Hello everyone!

 

I'm trying out WED to build a airport in Denmark, but I'm having some problems finding orthophotos to help development. I have found an .ecw image, which I have converted to .tiff using ERDAS ER Viewer 14.0. But when I try to import it into WED I get an error saying: "Unable to open image file"

 

Is there any way I can get the image to import or do I need new orthophotos? If so, where can I find them?

 

Thanks!  :rolleyes:

How about this one http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Fugro

 

BTW. Which airport are you trying to create?

Hey Jorn, thanks a lot for your reply. Sorry I haven't replied, the project got on hold some time back and I haven't had the time to dust it off yet so this thread completely slipped through my memory

 

Thanks for the link, ill have a look at that. The airport is Aarhus Airport, but I haven't made much progress.

For a  poor mans ortho photo I use Google maps Satellite/Earth view and the Windows snipping tool to take a screenshot. This image will not have any location data or size information so it takes some tweaking to use this method. Note that this method will only yield rough results that will need to be cleaned up. You also cannot leave the image as part of your submission.

 

1) Zoom in/out in google maps so you can see the area you want to work on

2) Open the snipping tool. For Windows 7 this is under Accessories. You can probably use other screen capture software if you don't have this particular tool.

3) Outline your image and then save as a .png

4) Place some key items around your airport first so you can line your image up. i.e. all runways and a few other items that you can use to line things up. Use google maps to get a precise lat/long for these intial items using the "What's here" after right clicking on a spot. 

5) Now the trial and error part: in WED, zoom in/out so you can see the area you want to work on. Import your .png using import orthophoto and drag it over your airport to position it. The zoom setting of your image and your airport will likely not be the same. zoom in or out in WED a little, delete the image you just imported, and try again. 

6) You will likely not find an exact match in zoom settings so once things are close, you will have to manually stretch your image while it is selected so that the image items line up with your initial WED items from step 4.

7) Trace out and place all your items

8) Use google maps "What's here" to get precise lat/long info for key verticies to clean things up.

 

I've had pretty good success with this, but it is a fair bit of work as you have to go around and fine tune/cleanup the end result.

 

Hope this helps.

Hi v, thanks for the guide, I will definitely have a look at you method  :smile:

 

 

I've had pretty good success with this, but it is a fair bit of work as you have to go around and fine tune/cleanup the end result.

 

There's a much easier way to get an orphophoto into WED for tracing using something like NoniMap http://aeguerre.free.fr/Public/Windows/NoniMapView/index.php?ln=EN&ctx=download

 

Basically, you choose an area and it downloads a single image for you for Google or Bing. It also produces a coordinate file which lists the 4 coordinates for each corner of the image. You open the image inside WED and then you type the coordinates in for your overlay. It works really well.

 

 

There's a much easier way to get an orphophoto into WED for tracing using something like NoniMap http://aeguerre.free...EN&ctx=download

 

Thanks for the link Tony!  I gave the program a try, but unfortunately I couldn't get it to download anything. It started up fine, I selected an area, then hit Start. It showed a download dialog, but no progress bar or any indication of what was happening.  Your description gave me a light bulb moment though: If I use google maps to pinpoint the 4 corners of my image (by using the build in "What's here"), I can move each corner of the image in WED to that location! Not quite as slick as the program would do for me probably, but way faster than my initial method of changing zoom levels and stretching the image by keying off things I've already put down. Can't believe I didn't think of that before!

 

Cheers!

 

Vince

 

 

It showed a download dialog, but no progress bar or any indication of what was happening

 

Ah ha, I guess you did the same thing I did and it took me a while to work it out, basically you need to choose the zoom level for downloading as well as the view level, shown here

 

 

Once you've done that, it works fine.

Hi,

 

Is there any easy way like this to build large areas ? (not an airport)  i.e. extracting images from google earth... personal use only obviously..

I think those google models may not be accessible with Gmaps anymore. 

Yep, either you can use gmaps on Linux/Mac OS X available here http://members.ferrara.linux.it/cavicchi/GMaps/, which creates an overlay scenery, but make sure you use the option as it doesn't work otherwise, or you can get hold of g2xpl, which is on x-plane.org, but you have to send the author Robert a donation to get it, but it's a great piece of software and it decompiles your scenery adds photos to it, and compiles it again, so it isn't an overlay

 

 

I think those google models may not be accessible with Gmaps anymore. 

 

They are, you have to use the -ssl option, otherwise google block you

Yep, either you can use gmaps on Linux/Mac OS X available here http://members.ferrara.linux.it/cavicchi/GMaps/, which creates an overlay scenery, but make sure you use the option as it doesn't work otherwise, or you can get hold of g2xpl, which is on x-plane.org, but you have to send the author Robert a donation to get it, but it's a great piece of software and it decompiles your scenery adds photos to it, and compiles it again, so it isn't an overlay

 

 

 

They are, you have to use the -ssl option, otherwise google block you

 

Oh , I never tried it. Guess I should Install it on the Linux. Do some other countries.

 

 

Do some other countries.

 

Remember it's an overlay scenery not a full mesh scenery, so it will be slow and if you generate large areas, it will take a very very long time. You're best sticking with g2xpl or getting the scenes you need from Simheaven

I need south american scenery... so I will have to build it on my own  I guess.

I will try gmaps... even tough I prefer linux as O.S., I have Windows , to run other games .. and.. because of my wife..:=)  

it seems there is a way to run it under windows too.

Remember it's an overlay scenery not a full mesh scenery, so it will be slow and if you generate large areas, it will take a very very long time. You're best sticking with g2xpl or getting the scenes you need from Simheaven

 

Yeah I have used it before. But thinking google  3d will kill fps. So I am good with FSET