m (2290m in SC4) so I set the high in terraformer's compressor to this figure and exported a new .png. On the original map from 3dem I lowered the output level in Photoline from 100% to 93% in Histogram Correction and exported another map. The real height of the affected area is about 2173m (2423m in SC4) and this what I set terraformers compressor to. The lower level on both maps was set to 193m (443m in sc4) and exported another map from terraformer. I then layered these in Photoline and cut and pasted the piece I wanted. There are no manipulations for the join (blurring etc). As the height of the fixer map is 133m higher I first tried with a lower limit setting 133m higher also but this left a visible scar as such. While most would not notice or care I do. If you like I could write a more coherent tutorial for you concerning all this stuff. Oh I cannot really remember the addy for 3dem so you can get it Here ;<). Greetz from Darwin Cheers drunk(still) Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: November 20, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, Late breaking news!!! Hold your water on patching I have discovered something cool!! It's an extra step but it saves making a second map or jiggering with tones and the histogram. Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: November 21, 2011 · Report Dear FES* member, I'm always very proud and unpatient to read your posts ! As I'm waiting your last discovery, I would like to list you the actual tests I did today. The source : First, let's grab some candies over there : http://edcsns17.cr.usgs.gov/NewEarthExplorer/ This USGS website allows you to download DEM maps in .dt1 or .bil format from areas all around the world. Converting these raw datas : I used to open the .dt1 format with Microdem and save a magnified image in PNG (8 bit) in order to edit it in GIMP, but things are changing ! I now open the same file and save it as a GeoTiff file. I then open the GeoTiff file with 3DEM, change the projection settings and resave it, still in Geotiff format. Opening the beast : Let's start serious things : I fire up PhotoLine (let's call it PL) and import my last file as a raw picture. Then, I set the layer properties to greyscale - 32 bits and save the whole thing in a PNG format. Of course, for the moment, I'm not talking about rescaling and retouching anything. I just want to see if all the factory I'm building produces 16 bit stuff. Testing with SC4 Mapper : First, please imagine my old frustration with this software, as I really never succeeded before as creating a new region importing 16 bit datas. Today, things appear to be quite different ! Testing with SC4 Terraformer : Same procedure here, with the difference that I can't select directly a 16 bit png greyscale, on the countrary with SC4M. Of course, on my examples, still no modifications or compression. QUESTIONS ! 1/ Is this procedure is usefull ? What is the difference between my ol'8 bit handcraft method and this new one ? 2/ About resizing : can I do it in PL, or is there a thing to do before ? 3/ About sea, streams, harbour and other details : I guess I have to "paint" the see in black, on a new layer, but how can I realize a "gradient" effect, from the seashore to the bottom of the ocean ? Is this doable in SC4T with the compressor ? 4/ About SC4T compressor : can you teach me HOW this works ? Do you only use that function to set proper elevations, and doing nothing before (like in PS) ? Take care, Iz44 * FES : Flat Earth Society ;-P Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: November 30, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, How are things going mate? Mmmm they're nice lollies. Earth Explorer looks to be the successor of the seamless server, a truly ugly and clunky piece of snot. To that extent I decided to find their storehouse of goodies. and consequently have been using the tradesman's entrance ever since. http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/. SRTM1 directory is US 1 second data, SRTM3 directory is the rest of the world 3 second data and SWBD directory is the water shape files you found that are quite inaccurate and the reason I do not use them. Oh I've tried them. The files are named for the lat and long of the bottom left or southwest corner and are in .hgt format. They can be opened in 3dem and also no registration is necessary to download. A truly wonderous cavern of treasure! Okay back to EE, I tried it out until it said log in to collect, GRRRR, I didn't. Does it serve the dem in any other format? Not that it matters so much as .bil files will open in 3dem without the need to go via that dino snot Microdem. I tried out your method anyhow making a 16bit tiff in gmapper then running that through 3dem and on to PL. While it delineates the water, it is not overly