AutoAsm and Coastline Import?

[victorwest2 0]

Hi Chris,I've sent the three files. I very much appreciate any help.

[Guest cwright]

Hi Victor, thanks for sending the files - it makes trouble-shooting so much easier! There was only one obvious problem - the bitmap size was set to 3202*3214. The size needs to be multiples of 4, so I changed the size to 3204*3216. This would not stop you from saving the bitmap, but you would get an error message when you came to load it in again. Apart from that it worked fine. I was able to create the scenery without any problems (I did note that there was no name for SAVE in the editor - I assume you did enter a name when trying to save the bitmap).The polygons were not defined as water polygons. They were default roads. Note that if no polygons are defined as water then the SEARCH function will not find any errors - it's only interested in water polygons! When you come to read in the bitmap to make scenery, be sure that ISLANDS, AUTO FILL and AUTO CULL are enabled (I'm thinking of removing these options as really they should always be enabled). After importing, you'll need to do the BITMAP EDGES function (set PIXEL 0,0 to water). That's because all the polygons are islands. The function will add an outer water polygon. If you don't do this AutoAsm will decide that all the polygons are lakes! Then do REPAIR BITMAP and finally SEARCH to remove any residual errors. The milestone here is to get the green banner. Then save the bitmap and you're ready to make the scenery. Well, not quite! When you read in the bitmap to make scenery you'll note that all the polygons are red. That's because they're islands. Click on an island and then apply appropriate settings in the LINE TYPES panel. A tip: when creating a new project, it's useful to load in an existing project which you can then use as a template. Change any settings specific to the new project (particularly the project name!) and save. It'll then automatically have suitable settings for islands etc You'll get much better results if you apply a bit of smoothing and random to the line setting e.g. smooth = 2 and random = 30. This is particularly important here as the input data is relatively low resolution (compared, say, to USGS) though it's still much higher resolution than the default. I'll email back the dat and ini files with my changes. If there's still a problem, let me know. Try to be as specific as you can e.g. which button did you click etc? When you make the scenery, first check it's okay in LWMViewer - this is useful, as it does not depend on any default scenery. When you load it into FS you'll see you need some additional landclass to fill in the gaps. Good luck.... Best regards, Chris

[victorwest2 0]

Many thanks for the advice and files Chris. I'll have a look at them right now.

[victorwest2 0]

I still seem to be having problems so I'll go through my procedure to make sure I'm doing it right - or wrong as the case may be!!1. I copy the revised files to my AutoAsm Settings folder2, I open up AutoAsm and click the TOOLs box3. I then enter 3204 and 3216 into the O/P Bitmap X and Y Boxes4. I then select my dat file by clicking the selection box in the next to FILE NAME5. I then click LOAD ALL and SET BOUNDS. After the bounds are set I click SET MAIN.6. After that I click LOAD. "Loading Data" appears in the major screen. After that has finished (a few seconds) I see a blank major screen apart from a large greenish square. A message appears "Data Loaded"7. I create a blank bitmap size 3204 X 3216 256 colours and save this to the Bitmap folder.8. I then follow the above procedure and when I get to step 6 I then go the Main Panel and click READ DATA. "Reading Bitmap Lines 500,1000 etc" appears followed by the message "No Polygons Found"9. I then go back to the Tools Panel and click LOAD again. The islands now appear on the screen. 10. I adjust the line properties as required using the Line Types panel.11. In order to obtain a bitmap prior to editing I go to the Editor panel and enter my bitmap name "jersey" in the OUTPUT box. 12. I click SAVE. After a few seconds the error message "Run Time Error (9). Subscript Out of Range" AppearsI hope I'm not going to end up looking too stupid!!

