30cm screen shots

[Guest cbuchner1]

No words...http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185032.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185033.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185034.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185035.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185036.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185037.jpgSpeechless?

[Guest cbuchner1]

An experimental 30cm Tileproxy version is now available on sourceforge.net Select 60cm or 30cm in the installer. In the ProxyUser.INI do not forget you raise your max_level in the service definitions to 18 (60cm) or 19 (30cm).This high resolution may only be feasible for slow flying, like e.g a helicopter hover. It simply loads too slowly.Note that a driver unload or reboot may be required after installation if an older Tileproxy driver is still loaded. The new driver allocates larger buffers as the 4096 pixel BMPs can grow to 24 MB in size.Christian

[Geofa 108]

Trying it out now-this is simply amazing! Thanks!http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Geofa 108]

First place I always try-my airport and my house...wow!http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185041.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/185042.jpg

[PhilTaylor 45]

Christian,that is flat out sweet.is the slow loading from the file size or sheer number of files?

[Guest Mike707]

I agree with you Phil. This is flat out sweet and just amazing. Any pointers that you can send Christian's way would be great. Who knows maybe Aces could come up with something to make this a possibility for flying faster aircraft over this sort of scenery in FS11.Christian, I just don't know what to say. This is leaps ahead of anything that I could even imagine being possible. I know it is in the early stages, but you seem to be full of solutions. Just incredible.

[Guest cbuchner1]

Your shots may still be showing the 1m resolution. A baron easily outflies the speed at which the super high resolution is loaded ;)I would suggest a helicopter for trying this out.Christian

[Guest cbuchner1]

I apologize to have EDITED your posting, instead of replying to it. That was unintentional.Christian,> that is flat out sweet.> is the slow loading from the file size or sheer number of files?One problem is that FSX loads all its LOD rings strictly hierarchically. So while it is updating LOD 8 to LOD 13, LOD 14 and LOD 15 aren't even looked at. So in effect you have to be in a stable hover to get the super high resolutions.And then it's a huge number of JPEGs from the Internet that are needed for the 30cm resolution. Considering that those BMPs textures are always 1.1km in diameter, Tileproxy has to load up to 500 JPEGs to get the data needed for a square kilometer. Also I have to convert this to DXT compressed format. The loading and processing times add up.It gets worse where water masks are involved. There I look at a region of 2.2km squared. Imagine my surprise when TP was requesting 2250 JPEG tiles from the service *at once*.Christian

[Guest cbuchner1]

There are 2 other products by other authors that will do offline processing of the same source data:1) FS Earth Tiles2) Maps2BglThey are available freely and the services are configured in a similar way compared to Tileproxy - but in my humble opinion these tools overstep the "gray area" to illegality. Of course performance of photo scenery created with these tools is excellent, as these use the SDK tool RESAMPLE.EXE to create fully FSX compliant photo scenery.With Tileproxy, I will be staying with the online processing approach. There are still options for reducing the processing and loading times that I haven't tried ;)Christian

[PhilTaylor 45]

No prob on the accidental edit, I recently deleted one of my own blog posts so I know how that goes :-).Yes, the data explosion at those resolutions is immense. I look forward to seeing your additional approaches :-).Ah Yes, "gray areas". I see you as carefully straddling the "gray area demarcation line", but not over it. You choose your line most carefully, and in that sense you are a true "Open Source Hero". Just so its clear, it is not a technical issue that is stopping the offline processing of the files, and given Christian's technical skill level it is perfectly clear that he knows exactly what to do if he could. He is operating within the limits of his sense of the boundary of acceptable uses though, and not far across it. For that, he should be applauded.