accurate and you could easily end up making maps like some other well known mapper ;<). Other more important things though: because the importation method - Camera Raw, PL change it to RGB and assigns new values to all the pixels changing all the original heights but when converting back to greyscale the old values are not restored. The test map I am using - Hiroshima the original top height was 5600+m, the camera raw version produces a top height of 6100+m causing several large flattop areas. When re-sizing the elevations with TF the intermediate elevations are also out. I just had to re-load my OS as terraformer started acting up and even deleting and replacing it with a new copy didn't fix it. Out with the trusty ghost and 10 minutes later all is new, the whole 24 gigs of c drive including programs are now fresh as a newborn's bum ;<) Basically I'd drop the import as camera raw as it is fraught with many things to ruin a good map, including inaccurate water mask, inaccurate elevations, the change to rgb, and the change to 32bit. There is enough work with capturing good water to keep one busy without making the dem conversion a fiddle faddle every time. That said the only way to eventually get 'puter generated water is to keep experimenting with different techniques and I like that you experiment. I like it that you came along because it spurred me to experiment again and I think the following method I will describe is currently about the most accurate for the intermediate elevations I have used so far. In times past my intermediates could range +/-10m again while most would not notice or care I do and I had ended using a customised rgb method which is especially useful for raising ground below sea level. This new method is simple clicks not requiring the use of the histogram or anything. Very quick, very simple, very good. Le Technique. 1. Go to the candy store, either EE or the Treasure Cave. Personally I prefer the treasure cave to the point I downloaded everything from it so I have all the SRTM dem on my hard drive ;<). If you still prefer EE download the files in .bil format. If you use the treasure cave the files are in .hgt format. Both formats will open in 3dem. 2. Start 3dem and choose SRTM then navigate to your file(s) and select it/them. Yes you can open more than one. 3. Once it opens with your map click File>Save Geo Tiff DEM and then click OK in the Dialogue. Personally I do not change the projection as it changes the map size and I have not tested that with my lat and long formula. Close 3dem. 4. Start PL and click File>Open and navigate to your newly created tif image, select it and click Open. On the header bar along with it's name it will say HDR Gray Picture. 5. Zoom in and look for any dead (black) pixels around the area you wish to make the map. When you find some zoom right in and use the Color Picker (I wish they wouldn't use American spelling, it 5hits me). The colour picker is nice because it shows the value of the pixel, dead pixels usually show as -2.1. You can test all the pixels around the spot, when you find an appropriate one to use click it with the colour picker and change tools to the pencil (make sure to change the size to 1px) and click the dud. Continue in this fashion until you have fixed all the duds in the area of interest. It pays to put keyboard shortcuts on these tools to make switching between easier, faster and all around more enjoyable, I use V for the colour picker and B for the pencil. They are next to each other so it is very easy. 6. Next is to resize it, click Layer>Layer Scale and in the dialogue for Mode choose Formula and for Interpolation choose Bicubic and type in the width and height figures then click OK. 7. Last operation in PL for now is to cut out the map, we will assume for now it will not be including the highest area of the dem. 8. Now Save As or Export, it does not seem to make any difference. File sizes are the same, if you choose Export select Export again from the flyout. 9. Make and paint a config. Close PL. Now it's on the Terraformer, Terraformer will open maps from any directory as long as there is a valid config.bmp in there. So you do not need to store all your map making files in SC4's region directory. We will also assume that this map will encompass the sea. 10. Open your map, the first job is to ascertain the highest point also remembering that we are not including the highest elevations of the dem. Click Compressor and in the dialogue change only "max height will map to" to say 255 and click OK. Everything will sink below sea level. Scan the Overview and find the top that is poking above sea level, now open google maps or google earth, (I use maps) switch to terrain and find that high point of your map. If it is named You may well find a height on the ether webby for it otherwise we just use a best gestimate between the contour lines. 