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Drawing coastlines

HI all

The vtp1 are good on small areas: (air)fields,lakes ,some cement, town parts ,usable for some
junctions ,etc....that stay flexible take care if you cross several polys to use the imbrication champ
( AA_10,AA_20 etc...)in the D box,if not you got a message ....
The vtp linked poly function allow also to use custom textures ,8bit with alpha channel (or not) sized
64 to 1024(256 is enough for cfs2) and you can place and adjust them exactly at the place you want ,by
this way it's possible to make a blended airfield without the use of a flatten area and that keep the
mesh in state with the imperfections of the ground,a nice effect for the summary airfields like
Lindsay is doing on the bush.
"We can make our own waterclass files
They are usually made from 257x257 pixel 8-bit RAW data files, and cover one complete LOD5-sized area.
In PaintShopPro, I can make a palette for the needed waterclasses, valued 1-12, and value 254 for
transparent, and paint a waterclass... then export it as 8-bit .raw for use in an INF file for
resample.
......Additionally, you should be able to use all 12 numbers locally.. This gives you the default
global waterclass 7 values, plus 12 local textures, for a total of 19 colors. Just remember that any
value of 1, whether global or local, is shallow. I don't know if the blendmasks may be used with
waterclass textures ( the "m" textures )."

12 local textures ,valued 1-12 ? that's very interesting...

here a Afnor WIP ,Pantelleria,a very small island where ,yesterday, I've mixed three water class from three scenery texture folders: Truk,Afnor_scen and Stream_Lake.
Immediatly around the coast I've used the truk texture 8,9,10 and 7 for the shallowed lake (I've copied and past and do the "a" set)
After around I have closed with the 7 from Egypt's med set to make the junction with the cfs2 default
,not very visible... but in a scenery less you see the joints better it's
And for the port I've make only two fs areas with a more dark "9" texture ,that from far away is visible

As backgound bmp in g2k I 've used a GGH screenshot taken from the luis Sa's site
http://www.ptsim.com/sbuilder/gmaps.htm
Using firefox with the fire shot tool you can get 3200 x 2400 bmp for specific places with very accurate coords.

JP
 
Hi UncleTgt.

Your view of the waterclass in CFS2 is right... I was still stuck thinking about FS2004... :(

I did some testing yesterday...


001b = OK
002b = Becomes 011b
003b = Becomes 007b
004b = Becomes 012b
005b = Becomes 001b
006b = Becomes 007b
007b = OK
008b = OK
009b = OK
010b = OK
011b = OK
012b = OK

001h = OK
002h = Becomes 011h
003h = Becomes 007h
004h = Becomes 012h
005h = Becomes 001h
006h = Becomes 007h
007h = OK
008h = OK
009h = OK
010h = OK
011h = OK
012h = OK

I use the fs2004 resample to make the waterclass and landclass.

There is a header bug in the earlier resample versions that will cause display problems for western longitudes. I just Make sure I declare my destination bounds exactly to the LOD5 bounds.

Texture edges won't blend to an underlying texture of the same number, as you found.

012b won't edge-blend to 012b... also 004b also won't edge-blend to 012b.

I usually surround my area by a larger transparent ( value 254 ) area.

Code: 
[Source]
    Type = MultiSource
    NumberOfSources = 2

[Source1]
   Type = WaterClassU8
   SourceDir = "."
   SourceFile = "CFS2Waterclass.raw"
   Lat = 11.25
   Lon = 138.75
   NumOfCellsPerLine = 257
   NumOfLines = 257
   CellXdimensionDeg = 0.0146484375
   CellYdimensionDeg = 0.010986328125

   [Source2]
   Type = WaterClassU8
   SourceDir = "."
   SourceFile = "WorldTransparent.raw"
   Lat = 90
   Lon = -180
   NumOfCellsPerLine = 360
   NumOfLines = 190
   CellXdimensionDeg = 1.0
   CellYdimensionDeg = 1.0
   
[Destination]
   DestDir = "."
   DestBaseFileName = "CFS2Waterclass_5_85_28"
   NorthLat = 14.0625
   SouthLat = 5.625
   EastLong = 146.25
   WestLong = 135
   UseSourceDimensions = 0
This ensures the edges will blend..if they can.