[MillKa 0]

>Ah Yes, "gray areas". I see you as carefully straddling the>"gray area demarcation line", but not over it. You choose your>line most carefully, and in that sense you are a true "Open>Source Hero". Umm, maybe someone from MS Aces Team (guess who i'm thinking about ..) could talk someone from MS VirtualEarth Team into some kind of special permission to use FSX/FS11 as an alternate browser for VirtualEarth ? ...For example, if TileProxy would read a flight plan defined in FSX to preload stuff it would still be some kind of interactive access ?There must be some FS addicts in the VirtualEarth Team ..Martin

[tf51d 284]

>>>Ah Yes, "gray areas". I see you as carefully straddling the>>"gray area demarcation line", but not over it. You choose>your>>line most carefully, and in that sense you are a true "Open>>Source Hero". >>Umm, maybe someone from MS Aces Team (guess who i'm thinking>about ..) could talk someone from MS VirtualEarth Team into>some kind of special permission to use FSX/FS11 as an>alternate browser for VirtualEarth ? ...>>For example, if TileProxy would read a flight plan defined in>FSX to preload stuff it would still be some kind of>interactive access ?>>There must be some FS addicts in the VirtualEarth Team ..>>Martin>It's not that easy! MS and Google gets there data from other sources like Tele Atlas, which is licensed to them for the specific purpose of using it in their browsers. Any additional use, such as used in FS would need to be ok'd by them also, and there are multiple sources to deal with!

[PhilTaylor 45]

Aces are not in the browser business.And yes, the interlocking data agreements can be both good and bad. Good in that we do have the use of them in the entertainment product. Bad in that we have no other rights to them so each and every other usage is yet another business negotiation. Life is just not a simple as it seems from the outside. It takes more than "talk".

[Guest gunnarmd]

>There are 2 other products by other authors that will do>offline processing of the same source data:>>1) FS Earth Tiles>>2) Maps2Bgl>>They are available freely and the services are configured in a>similar way compared to Tileproxy - but in my humble opinion>these tools overstep the "gray area" to illegality. Of course>performance of photo scenery created with these tools is>excellent, as these use the SDK tool RESAMPLE.EXE to create>fully FSX compliant photo scenery.>>With Tileproxy, I will be staying with the online processing>approach. There are still options for reducing the processing>and loading times that I haven't tried ;)>>Christian>Hallo Christian,how do you deduce that TP does not exceed the border to the unlawfulness ? My Maps2bgl against it should be more illegal?. Both programs make the same accurate. Only in the way of the conversion they deviate somewhat from each other.Best regards,Gunnar

[Guest cbuchner1]

It's the amount of data that is downloaded and how it is processed. There are two philosphies:Download only what you need to display right now in the browser (pardon, Flight Simulator). Some level of caching is used, but my program could also do without even writing the data to disk. There is a direct data path from the Internet to FSX. FSX becomes the browser, the aircraft is the cursor. What gets loaded is a direct consequence of a user controlling the ... cursor. The difference is, your browser is not IE, nor Firefox. It's FSX. Last time I checked I did not see them limiting the allowed user-agent to be IE or Firefox only.Is this HTTP user agent a robot? I'd say: borderline no. Yes if you fly on autopilot ;)The other approach:Download a given area at highest resolution (say 1m/pixel) and repackage/reprocess the data for later offline use. That is the approach of FS Earth Tiles and Maps2Bgl. I think for FSET and Maps2Bgl to be really useful, the transfer would have to be bigger and transfer larger amounts of data. I understand that there is some support for LOD by specifying rings of resolution around the center area of interest... but still the center area has to cover several acres to be useful. Say should we download 500 MB or 5GB... ok, let's just keep the download going over night...Is this HTTP user agent a robot? I'd say: yes.The services I know explicitly forbid the use of robots in the Terms of Service. Copyright must also be considered. So far courts have often ruled browser caches to be a technological necessity and their use may be covered under fair use. Open questions are: how much caching is allowed and for how long. I think I can make Tileproxy entirely disk-less with no effort, then all graphics would pass through RAM only.TileProxy can display pleasing scenery with 30MB of network transfer that may take 2-3 minutes only. The amount of data transferred depends where the user flies and over what distance. If something is remotely tolerable to the services, then it's this approach, not the other.This is my opinion only, not necessarily the truth. This opinion has not been tested in court so far ... and frankly I don't ever want it to be tested.