11. Ok back in TF click Configuration tools>Undo last terraforming. Go back to Global tools and click Compressor again, this time input 250 into "min height will map to" and the figure you garnered from the terrain plus 250m allowing for SC4's sea level into "max height will map to". Leave "unchanged value" at 0. 12. Last thing is to export it as a 16bit png. You now have a very accurately scaled map in lat/long and elevation (No bogus artifacts as in my previous efforts but you do need to scale lat and long first in PL before elevation in TF or you will get artifacts). Close TF. The actual making of the map to this point is by far quicker than both writing it or reading it. OK now some additions: I. Making a map that does not include the sea. Follow to point 10 and then... 11. Ok back in TF click Configuration tools>Undo last terraforming. Go back to Global tools and click Compressor again, this time input 245 into "min height will map to" and click OK. Scan the Overview and find the puddle of water again checking the terrain in google maps or earth for the low point. Now you have both the low and high points of your map, Undo the last terraforming and in the compressor input these numbers remembering to add 250m to both to allow for SC4's sea level. 12. Export it as a 16bit png. II. Some non-coastal maps are not conducive to adding rivers, it depends on how quickly riverbed rises over the map and sometimes the lowest points of the map do not contain rivers. In these cases I leave the maps at full height and add no water, this requires the punter to add the river with PW if they wish and are not too lazy (most punters I think are too lazy though). In other cases the maps can have rivers aded with no ill effects. This step follows from point 11. 12. After setting the highest and lowest elevation click Lower Terran and input the low height minus 250, then click OK. This will lower the whole map by that amount and the lowest point will be at sea level. The elavation falls will remain accurate between the high and low points. 13. Export as a 16bit png. III. Making maps with the highest parts of the dem and the 6000m bug in terraformer. I discovered this bug when I made Hunza Valley. Rakaposhi is over 7800m, when I lowered the valley to 251m Rakaposhi was still at a height of 6239m and opening in TF it was bloody flat along with Ulta and a fair amount of other country side. I fixed it by compressing it 239m, trust me it's still a fair old drag to climb to 6000m though ;<). This was importing the 16bit png, I don't know if it affects importing an SC4M file though. But and there is always a but! It does not affect importing game files from SC4's region directory ;<))). So the fix without making a second map goes like this after point 9. 10. Start Mapper and Create Region from 16bit PNG. 11. Save region. Close mapper. 12. Start Terraformer and choose to open your newly created region in MyDocs>SC4>Regions. Now follow along from point 10 in the main technique. This is quite a rapid process to create the map ready for water. So far I have not used PL for the water side of things but I shall be testing soon. I am comfortable using PS and have not found the feather tools and others necessary to create good water in PL. I will be checking them soon though. I collect all water in rgb and 8bits so if you are comfortable with the gimp you can continue to use this capture water. Can you input colours with hexadecimal numbers in gimp? If so use 0c0b09 as the water colour equates to 247.8m in SC4. This has taken a few days, a few hours and a few computer re-installs to get here, so I'll leave it at that for the time being. We will get on to water and the pasting on to a map and contours etc. I promise. Take it easy and good experimenting Cheers drunk(again) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: December 1, 2011 · Report Hi DrunkApple, First, let me say that your last post is pure gold for me ! All these indications are unvaluable, thank you ! I've also had a look to the treasure cave you indicated. I found it very usefull and better than the other web interface. All this is saved and bookmarked I very carefully followed your steps with a new .hgt file, it's the south western french coast and the spanish border, along the Atlantic coast : Maximum elevation is 1294 meters (1044 meters in real life). Some zones of dead pixels have been repaired, the whole map has been correctly scaled and edited in SC4T. Absolutelly no smoothing at all. Now, I plan to draw the water line, but I wonder how can it be accuratelly possible. What about editing a "shoreline" layer in PL, PS or GIMP, using the overview PNG file (rather that the elevation PNG file exported from SC4T) as background ? I wonder if it is easier this