Otherwise, just use a 257x257 bitmap, and make sure the edge tiles match or are surrounded by the 254 value... or blending gets skewed.

You can use the alpha channel with VTP1 textures, but that gives us on/off transparency, as the textures need 8-bit plus alpha.

Here's my testing so far:

http://webpages.charter.net/ludowr/CFS2 WaterClass.zip

Dick
 
Hi Dick
Happy to see you again :ernae:
Thanks for the palettes and the inf ,that needs some thought before how to cook them .

JP
 
quick update ...

haven't given up yet ...


new landmask & coastlines, new landclass & new waterclass is done for:

outlying islands, including Preparis Island group
North Andaman Island & associated coastal islands
Middle Andaman island & associated coastal islands

land & watermask done for remaining South Andaman Islands & Little Andaman Island

just starting the coastlines, then onto completing the landclass & waterclass ...:isadizzy:
 
UncleTgt said:
haven't given up yet ...


new landmask & coastlines, new landclass & new waterclass is done for:

outlying islands, including Preparis Island group
North Andaman Island & associated coastal islands
Middle Andaman island & associated coastal islands

land & watermask done for remaining South Andaman Islands & Little Andaman Island

just starting the coastlines, then onto completing the landclass & waterclass ...:isadizzy:
Click to expand...

Hi Uncle
These islands are not the easiest to realize but these projects give to encounter all the kind of issues that the ground modelling from srtm data can offer it's a good practice stage to get some experience on the subject
icon23.gif
icon14.gif


"...
land & watermask done for remaining South Andaman Islands & Little Andaman Island

just starting the coastlines ..."
If you already have the Landmask for an island you can get the coastlines from its line and its points ,refer you to my first post of the thread...but
If you are drawing coastlines to make them various on a previous already drawed forget that I've said just before

JP
 
Yes Jean, I find that method can work for small simple shapes, but the larger more complicated islands seem to give errors when I try to compile - anyway, most of these have a mixture of seashore & river coasts, so I need to draw them by hand:icon_lol:.

My workaround has been to draw in sections as coastlines that don't have closed ends (you can see) - that almost always works.

The thing I struggle with is using G2K in 256 colour mode. The bitmap jumps around a lot when you're trying to place landmasks/ coastlines, depending on the zoom you use, & it doesn't always match well with the mesh. This is especially noticeable when I try to add streams/ rivers, as the freely available maps for the Andamans aren't that detailed. Because I'm working in 256 colours, I can't use the geotiff as a background to show me exactly where the bottoms of the valleys are - so many colours just show as grey. So I'm placing/ flying/ making adjustments/ rinse & repeat ...:isadizzy:

Any ideas how I can get a clear contour map from the geotiff that will show in 256 colour?

Couple more screenies to be going on with ...
 
Hi Uncle

"more complicated islands seem to give errors when I try to compile "
It's why on these kind of places I begin always to draw the first line with the coastlines vtp1 even if starting with 64m of width I will finish the line at 12 or 8m in the most difficult cases ,it's not important to have more if it's planned to redraw various coast in this guideline.
From this first vtp1 line,save as /renaiming the project"LM"or"WM"
/ changing the attribut in the dialog box: lines to poly without shore,land or water
/ changing the bgl name xxxLM or xxxWM
,even if the angles are the most acute,the land and watermask will be compiled without problem
About the visual comfort of the bmp ,the geo tiff size 6001x7091 give that distance betwen 2 px is around 76 to 90m ,but for these steps of the scenery no need to draw too much in details the goal is just to keep a marge (1 or 2 px) to make that the shore stay at 0 m near of how they are in the reality by their forms.The interesting places could be made later at fs lod6 sized upper detailled .
To draw a river in a deep and curved valley and keep it's way at the right place is not easy....
,you seem also use the black and white pic that you can get directly from the Tiff with xnview for example,with microdem you can get a colored bmp (and more) from this tiff Dem but even if the reliefs will be more visible that stay not so easy to draw this same river .
A solution could be to draw this river with the fsuipc option (new line/show location in the g2k project) and with a slow mode flight in cfs2 that will depend now of your talent of pilot ......
icon10.gif


JP
 
The buggy line compilation of ground2k has been one of my biggest frustrations OF MY LIFE....(yes, sad)
I just hope my algorithms will be more robust. If I get it working, you should be able to run your ground2k LWM files through cfs2autocoast to to generate the BGL as well.
 
