Wanna order your Ground2K4 background bitmap for free?

[Holger 0]

Hi Luis:Just uploaded G2K4-bmp_StKitts.zip and G2K4-bmp_Antigua.zip - let me know what you think about the format and quality.Cheers, Holger

[Holger 0]

Hi Paul:should have guessed that you'd jump onto this ;-)How do you use the image? Individual screenshots at 1:1 pixel size, copying the extent information, and stitching the bitmaps together, or a different method? Cheers, Holger

[Guest paulvanharte]

Holger now dont get to technical :) Quickly tried one screenshot of the Edmonton area I was abit off compared to FS but it worked just fine. Only problem unless you are familiar with the area the landclass is hard to figure out from just looking at the image. Oh well it saves of lot huge downloads!!!

[Guest Giorgio]

Holger, could I make a request for the Maltese islands? I'm trying to develop a scenery for CFS2 but there is no DOI 10m coverage for that area. By the way, even if the shots are black and white and a bit old, the SPOT satellite images hosted at the NIMA site are still a good base to start with (10 m precision; orthorectified; accurate positioning of the map very easy).Thanks, Giorgio

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Great stuff, Holger. Very clear and detailed - you can even see the breakers on the reefs!Impressive compression! Photoshop opened a 340 KB compressed file into a 40 MB bitmap. Incredible!Just one request, if possible. Such large bitmaps will be hard for me to work with on my underpowered computer and with Ground2K. If you could make the bitmaps with only one island on each, it would be greatly appreciated. I gave approximate coordinates in tthe above post for that, and these coordinates generally include the small stone islets surrounding each island that are so important for pilots.Many, many thanks.Best regards.Luis

[Holger 0]

Hi all:Giorgio, can you post the corner coordinates of the area you'd like me to cover? Also, I'd appreciate a link to the SPOT scenes on the NIMA site.Luis, you're very welcome. As for the "bunching" of islands, it's much more time-consuming for me to cut out each island because the RGB-composite and enhancements happen after subsetting the raw image bands. However, you can easily subset the bitmaps yourself and figure out the extent of each subset. Below is a new paragraph I'll include in the read-me text; here goes:"If you want to work with a subset of the full image use the X/Y resolution (listed below) to compute the extent of the subset. Write down the column and row numbers of your subset and use these formulae: N(subset) = N(original) - (Yres * Nrow) W(subset) = W(original) - (Xres * Wcolumn) S(subset) = S(original) - (Yres * Srow) E(subset) = E(original) - (Xres * Ecolumn)"Cheers, Holger

[Guest Giorgio]

Holger, corner coordinates are NW 35,979 14,335 SE 35,800 14,574; the link to SPOT images is geoengine.nima.mil The database covers most of western Europe, with some holes and gaps.I think it's a very handy source for backgrounds, especially because the shots come already with rulers bearing lat and long: cropping the image to your needs is a matter of five minutes in a paint program - considering how small is each tile,anything more than that would be too much for a project in Ground2k (the problem with coastlines on a continent is that there's always something more...)Thanks for the helpPS: by the way; do you know why recent meshes show up areas of spikes in CFS2 (obviously not in FS2k)?

[Holger 0]

Hi all:Giorgio, thanks for the tip about the SPOT mosaics! I had used the NIMA site for downloads before but it never occurred to me that the 10-m orthoimages would extend outside of the US - very nice!I'm wrapping up another unrequested image pack, of the Innsbruck (Austria) area, and it'll include a section of SPOT imagery, which shows some really nice detail in the urban areas.I've checked the Maltese Islands for Landsat satellite imagery. As luck would have it, there's a ETM+ image but it only covers the western half of Malta (including the other two islands). However, there's a TM5 (30-m) image that covers the entire group. So I'll set up a color composite image of all three islands and include the part covered by the 15-m image. For the 30-m image, do you prefer true-color or false-color? Also, is ECW compression OK?Sorry, but I don't know anything about CSF2; the person to ask would be Rhumbaflappy (Richard Ludowise).Cheers, HolgerP.S. Came across an interesting-looking freeware tool for satellite and other geocoded data: http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/drc/dlgv32pro/index.html (it's a limited-features version of Global Mapper)