way... ...so I will experiment that ! - draw the complete shoreline and rivers with the 0c0b09 colour (possible in GIMP, I've checked). - create a "gradient" effect from 0c0b09 to 000000 colour in this zone (I still don't know how to do that) - put the layer onto the elevation PNG file exported from SC4T before and merge both - import this new file in SC4T What do you think about that ? Cheers from rainy Paris, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: December 2, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, Cool, did you find it made sense and easy to follow? Now you could make a shore line from the overview but it still would not be accurate because it was generated from the dem in the first place and as we have seen previously the dem is not that accurate. Comparison There are two overviews, one is from a water collection as you suggested from the overview, the other is from my normal method of collection, ie lots of google images and lasso them cows pardner. While at first glance it looks okay, closer inspection reveals a lot of work is still required to attain a good standard. Whilst the vertical rise of SRTM is usable The horizontal is quite piss poor and much of the smaller islands are just missing altogether. They are the same dem and you can layer them and blink for a good comparison. You do not have much water to lasso in your map above so is a good practise for lassoing it. when you have done so I'll fill you in on pasting on to the dem and adjusting the gradients. Of all the parts of map production this is the piece I have experimented the most with. Nothing is more heartbreaking than capturing all that small detail then losing it when painting it on. we were having a big storm yesterday also when you wrote. probably copped a couple of inches. Cheers drunk(as usual) Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: December 3, 2011 · Report G'day Izi, This next comparison is using those water .shp files overlaid on the dem, unfortunately 3dem will not open shp files so I made it in gmapper. The image is a 3 layered tiff the bottom layer is gmapper's output, the middle is my water overview and the top is the basic water generated from the bottom file. Again you can see the inaccuracies of the shp files, they may be useful for a simple coast but for a complex coast like Stockholm I do not think it is the answer. Shape File Comparison I think the answer to collecting water lies somewhere in being able to convert the google images into 16 or 256 colours to be able to easily magic wand the sea accurately and quickly. Lassoing is accurate but can be dreadfully slow. Cheers drunk(already) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: December 3, 2011 · Report Bonjour Drunk ! After reading and seeing what you've prepaired here, it really seems that the lassoing technique is the better one. However, I tried a little variant, which is, in fact, not really the best one : I used the terrain rendering (I mean no satellite photos) of the Google map site, and collected numerous screenshots of the coast and major rivers on my map. In fact, I had in mind to select, after everyrhing was collected and correctly scaled, all the blue color of those Google images and put it as a zone in a new layer. This zone is then filled in black. Unfortunatelly, this method still requires many corrections. The Google map still have texts and roads which make impossible a perfect selection of the water at first. I still had to walk around the map and correct some spots, like bridges, harbour, etc... So I think it is better to use real images. Finally I had a complete layer where water = black. (I mean 000000). Saved this layer as a separate file, opened it in PL, converted it in HDR grey 32 bit, and pasting it as a layer on the original PNG file I exported before from SC4T. Sounds intelligent or not ? If I continue this way, some difficulties appear : - change the 000000 colour of the sea layer to 0c0b09 in PL - create a gradient effect of this black zone (how to ?) - correctly merge the two images and see what happened in SC4T I have followed all your precious indications to start something else : the Saratov region, Russia. This main town is along the Volga River. Look at this magnific river there, with all these curves... How can it be possible to edit water here ? I think the lassoing technique with real images would be very hard... ...it is why I started to see what would be possible with "terrain" map Google screenshots. You see ? Well, I continue to experiment and will post here (probably on Monday) some examples of what I'm talking about here PS : the Burgas map I will upload Monday too is born from this drawing technique you told me. But I'm still not very about the quality of the result. Cheers, Izy, the young apprentice ! (edited to add