I hope that you concretise your projects ,the most interesting to do with g2k are the small sized project (around a lod6) for cities port airfield etc...
In larger scale the tool ....and our nerves .... show their limits .....:a1451:

JP
 
Jean Bomber said:
Hi Uncle

"more complicated islands seem to give errors when I try to compile "
It's why on these kind of places I begin always to draw the first line with the coastlines vtp1 even if starting with 64m of width I will finish the line at 12 or 8m in the most difficult cases ,it's not important to have more if it's planned to redraw various coast in this guideline.
From this first vtp1 line,save as /renaiming the project"LM"or"WM"
/ changing the attribut in the dialog box: lines to poly without shore,land or water
/ changing the bgl name xxxLM or xxxWM"
Click to expand...

I see, I've been working watermask/ landmask/ vtp1 - a better way (to check the vtp1 will compile) is vtp1/ landmask/ watermask, saving to different LWM filenames each time ... brilliantly simple!! Why didn't I think of that :isadizzy:

"To draw a river in a deep and curved valley and keep it's way at the right place is not easy....
,you seem also use the black and white pic that you can get directly from the Tiff with xnview for example,with microdem you can get a colored bmp (and more) from this tiff Dem but even if the reliefs will be more visible that stay not so easy to draw this same river ."
Click to expand...

But even if I try to save the coloured bmp as 8 bit, much of it still shows in G2K as grey, because I'm having to run G2K in 256 colour mode (otherwise it crashes when I try to move around the large 6000 x 6000 bmp) ... I was just hoping someonw knew of a foolproof way of saving the geotiff colour into 256 colours so it will show up the contour differences when viewed in G2K:mixedsmi:

"A solution could be to draw this river with the fsuipc option (new line/show location in the g2k project) and with a slow mode flight in cfs2 that will depend now of your talent of pilot ......
icon10.gif
"
Click to expand...

LOL I'll stay with the slow & steady method - I'm nowhere near that good (or patient!!).:icon_lol:
Click to expand...
 
Should Sander get his project to accept SBuilder files, and create VTP1 lines from them, we can say goodbye to G2K. He's working on it again, and hopefully we'll see something soon.

SBuilder can import BLN files, and these can be made/exported from SBuilderX ( a much more powerful and memory-friendly program ). SBuilderX allows you to import multiple background images, or use tiles from Google, Bing! or Yahoo. ( Sometimes Googlw will block the tiles, but the other sources work well). SBuilderX also allows the import of ESRI SHP files, which can then be saved as BLN. The BLN files are polygons and lines.

This path ( SBuilderX, SBuilder, cfs2AutoCoast ) will provide a 'state of the art' method for CFS2 terrain design.

Dick
 
rhumbaflappy said:
Should Sander get his project to accept SBuilder files, and create VTP1 lines from them, we can say goodbye to G2K. He's working on it again, and hopefully we'll see something soon.

SBuilder can import BLN files, and these can be made/exported from SBuilderX ( a much more powerful and memory-friendly program ). SBuilderX allows you to import multiple background images, or use tiles from Google, Bing! or Yahoo. ( Sometimes Googlw will block the tiles, but the other sources work well). SBuilderX also allows the import of ESRI SHP files, which can then be saved as BLN. The BLN files are polygons and lines.

This path ( SBuilderX, SBuilder, cfs2AutoCoast ) will provide a 'state of the art' method for CFS2 terrain design.

Dick
Click to expand...
I haven't looked at the SBuilderX native file format yet, but already BLN can be imported into cfs2autocoast. so the Sbuilder step probably won't be necessary in most cases. But BLN files don't contain much metadata (like line type/texture) so I would prefer a more elaborate intermediate format. I have talked to Luis Sa in the past about hooking up my code directly to his to create a complete dedicated cfs2 Sbuilder version. Luis was not adverse to the idea (once I convinced him it would require little to no effort from himself, lol); once I get my code in order I'll drop him another mail.
 
why G2K in 256 colours?

