Chris;Any good news on a beta before Christmas? I have been keeping close tabs here, but havent seen any new news.Seasons Greetings;Richard;

Richard, no problem! It should be out this week or at the weekend at the latest. For now I've finished work on the program and I'm concentrating on writing the documentation which includes several tutorials. I hope you like it. But remember this program is indeed still a beta and there are some rough edges. I include part of a TerraScene image which you can immediately load in to AutoAsm. But when you start to load your own TS images you'll need to do some editing, for example to complete any lake polygons that are cut off at the edge of the bitmap. Also I've found some of the TS polygons have breaks, maybe because of faulty input data or a bug in TS. However, you can define the search radius. If AutoAsm encounters a break it will search for pixels of the correct colour index across an area defined by the search radius. This works pretty well, but if you make the search radius too large it may find the wrong part of the polygon or even the wrong polygon entirely! By the way, you'll need to re-make the targa bitmaps with the correct settings (I'll include a settings file to load into TS). But providing you still have the original data downloads then TS will make a new targa in just a couple of minutes or so. But after fixing any TS image errors the results can be pretty impressive. When I release it I'll put up a few screenshots. Best regards, Chris

AutoASM is right there in a class with Ground2K as premier ground element creators/modifiers. Question - I have most of the DLG data for the entire USA taking up space on my PC awaiting just such a program. Are there any limitations on the size of the area one can process given that it may take two nights (TS one AutoAsm the other) to complete the sequence?Dick Boley KLBE

Chris;Sounds GREAT. As for the polygons I always have to do some editing, even if I use Shape files. In one lake in paticular that is not in LULC data, Stonewall Jackson Lake, that was opened in 1988. I also have to update some highways in the KCKB area. Go figure.If It looks anything like I hope I will send you a DVD of the West Virginia area.Again Thank you Chris.Merry Christmas & Happy Newyear;Richard L Hill

Dick;I don't think there will be any limit to area, at least Chris has not mentioned any. I know there is no limit on TerraScene's end, unless it might be your hard drive space. Unless you use a paint program to edit the TGA like PSPro 5.0 that will not handle large 1 degree TGA files. I always use Adobe Photo Shop.Richard

Dick, thanks for that comment! I've tested TS images up to 10,000*10,000 - that can easily be over a million points and the asm files can be quite a few megabytes. It (hopefully!) would work with larger images but it'll need a fair bit of memory. I've added a memory setting - it sets the program array dimensions. If you start with a too-low setting it will stop and prompt you to increase the setting. It takes about 4 minutes to read in one of those images (mine's a 2400+ Athlon). To generate the LWM bgl file might be a couple of minutes. But when there are thousands of roads, generating the VTP bgl takes longer, 10 to 20 minutes. One question: what size images would you guys like to use? If you go higher than 10000*10000 let me know, and I'll see if I can test it. But I only have 512 Mb RAM! Best regards, Chris

Richard, and a very happy Christmas to you! As I said to Dick, I'd be interested to know the maximum image sizes you want to use. I mentioned the problem of lake polygons cut off by the edge of the image. I thought of a solution so it's basically fixed! Hopefully it'll be ready by Friday or Saturday. Best regards, Chris

Chris;10,000 X 10,000 should be good, I usually do TerraScene in one degree segments but, I would be more than willing to go to 1/4 degree, that was what I had to do before I got Adobie Photo Shop.Sounds great for the weekend, but don't over-do yourself!Richard;

1/4 of a full globe tile creates a 228mb Targa file. Takes a few miniutes to generate in TS. If AutoAsm works with that it is quite convienent to use in TS.textures.lowerLeft.latitude=40.0325806697456textures.lowerLeft.longitude=-79.48310000000001textures.upperRight.latitude=40.6208textures.upperRight.longitude=-78.73Do you convert the TGA file to something or read directly from it? I have a program, from Frank Racis, that does the conversion TGA>BMP and sets colors to 256. It works ok with a 1/4 tile. The 228mb tga to bmp took 65 seconds producing a 71k bmp.Not sure what the unit of measure is for the 10k x 10k mentioned?1ghz 512mb. Dick Boley KLBE

I always use Adobe Photo Shop like I said, as for the 10K X 10K that is pixels.Richard

Dick, the tga files I generate in TS are the same size as you mention (208 Mb), so your images may well have been about 10000*10000 (pixels) or a bit smaller. AutoAsm uses 8 bit bmp, so the conversion you mention is fine. It would be *very* useful if the conversion method consistently converts a given colour to the same colour index in the bmp. If so, each new image would automatically have all the correct VTP and LWM parameters, you'd just need to copy the settings from one AutoAsm project to the next. I don't think PSP is completely consistent. One of the problems I found is that VTP lines can interfere with LWM lines (it's surprising how many roads seem to go into the water - I hope they have bridges in the real world!) If the VTP line breaks a LWM polygon right at the top then it causes a problem. With a bit of experience it's easily fixed, but it could be frustrating to start with. I'm thinking of another approach: to do it in two passes. Make two tga's, one for VTP and the other for LWM. Then there can't be any interference. It would take a little longer, but it would save time as there would be far fewer problems to fix. I'll try that today. Best regards, Chris

Richard, it should be out tomorrow (Sunday). Currently I can't compile the program so I have to send it out to be compiled. There were some problems with the compiled version but we hope to fix it today. Fortunately next week I'll have a full version of VB5 so I'll be able to compile any time I need to. That means I'll be able to put out updates faster and more frequently if needed. I'll post a message on the forum when it's released. Hopefully it'll be around midday on Sunday, US time. Best regards, Chris