the pictures) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: December 5, 2011 · Report Hi Drunk, Here is the last step about this map ! The main drawback is the "gradient effect" of the water zone. I still don't know how to do that in PL. Before in Gimp, I filled the water zone in "grey" (I mean not a complete black) and methodically reduced the zone by 3 or 4 pixels, then filled again the zone with a darker grey. And I continued until I reached almost pitch black value. You see ? Here, the bottom of the sea is 230 meters (-20 m), and this setting was done with the SC4T compressor tool. Still not satisfied about that Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: December 8, 2011 · Report Hi Drunk, I finally successed in making a gradient effect all along a coastline : Contour was made in an "hybrid" way : I collected the satellite photo from Google, and put them in GIMP, over the SC4T overview picture. I used this software only because I feel more easy than in PL. I opened PL and add another layer (greyscale 16 bit) and drew a contour line. Then, I created a inner gradient effect to the black zone. This contour layer was then copied and pasted on the PNG file I exported from SC4T at first. Merged the 2 layers and imported again the new PNG file in SC4T. The only drawback for the moment is that the gradient effect considers the border of the picture (here left border) as the border of the gradient too. I had to flatten everything in SC4T... The gradient setting is still too strong maybe... Cheers, Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: December 14, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, Yes that variant does work but you have to check between the images and the terrain (or map) at how accurate it is. Some countries have very accurate map and terrain water while others, it is quite slap dash. And sometimes countries have quite good water in places and other parts it looks like dog piddle running down a tree. I usually scale the water after I have painted it as it is much easier to do all the fiddly stuff with the biggest images. Also you will get softer edges on the water if you layer a larger image on the map and transform it down in size. I would not worry about converting it before pasting onto your map as it will become 16bit and greyscale and therefore unnecessary to be 32bit. The things I need to find in PL is the feather command and change colours. I will write to you shortly Cheers drunk(as per usual) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: December 16, 2011 · Report Hi Drunk, How are you ? Nice I hope. Have you seen the Saratov map I finished ? Today, we're enjoying a little storm around here, rainy and very windy... About PL, I've tried the "Inner gradient" function. You can find it in the "Effects" menu, then "Layer Styles", then "Inner gradient" at the bottom of the list. Before using this, I select the whole black zone corresponding to water, then launch the effect. You can adjust the gradient by moving the little buttons from right to left... ...well, I'm sure you already know to do all that in PS. The drawback with this function is that the inner gradient runs along the border of the map (if the water zone touches the border, of course). It's then necessary to erase and softer it ; I do that in SC4T. If you find a trick to avoid that drawback... ...let me know how to do ! At first, you will find your layer a bit strange, where water zone has an almost white or transparent border. I then modify the layer style from "normal" to "Multiplicate" or "multiply" (don't know the exact english version) and adjust slightly the transparancy (between 100 and 90% max.). I check the color values and then, I merge the two layers : background and "water". Sometimes, several tests are usefull Actually, it's the way I found the make gradients in PL. It's not perfect but it works ! Please tell me if it's possible to improve this method or if you can do the same effect another way. About "painting" : I first collect the satellite photos and adjust their dimensions before painting the water. I will follow your advice and do the countrary : keep the images full size to draw, before adjusting it over the map. I plan to make two other maps of Vietnam, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh with this technique ! Take care Mr Map Guru ! Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: December 18, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, Thanks I'm fine but my modem blew up the other day, lightning. We get a lot of that at this time of the year. And then last night I almost lost 290GB of data on a usb drive. I formatted it with a 32GB fat partition, somehow the drive names and letters had got mixed up while I was making a bootable virus stick for ghost. Luckily I found a great little proggy called testdisk and it ditched the fat partition and re-wrote the partition table. Phew. I had a looksy at your map and it looks great, you are one fast learner amigo! Righto, this is the latest water pasting/painting technique I use. Some parts I have been using for a while now but the last bits I have only been using for a few maps and it appears to be okay. I'll start from after pasting onto the dem, if I need to warp the water it changes the colour to the equivalent 257m in which case I use change color and set the output to -4 otherwise the colour will remain 0c0b09. Pasted, transformed, set to go. 1. Make a layer copy of the water, so now you have two water layers, This helps the definition of the smaller creeks. 2. Select the water with the magic wand, feather it by one pixel. make a new layer between the dem and the water and paint it with the colour 0a0c0c. This is just above sea level and will help give definition to the coast and also give a very smooth coast. 3. De-select and re-select the water, not the new layer. Contract the selection by three pixels and feather by one pixel. Copy the water and paste on to a new layer above. Use change colour and set the output to -5. 4. Select the water and contract it by 5 pixels and feather by 2 pixels. Copy the top layer and paste on to a new layer. Again use change colour and set output to -5. 5. Back to the water layer and select it again, contract it by 7 pixels and feather by 2, copy the new top layer and paste again on to another layer. Change colour by -5. 6. Once again select the water and contract it, this time 12 pixels and feather it by 3 pixels. Copy the topmost layer and paste to a new layer. Change colour this time by -12. 7. Okay the drill is select the water and contract it by 22 and feather it by 6 pixels. Copy the top layer and paste it onto a new layer, change colour by -18. 8. One to go. Select the water, contract it by 37 pixels and feather it by 8 pixels now copy the top layer and paste it on to a new layer, change the colour by -24. 9. Flatten the image to background and save. Waters done ;<) almost. 10. Fire up terraformer and load the map. click compressor in the minimum box input 65 and in the Unchanged Value box input 250 and click ok. Now that's it, job's done water is finished. That is how I do it with photoshop, I just have to find the feather, contract and change colour commands in PL and my technique will be ready to publish *The only other number one can use in the "Unchanged Value" box is 250. When it is left at 0 terraformer stretches the whole map from the lowest height through to the highest. When one inputs 250 terraformer will only stretch the map from sea level. it will do this either way from sea level to the lowest point or from sea level to the highest point. It is one nifty trick. Although I personally think terraformer and mapper are both flaky, shaky proggies. Compressor is by far the best 16bit histogram manager. This will keep you occupied for a while. Hopefully your storms will ease and you will have a fine Christmas. All the best for the festive season to you and yours. Take Care drunk(sloshed) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: December 25, 2011 · Report Hi Drunk, Just this small note to wish you a Merry Christmas to you and yours A little hint about PL : after 30 days you think you need to register ? NOPE ! Just reinstall the whole thing and the countdown restarts from the beginning Some days of holidays for me : no mapping session scheduled, just try to PLAY the game by itself (which was rather rare these times). Cheers with a glass of Champagne ! Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: December 28, 2011 · Report G'Day Izi, Thanks mate, I hope you had a swish time. Mine was alright although I worked on Christmas Day. Not so for New years though. That's very thoughtful of them not to leave a bomb so you cannot re-install. Three hearty cheers for PL. Them Huns aren't too bad after all ;<) One thing I may not have mentioned is Accuracy is Ones Hallmark. And another, you may notice that your last map has not received the complimentary 1 star(s) (yet). That my dear friend is because he has not been on since a few hours before you uploaded it. To tell the truth a lot of the time that was what kept me going making so many just to give him the 5hits so to speak. In time if you are observant you will also see who it is. I have photos (or screen shots). Play the game? I haven't really played the game for years. All the best for the coming New Year to you and your beloved. Mmmmm, Champers! Cheers, chugga lug lug. drunk(crissed as a picket or vise versa) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: December 29, 2011 · Report Hi Drunk, Some holidays for me, far away from my mapping machine... but before leaving