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Guest victorwest

Using TerraScene and Autoasm?

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Guest cwright

Hi Dan, I checked the .mp and it imported with no problems. Almost certainly you had the data loaded - but you were looking at an area where there was no data. If you clicked on GOTO X,Y without typing in coordinates, it will probably take you to the top left of the bitmap - which happens to be empty! Also you were probably zoomed in quite a bit. You can try zooming out. But if you zoom out a lot, drawing can get a bit slow. You could try this, after doing the import:1. Go to the Editor panel.2. Select QUICK DRAW (to the left of the panel).3. Click on FRAME. This gives you a full-frame view of the bitmap. I'm fairly confident you'll see your data then. You can then zoom in for a closer look - as you zoom in drawing gets a lot faster. If you left-click on the map while holding down SHIFT, you can centre the map on that point. Before you can make scenery you'll need to do some editing, for example removing some straight lines. With LOAD ALL selected, each separate polygon will be shown in different colours, which wouldn't be very useful. The next step would be to decide which 0x types you want to import. Type the 0x values (e.g. '0x5' ) into the boxes and disable LOAD ALL. Now all polygons of a given 0x type will be the same colour. The next step will be to set the line types - before you use the search tools they have to 'know' which are the LWM polygons and which are the VTP lines. As I said, you will need to do some editing before you can turn it into scenery. The 'Using the editor Tools' section in the temp update manual should give you the info you need. Good luck - any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Best regards, Chris

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Guest Slacktide

>Hi Dan,> You can try zooming out. But if you zoom out a lot, drawing>can get a bit slow.>> You could try this, after doing the import:>1. Go to the Editor panel.>2. Select QUICK DRAW (to the left of the panel).>3. Click on FRAME.> This gives you a full-frame view of the bitmap. I'm fairly>confident you'll see your data then.Hrm. Still no joy. After following the above steps, (and clicking Bitmap Edges) here's what I see:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85173.jpgNo matter how close I zoom and pan around in that box, I can't find my polys.Here are some screenshots of the settings I have in Main and Tools, if it helps any... I've got to have something messed up here.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85174.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85175.jpgThanks, Dan

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First on TOOLS click Read TS Text to load the params stored in the TXT file you moved from Terrascene to the Bitmap folder of AutoASM. That file should have the same name as your converted BMP file but with a .TXT extension to allow the relationship between them.Go to Editor:The enter the name of the BMP file you converted from the Terrascene TGA and loaded into the AutoASM Bitmap folder.Do not type the .bmp (or any other extension) when entering this name. Click load and it will load the BMP and the proper LAT/LON stuff automatically. The LAT/LON info is from the .TXT file you loaded when clicking of the Read TS Text in Tools.


regards,

Dick near Pittsburgh, USA

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Guest Slacktide

Hi, thanks for the tip, but I'm not trying to import a Terrascene bitmap. I'm trying to import a Polish format .mp file, as described in the latest Autoasm update.Dan

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Guest cwright

Hi Dan, sorry about that. I know what the problem is. Ironically, almost certainly all the lines were there - it's just that they were the same colour as the background! The program needs a bitmap that can be used as a template to create the new bitmap, and also to provide the colour palette. This is what you need to do:1. Create a blank 8 bit colour bitmap, size 512*512.2. Check that the palette is filled with colours (e.g. not black or all grey). The palette colours (particularly the first 50 or so) will determine the line colours in the display. You can always edit the palette to get the colours you want.3. Save the bitmap into the AutoAsmbitmaps directory with the name blank.bmp I just checked the code. If it doesn't find blank.bmp it issues an error message - but promptly overwrites it with a message saying that it worked! If you don't have a paint program to create the bitmap, let me know and I'll email it to you. I'm quite confident that, with blamk.bmp installed, it'll work. As the main thrust of this was the use of TerraScene bitmaps, it never occurred to me that someone would immediately start using the import feature! Best regards, Chris

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Guest Slacktide

Yes! That worked great. The import feature is going to be a big help for me, as I already have a large number of water areas in .mp form as a a result of some work I did making custom maps for my Garmin GPS.Dan

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Guest cwright

Very good! Have fun.... As I said, if you have any questions.... Best regards, Chris

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Well I'm alomost there - I think!!I decided to do separate VTP and LWM files.I'm finishing the VTP files first. However, when I click Write VTP everything goes fine until the DOS screen appears and then I get an error message File Not Found. I have BGLC.exe in the AutoAsm folder and, as far as I can see, the path I have written to where the bgl files should go and the path to FS are both correct.

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Guest cwright

Hi Victor, as the DOS window appeared then it probably ran bglc okay. If so the bgl file will be in the main AutoAsm directory - if you enter test into OUTPUT FILE then the file will be test_vtp.bgl Try unchecking TO FS - I expect you will not get the error then. If so the problem occurs when it is trying to copy the bgl to FS. Check very carefully that the SCENERY BGL PATH is correct e.g. c:autoasmaddon sceneryscenery A thought just occurred: did you install AutoAsm into the Program Files directory? It just may be that bglc can't find files that have a path with spaces. Could you do three things:1. Check if the error occurs if you uncheck TO FS2. Check if the error occurs if you uncheck both COMPILE and TO FS3. Check if the bgl file appeared in the main AutoAsm directory. If the bgl is not being generated you can do it manually as a temporary fix. In the main AutoAsm directory you'll find the newly-created asm file: test_vtp.asm Just drag it and drop it into bglc - it will then generate the bgl file which you could copy to FS. Best regards, Chris

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Hi Chris,I decided to untick the FS box and it seems ok now. The ASM file was manually copied to BGLC.exe and that gave me a bgl file. Doing it that was was no problem. Now I'm going to try doing the LWM file.

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Guest victorwest

All files created (I decided to do separate files for rivers/lakes, roads and streams. I had a problem with the lakes but that was easily resolved when I realised that I had left the altitude at 0 rather than amending to -9999! The scenery is offset a bit form the correct position but I guess this maybe due to me using degrees, minutes and seconds in the Terrascene file but needing decimal degrees in the AutoAsm file. I'll check that out this evening. Overall though, once I worked out the way to produce the bgl's, it was very quick and easy. Victor

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Guest cwright

Hi Victor, that sounds good. About the position error: how are you converting from tga to bmp? I ask this because earlier this year we had a similar problem. It turned out the converter was introducing the inaccuracy. After switching to Paint Shop Pro the inaccuracy disappeared. I doubt if the minutes, seconds conversion is a problem. And don't forget, if you copy the TS text file to the bitmaps directory you can use the TS TEXT tool on the Tools panel - this will read in the positions and place it on the Main panel. Best regards, Chris

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Guest victorwest

Hi Chris,I'm using Konvertor. If that's the cause of the problem, I'll try another program. PSP is slightly out of my budget at the moment!Victor

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Guest Slacktide

PSP is available for free download for a trial period (30 days, I think)That way you could at least determine if it's conversion works better for you.Dan

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I don't think I can use the free trial for PSP as I used it a few months ago for some other scenery projects and deleted it off my system. I assume once you've used one 30 day period you can't use another.I tried IrfanView as suggested but my files are still off by 15 minutes latitude s shown in the attached screenshot from LWMViewer which compares the default lake to my new lake. It's getting late here now so I'll look again tomorrow.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85622.jpg

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