[Guest Giorgio]

Holger, glad to know the link was of any use: In fact, it was Richard who gave me the hint some months ago, when he was attempting to show the CFS2 community what was possible with Ground2k. True color and compression will be fine: mind that I have the same computing probs that Luiz has! Pity for the low coverage of Malta (does someone think the place still has some strategic meaning!?), but I await eagerly for the maps...Keep up with the excellent work,many thanks, GiorgioPS: A secret tip in Ground2k designing is that making a scenery for CFS2 is much simpler and quicker than for FS2k (or FS9, as far I can see): no flattens (on the other side, SRTM mesh displays for this reason the whole array of bumps and lumps), no wrong rivers or roads. No water reflections and nice effects too, but my graphic card does'nt handle reflections nor I like heavy jets, so...

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hey Giorgio,Looking forward to Malta, definitely a great place. Will you also be doing Valletta and the ruins on the islands? That would be difficult, but wonderful.Thanks, Holger, your suggested technique is a lifesaver. Here is another tip: the 15 m. image is only a gray-scale image and the color depth can be reduced without any loss in quality. I converted the 66 MB image of Barbuda-Antigua and came out with a 21 MB image.Here is the first tentative sketch of Antigua, before and after. Now the altitude mesh will fit!http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/65234.jpgTo our friends at Microsoft: Water flattens must be destroyed!Best regards.Luis

[Guest Giorgio]

Brilliant job, Luis: Valletta and the Grand Harbor are in my plans, but just as LWM coastline (with VTP1 shorelines, default and custom). In fact I've already drawn it from a map; it would look very well if the SRTM mesh I'm using did not display protrusions and hills around all of the place. Monuments are at the moment out of my reach, at least till I learn to use GMax.Looking forward to our final results,GiorgioPS: has anybody tried to "clean" an SRTM mesh with programs like SRTM_fill? The best result I had for Malta is just half of the island (but the sea shows no ripples, at least)!

[Holger 0]

Hi all:Luis, very impressive and fast job!!! When I looked at the coastline in the satellite images I thought, "That will take him a while" - obviously not ;-)Thanks for the pointer about greyscale images: Duh! It never occurred to me that I could use 8-bit instead of 24-bit for the 15-m and 10-m images. Sorry about the oversized file size! Giorgio, have you seen my post about different SRTM "fillers"? http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...g_id=1459&page=Blackart has since been upgraded several times and is very stable. For example, one can now select smaller subsets for interpolation, instead of the entire image. Can't remember whether I mention SRTM_fill in that post but it's just as "bad" as SRTM2BGL and MicroDEM: plain vanilla linear interpolation.Cheers, Holger

[Guest Giorgio]

Hi Holger,the post you're referring to contained most valuable information, and yes Blackart appears to be stable and efficient; it's SRTM_to_BGL that is causing me some itch, as I managed up to now to produce just a single bgl in almost fifty attempts, both using bare data and "filled" ones. My knowledge of how DOS programs work is almost (well, completely)null, so the only cure I could conceive is to try out some other version of the program (I regressed to v. 2, with no avail). I really don't wish to bother anyone with this, as it could be down on my shabby installation or who knows what. Note that this occurs on two different computers (a PII-300 and a PIV 1.7, both 256 ram) running on two different systems (Win98SE and XPPro9), so I don't know what to think, other than leaving such matters to others, and going on working with Ground2k.Thanks a lot,Giorgio

[Holger 0]

Giorgi,"as I managed up to now to produce just a single bgl in almost fifty attempts"I assume you mean "... not a single bgl"?You do know that you need at least two SRTM tiles side-by-side to have SRTM2BGL compile a mesh .bgl file?Anyway, I suggest you list your procedures in a thread in the Mash Design forum and I'm sure someone will give you the right answer.Cheers, Holger

[Guest Giorgio]

No No, I said just one bgl! It happened probably when I forgot another SRTM file into the folder...Frankly I did'nt know - now I do...I'm still laughing at myself, thanks for the rude but healthy stir,Giorgio