house and closing the suitcase, I've finished rendering the Saratov Region : Map is 14 x 14 big tiles, so 196 cities to open = quite a long time in front of the screen ! I was wondering if it could be better for me to wait before uploading maps, that I have 3 or 4 files to upload, rather than only one. Then, the main page of the Simtropolis site is full of MY maps ahahah ! Then, I will wait to finish the last maps before uploading : - Saratov (done) - Tucson (not rendered) - Sanya (China) (not rendered) - Pskov (Russia) (small, but not finished at all) I still have to experiment the lassoing technique further on, as I recently discovered it in PL : much more accurate and rather simple. Before, I was painting with a 1 pixel wide brush and it was difficult to make small details and long lines (like in harbours for example). Be sure that I will try Pskov map that way. I agree with you about the idea of the hallmark : accuracy is the challenging part of mapping, no ? Come back at mapping probably next year ! Cheers and Happy New Year ! Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: December 29, 2011 · Report That looks swell! Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: January 16, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, I must say it has been a lovely month seeing the maps rated more fairly without snotbox being around to stick his grubby little finger on them. They do garner less ratings though but I suspect that was to try to compensate for the c_cksucker. It would be nice to think he won't be back, unfortunately though he has been around since 2005 so I suspect he will be. Anyhow mate you are starting to make some really grand maps, I see them up on the STEX and momentarily I think that's mine then realise it's one of yours ;<). I do hope you continue to make maps because I see in how you have progressed you have great ability and understanding of your 'puter and programs and the necessary skills to achieve the results of A class maps. Continual improvement via new techniques and programs is essential though because without that we would be still scratching on rocks. Chin, chin drunk(already) Quote Izidor44 91 Replied: January 16, 2012 · Report Hi Drunk, Thanks for the kind words, I'm always very honored to read your comments and posts about my maps (yes, it's supposed to be... ...maps). Each time you realease your works, or just posting screenshots in forums, I feel like a child in front of the Christmas tree, looking at all those presents I have to open ! I hope my modest contribution can do the same for other SC4 fans... ...so let's keep practicing and progressing (I try to) ! As almost nobody still have replied on my Simtropolis topic, I started to look at the "Map requests" topic, in order to make me a little "known" by the forumers. Arnhem and Ubatuba are those 2 maps which result from this. Recently, another guy suggested in a private conversation another Croatian spot called Sibenik, which could be interesting to do. Some other maps are in the pipe too : a croatian map of Dubrovnik (you will think I'm always around that area of the world !), Jefferson city in Missouri and (little wink from me to you as you realeased Hiroshima some times ago) Nagasaki, Japan. Recently, I was wondering how to render the maps in SC4 with specific terrain mods. I usually use "Italian" mod, but snow appears at about 500 meters above sea level. Then, some maps can really appear completelly white of snow, which is an effect I don't want to have sometimes. I disabled the mod, but the standard maxis textures don't please me. Do you have any suggestion or (even better) a mod to upload in schedule ? Another question : how do you upload files in the LEX ? I'm still wondering if it could be usefull/smart to upload the maps in STEX and/or LEX... What is your opinion about that ? Final question about Arkanghelsk : where did you find the DEM datas ? The northern part of the world seems to not be available in the server. When looking closely at the map, it seems that the contours are slightly more "straight" and geometric than in other files you've made, no ? Anyway, the mapping machine is still running, no worries about that ! I keep looking at Google Earth, rolling on the planet and thinking : "Hey, here it could be nice... ...oh wait, that spot is better... ...oh wait... ...etc" ! Feel like child in a candy store. Always glad to share a conversation with you, Cheers (and what about red wine this time ?), Izi Quote drunkapple 434 Replied: January 25, 2012 · Report G'Day Izi, I think you are the one I have been looking for! Do not be disturbed that nobody yet replies in your thread, the important thing is to keep posting and advertising your wares. It keeps your thread on the first page and near the top. I myself am not a big commenter in threads but