Don't want to, but it crashes if I scroll across a large bmp unless I reduce to 256 colour (WIN XP operating system, fairly old PC - G2K shortcut/properties/run in 256 colour...)

I'll try Rhumbas autoload prog (thanks for the link Jean) & see if that allows me to run with a higher colour setting ...
 
I remember to already have some "auro redraw" message working with a bmp largest than 6000x6000 pix with my previous laptop even if it had a more powerful graphic card ,with the new laptop I'm now able to work with largest pics like the geotiff 6000x 7090 saved as a 24bit bmp even it have a poor intel family chipset as graphic module ,surely something about the new generation of processor and components ,I could not tell more about these technical subject .

JP
 
Tried Richard's auto redraw prog - it works the same way as switching to 256 colours to run G2K. So, I guess the river's will take a lot longer to get perfectly in position ...
 
UncleTgt said:
Tried Richard's auto redraw prog - it works the same way as switching to 256 colours to run G2K. So, I guess the river's will take a lot longer to get perfectly in position ...
Click to expand...

Hi Uncle
I advice you to give a try with the fsuipc ,fs connect, record line method that give some good result for some difficult and mis identified places ,even if in slow speed that could give some acrobatic flights ,need also to find the flying machine to do that ... a Baldy copter could be a good vehicle.
For your future projects try to use an another bitmap under 5000x5000 ,to work from mesh datas the classical strm3 v2.1 hgts are better in size if you want work in smaller areas they cover 1*x1* each ,around 6 cell (lod8), and the bitmap is 1200x1200.
with the Martin wright's log fs terrain 2002 or Microdem you can get a nice bmp.
http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/
there are also the corresponding swdb shape files
http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SWBD/
need to have Tatuk viewer to get the png bmp or jpg.the size is under to 4200x4200,not always square that depend of the water.
I saw that slartibartfast have a "rivers" function ,working with mesh datas, but the lines are drawed as vtp2 line ,I think this method will need later a try when Sander could convert the vtp2 to vtp1.
Slarti have also an interesting landclass function that work with the level of altitude ,very good for the hight montains chains where the band of vegetations ,forest and snow are very marqued ,I need before to try it to completly understand how slarti works, the manuel is not very clear for me today.....:mixedsmi:

JP
 
Jean, I'll give it a try, but as the desktop is in 256 colour whilst G2K is running, that means running CFS2 in 256 colour also.
I tried it when I first started flying coastlines, looking for errors, & the loss of definition was so awful it was really hard to get anything useful.:isadizzy:

In the end I took screenshots with Martins multigrab, then fired up G2K & attempted to correct, rinse & repeat etc. I guess I need to do the same for (all the) rivers.

... there are a lot of small rivers (& not very good {free} maps)!

I was hoping I could get the mesh displayed in 256 colours so I could use it as a background & guide any alterations to the river courses I have already drawn.

Don't get me wrong, the majority are pretty much in the right place, but every now & then you come across one that just moves up & over a ridgeline:angryfir::banghead:

Status is:-

All LWM polys & coastlines are done, including road & small rivers. For now, I stuck with the stock sandy beach coastlines, as this is very much a first try, but I can see possibilities for no beach areas of coastline. I think everywhere needs some sort of breaking wave showing though, no coastline at all just doesn't look right, as you lose the whitecaps.
Landclass & waterclass are both done, including the shallow offshore banks/ reefs.
Haven't yet done any offshore breaker lines for reefs, or inland reservoirs or pools, or wider expanses of sand shore.
I'm still debating whether I should, as the photos show them there in a few places, but on the whole much less pronounced than the Pacific lagoons.
No details for towns & villages & no attempts at gsl work. Small village areas are represented by small clearings. No gsl work in these areas or Port Blair.
One thing I have noticed is Port Blair airfield (Xavier EAWII 2006 pack) will need some work now. The flatten is too large, & the background bmp doesn't match the rest of the landclass. A fully blended Port Blair would be nice.
 
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