Program using USGS Data available?

[Guest Richard Hill]

OK I find that while TerraScene works, the files are rather large. Is a freeware program/programs available that use USGS date Land Class, Land Use, 7.5 Dems and Shape files available or, in the works. Is their a reasonable cost program available that will do this?Riochard;

[wsieffert 0]

Richard,Have you investigated the Terrashape program from the fly forums? Search for Colins or Terrashape.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Richard.The area covered by a Terrascene-derived image, only needs to be slightly larger than 4 square LOD13 areas... that minimum required by MS' resample to place them.You may have been making LOD8 sized TARGA images with Terrascene, but they can be much smaller. ---------------------And even with a large LOD8 sized image, which you may already have made, you can choose what part of the image you want placed and resampled, by resample. That's controlled by the INF file.; Delavan LOD8[ Source ]Type = CUSTOMSourceDir = "."SourceFile = "Delavan.bmp"Lat = 42.9167Lon = -89.0831CellXdimensionDeg = 5.8497191011235955056179775280899e-5CellYdimensionDeg = 4.3136645962732919254658385093168e-5NumOfCellsPerLine = 9968NumOfLines = 9660[ Destination ]DestDir = ".test"DestBaseFileName = "Delavan"UseSourceDimensions = 0NorthLat = 42.890625SouthLat = 42.5390625EastLong = -88.59375WestLong = -89.0625When you tell resample to NOT use source dimensions, you are describing what exact part of the image you want placed... In the above example, I wanted an exact LOD8 area in the images bounds resasmpled.But I could have stated:UseSourceDimensions = 0NorthLat = 42.65SouthLat = 42.60EastLong = -88.50WestLong = -89.20And resample would have done it's best to resample and place just those dimensions. If they aren't on exact LOD13 borders, OLD resample will trim them, and discard areas not entirely in an LOD13 area. So make sure your defined area is a little bit larger than the LOD13 bounds of the rectangular shape you wish to display.I'm not sure what NEW resample will do, as I don't use it, but I suspect it will make sure the area is overlapped to the next LOD13 area... or make a blackened area if it is too near the edge of the image. In this picture, I show how the image size defined in the [ SOURCE ] only needs to contain the actual size you wish to display, in the [ DESTINATION ]. The [ DESTINATION ] controls how many CUSTOM textures will be made and displayed.So even if the image is for a whole LOD8 area, you could tell resampl to display just a small portion of it.Dick

[Guest Richard Hill]

Dick;I had no problems with TerraScene or Resample, I am just looking for a program thjat uses USGS files mentioned above to allow one to use FS2002 texture including REGEN. While TerraScene looks Great it takes FS2002 for e ver to load the texture.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Richard.If what you are looking for is a program to translate georeferenced data files into VTP and LWM bgls, none exists except Falko's E002VTP.2-3 designers may have developed Mapinfo or Arcview scripts to translate data to VTP or LWM, but none of this is available for our use.Even if it were, Mapinfo and Arcview cost $100's to $1000's, and unless you can get access to a computer system that has a license for these programs, those scripts would be a little useless.The NL2000 group ( Arno's Group ), did develop a translation, but it is specific to their data, and not of any general use.Falko's program works fairly well, and you could adapt XY data to a form that could be read by that program. But that is for roads, streams, and shorelines, not VTP polys or LWM polys.Not much has changed since you last asked about this, but it doesn't hurt to try. :)If you could find a way to translate shapefiles or DLG data to E00 text format, you could use Falko's program for lines... and possibly translate that ASM code to poly shapes.=============If you wanted to convert separate CUSTOM textures to LWM-VTP, they might be able to be loaded into Ken Nelson's LWMDraw4, as templates to draw the LWMs or VTPs... but that would be a lot of work for a fairly small area.I had some success with converting a Terrascene-derived image to an LWM BGL using AutoASM. The terrascene image was just using white water textures for lines and shapes on a black background, with all other textures not used. Chris Wright has done a lot of work on this, but I have had some problems with VTPs... and an LOD8 size is really too big, although an 8 or 9 size may work well... or you could use images of 1x1 degree, just as easily.You could use ArcExplorer ( freeware from ERSI ) to display shapefiles, then under edit, copy the displayed area to BMP file. Using the Identify button, you can get the corner Lat and Long of the displayed area's corners. So you would get the Lat-long and can derive degree span and bounds, for use with AutoASM.=====================That's about as close as we are right now to using georeferenced data.Dick

[Guest Richard Hill]

I have had rather good sucess with TerraScene, but never thought of reversing the water Black on White to White on Black. Is this what you are saying? How would one take the transportation effects to produce the highways? I had seen aa while back that there was work on a program simular to TerraScene for FS2002, but as you say nothing lately. Wouldn't it be great if we had this one?Richard;

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Richard.I think the best solution for converting georeferenced data to VTP or LWM, would be through a CAD program.There are a few freeware CADs out, and some of these use DXF format.There are utilities to change arcview or shapefile formats to DXF.We'd only need a converter to derive VTP or LWM code from DXF... and then we have not only georeferenced data, but the ability to alter it in a CAD program, and make our ASM files for BGLC.Microsoft undoubtably used a CAD program for the importation and development of the default lines and polys in both FS2002 and CFS2.Right now, the closest thing we have is the set of tools by Falko, that allow the conversion of SCASM to VTP lines and polys... so we can use Airport or ASD or FSSC for some CAD ability. I think ASD will allow some georeferenced data imported.. but I'm not sure of the format.AutoASM ( new version coming soon ) actually converts a raster image ( bitmap ) to vectors we can use as VTP and LWM. Groundmaker, Ground2K, and LWMDraw need us to actually draw the vector points over a bitmap 'template'. A CAD program would take the data ( which is usually already in vector format ) and just translate it to usable BGLC code. We would have the option to alter points within the CAD before translation.As long as we're dreaming.. :)Dick