if you look at my thread on sc4d you will see it took quite a lot of posts before people started rolling in, now it is one of the most looked at "threads per comment" on their site. If you look at all the "I've started a thread" threads here at simtrop you will notice that after a few half-arsed maps they give up and their thread sort of dies a lonely death and soon gets buried beneath the plethora of "mapper and/or terraformer doesn't work" threads. You also have another request in the Sibenik comments for Pula. I started on the back end of the request threads last year and have so far made about five of them, I'll race you to the middle. It seemed such a shame that these people requested maps and nobody could be bothered to make them. I was hoping to have more done but as my requests grew and grew and grew throughout the year I had less spare time to continue, but this year I shall endeavour to complete that task. I also took a look at sc4d's map request board and will make a start on that soon. Here is a little mod for Italia with the high snow variation, it needs to load after the terrain mod. It will work with Cycledogg's other terrain mods also with varying results because he individualised the terrain exemplar for the different mods. It will take the snow up to about 4000m. Hmmm the bsc, I once seen them described as neckbeards and I would say it's mostly appropriate. Some are okay but most who run the site can be a bit of a pain, pretentious and presumptious. Their boards do not garner as many downloads either. I applied when TD was formed on Joel's request. Submit three items for our scrutineers for admission to upload to the lex is what it said. You will notice that my lex admission thread has been moved and is un-viewable because after the first three maps I sent them and one of them whined like a banshee that they were too big, the mountains were too rugged and where there was no beach there was no beach. I felt I had a right of reply and fair stuck it up them ;<). Anyhow fourteen maps (I wasn't going to let the bastards beat me.) and the flying carpet mod later they finally relented but changed their rules and said I was only allowed to upload maps (The cheating pricks.). They also stipulated I had to be a map scrutineer of which there has only been one map submitted since. I wonder if they will ask me to scrutineer yours ;<) So make three small maps 16 or 20 by (as rugged as you like), two small images for each 250x180px and a jazzy readme. they have some template .html files which is what mine started as and I have slowly changed them over the course of time. Read the uploading to the lex thread at sc4d. Then submit them, it may take a few months. Mine took about 8 months but some have been trying for years and others just give up. See I said you had an eye for detail. Yes the Archangel'sk map was made with dem that was made from Russian topo maps. That is the only dem available for such northern climes as the SRTM all stops at 60 degrees. Nobody else ever notices these things. I've got about 700gigs of dem on file. Mmmm Don't mind the odd bottle myself. Chin chin Cheers drunk(as usual)

Hi everyone, It has been a long time since my last visit around here... ...as private life has considerably changed in the past months, I had absolutelly no time for any mapping. So I would just like to tell you that I'm still lurking around these forums like a ghost... ...but I did not quit mapping already ! I noticed that Drunkapple released some more incredible maps recently, making me salivating in front of screen... ...why not returning to work then ? @ ErictheDredd : can you send here a zoning of the area you want ? As you want a rather small map, it may be possible to reactivate the mapping machine with this small piece of cake... Cheers, Izi

Hi Stanislav, No problem ! I'll have a look at this location ! Thanks for the request ! EDIT : What about this try ? Mukachevo is right in the middle : Florence map has been uploaded this very morning : Quite challenging one, no ? Cheers, Izi

Good morning mappers, This small update to say that 2 maps have been uploaded on the STEX : Zlatoust-Miass - Russia (3 arc resolution) Rochester - Minnesota (1/3 arc resolution) Still many tiles to render ! EDIT Another two maps in the machine : Tatvan and Lake Van - Turkey (3 arc resolution) Portree and Skyes Island - Scotland (1 arc resolution) Cheers, Izi

Hello Gentlemen, Another Oregon map is on the way : Florence, just north of Coos Bay recently mapped : Many maps to render, I know... Cheers, Izi

Hi Blublub, Sorry for that long silence, as I tried to play SC4 these last evenings, instead of mapping, shame on me Here is a small preview of Rochester before rendering : Mapping machine is a bit dusty, but be sure some more candies will be provided here soon ! Cheers, Izi