[Guest cwright]

Hi Victor, I think I have the answer! I mentioned the file blank.bmp earlier - I'm fairly confident you don't have it installed. You'll find it in one of the update zips. blank.bmp should be placed in the bitmaps directory. AutoAsm uses it as a template and in particular it uses the palette from that file. Earlier, I didn't think that was the problem because the program gives a clear error message if blank.bmp is not found. However - I just realised that I added that check later, and so it probably isn't in the version you have. This explains rather neatly why steps 7 etc seemed to fix it. That's because loading another bitmap would generate the necessary palette data. If this theory is correct ( and I'm confident!) then, when you imported the file, the lines were in fact present - but the palette for that colour was zero, so the lines didn't show. Also, during read-in to create scenery, any lines with grey or black colours (R,G and B components all equal) are ignored. As I said, you should find blank.bmp in one of the update zips - I'm assuming you downloaded all three zips. Just in case, I'll email you blank.bmp plus the latest program version that has the blank.bmp check. Just pop blank.bmp into the bitmaps directory and hopefully you'll find it all works! Best regards, Chris

[victorwest2 0]

Aahaa!!!That's it. I did have a blank.bmp in my bitmaps folder but it wwas 0kb. The new one you sent was 11kb. Many thanks for all the help you've given me.

[Guest cwright]

Hi Victor, glad to hear it! Any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.... Best regards, Chris

[victorwest2 0]

And to answer Horst's question, yes the 250,000 data is a lot better than the default. Here's an example. Jersey in the Channel Islands.As you can see the revised coastline is far better. Maybe not up to USGS standards but, hey, we Europeans can't be too fussy!:D http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/89621.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/89622.jpg

[Guest Horst]

Hello Victor,First:I am glad and happy, that you can import the data.It is very important to understand the import process!You have now a lot of possibilities, to use data wit AutoAsm.(my post here: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...2109&mode=full)Try always to find some data out in the NET and translators for the data to come to the formats AutoAsm can read (bln and mp) (You will never find the ultimate link for world data - scientist will be happy

[victorwest2 0]

Horst, how can you say the detail looks the same?! The 250,000 is more detailed than the default. Ok it may not be as fine a detail as may be available for free for the US coasts but still, it is more detailed than the default.Here are three more shots from the same area. The default coastline is the yellow line. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/89672.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/89673.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/89674.jpg

[Guest Horst]

Hello Victor,Sorry!- how can you say the detail looks the same?!Sorry, I do not want to say that!It was only my first impression from your shots, and my English is not good enough to find maybe the correct words.I never compared myself this data, so I am glad that you did it for me!Comparison is really important.Kind regardsHorst

[victorwest2 0]

There's absolutely no need to apologise Horst. Perhaps my first shots made comparison difficult. Having the data overlaid is far better.VictorNow I think I'll try and hunt for some free European road/river/lake vector data and then I'll be able to rustle up the entire continent!:D :-beerchug !!

[Guest cwright]

Hi Victor, that looks excellent. I just thought I'd jump in with a small tip. In the screenshots you can see the individual points (they are joined by straight lines). This makes it look a little unnatural. I assume you're using zero smoothing. If you set smoothing to 1 or 2 the polygons will lose that slightly unnatural look - but if you use too much smoothing it will look too bland. As Horst mentioned, you can also add a bit of random to add a small amount of extra 'detail'. You change these settings in the Line Types panel. Typical values of smooth and random might be 2 and 30. After changing these settings, don't forget to read in the bitmap again. Glad it's working now! Best regards, Chris

[victorwest2 0]

One question that has just occured to me.How do you know how large to make the bitmap if the coastline extends beyond the area you are processing?

[Guest cwright]

Hi Victor, you don't need to worry about bitmap size if the coastline extends beyond the area. AutoAsm scales the data so that the bitmap size doesn't matter, at least in this respect. If you wanted to butt two scenery areas together they could be different bitmap sizes and it wouldn't matter. There is only one consideration when chosing the bitmap size: resolution. If the bitmap is too small then of course you could lose detail. The higher the detail and the larger the scenery area, then the larger the bitmap needs to be. As an example, when using high resolution USGS data via TerraScene, the bitmaps are typically 8500*8500 for a half degree area. You could try importing with several different bitmap sizes. Looking carefully at the pixel display should give you a good idea of the bitmap size you need. Best regards, Chris