SAMB files

[Guest Richard Hill]

Is there a program that will use SAMB State Area Mapping photographs for photograptic scenery? The photographs are 2 meter per pixel color photographs 5000x5000 pixel.

[arno 1]

Hi,If you know in what kind of projection they are and which area they cover, I think it should be possible to use them with the resample tool of the SDK.I tried to do a quick search on the name, but could not find any useful information on them. Do you have a link with some more information?

[scott967 62]

Found something on "SAMB" for West Virginia USA. Couldn't find a link to the data, but did find some meta data:Digital color orthophotography of the State of West Virginia (West Virginia State Plane Coordinate System North Zone). The W.V. state plane system has two cartographic zones, north and south. This data set consists of 10,000' x 10,000' uncompressed 24-bit natural color TIFF files at a pixel resolution of 2.0' and 10,000' x 10000' compressed 24 bit-bit natural color MrSid files at a pixel resolution of 2.0'. Horizontal_Coordinate_System_Definition: Planar: Grid_Coordinate_System: Grid_Coordinate_System_Name: State Plane Coordinate System 1983 State_Plane_Coordinate_System: SPCS_Zone_Identifier: 4701 SPCS_Zone_Identifier: 4702 Lambert_Conformal_Conic: Standard_Parallel: 39.000000 Standard_Parallel: 40.25 Longitude_of_Central_Meridian: -79.50000 Latitude_of_Projection_Origin: 38.500000 False_Easting: 1968500.000000 False_Northing: 0.000000 Planar_Coordinate_Information: Planar_Coordinate_Encoding_Method: coordinate pair Coordinate_Representation: Abscissa_Resolution: 2.0 Ordinate_Resolution: 2.0 Planar_Distance_Units: survey feet Geodetic_Model: Horizontal_Datum_Name: North American Datum of 1983 Ellipsoid_Name: Geodetic Reference System 80 Semi-major_Axis: 6378137.000000 Denominator_of_Flattening_Ratio: 298.257222If this is the same data, then it is 2 ft resolution in SPCS-WVa N projection (SPCS normally uses US survey foot for measurement). You will need to reproject this data to Geographic for flight sim. I use payware Global Mapper for this purpose. The data also are in NAD83 datum, which is OK to use as-is, even though the "official" FS datum is WGS84.scott s..

[Guest Richard Hill]

I use MRSIDCODE FOR WINDOWS to convert SAMB files to JPG and Corpscon to convert SAMB coordinates to Geographical coordinates. What I want to know what program is best to read the JPG file and convert it for use in FSX? Will a program convert each set of coordinates and immage file for use in FSX? I tried to make files in FS2004 merging several JPG files into one immage then reduce to 15 meter to pixel but could never get them to line up with FS2004.I live about 5 NM SE of KCKB I have a DVD of the data for the entire state. Has anyone had any sucess?Richard;

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Richard.You should probably consider purchasing a GIS program such as GlobalMapper.Here's why.You're looking at a great deal of detailed data. Corpscon, while free, is only going to give you 3 decimal places of accuracy, and it does not convert anything to WGS84 datum. It only uses NAD83. So you already loose accuracy at 2 conversion points: wrong datum, and not enough decimal places.GlobalMapper will handle huge image sources, will merge them, will convert them to WGS84, will clip them, will export them as GeoTiff or BMP for use with resample.You can also use GlobalMapper to manipulate or merge or split SHP files for use with SHP2Vec.Also, JPG is the WORST format for images. The compression scheme encourages data loss. And you will have to reconvert to Bitmap, or Geotiff for use with resample. Use GeoTiff, Tiff, or bitmap.There have been posts over the last few years about freeware image conversion, but none do it better than GlobalMapper; and GM is about as inexpensive a GIS software package as is available. Other posters may be able to give you some other sources of programs that can help.I only recommend this because I know you are going to go nuts and do the whole state! :)It would be easier if you have the right tools before you start.Dick

[Guest Richard Hill]

Dick;Thanks for the reply! That $279.00 is way beyond my means! I am a disabeled Vietnam Combat Vet and my SSI will not even cover my VA medications. I would not even have FSX if not for a friend giving it to me for a Christmas Gift. I Guess I will stick with AutoAsm as Chris said he woule send me the updated version for FSX hopefully this weekend Can't do much for some of the poor texture options, but it is liveable. Again, Thank for the info.Richard

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Richard.Scan the past posts for inexpensive solutions, and I'll keep my eyes open as well, for new ideas. What we need is image reprojection, along with the ability to merge and/or clip images, for free. Meanwhile, for your photoreal solution, you may need to live with the alignment problems of NAD83 and only 3 decimal places. Just try to use 24 bit tiff or bitmap for the images ( JPG really isn't the best ).The new FSX resample is pretty good from what I've seen. I haven't tried the new Autogen utility.. but I've read some complaints. There is a free SBuilderX out that very good for vector drawing. It's what I use.I hope your computer has a good amount of memory, as image manipulation eats it up quickly.Dick

[Guest Richard Hill]

Dick;I can get more than 3 decemial point conversion; exampleN-I10-061700001.000000000000000 339999.000000000000000North 39.209948686 39:25.7747752 39:26'46.48651West 80.167360486 80:27.0344347 80:27'02.06608I don't know what that would be, or how many feet are in a second, or how accurate FS coordinate system is but that seems to be a small distance! Thanks again;Richard

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Richard.I haven't tried Corpscon, but their documentation lists a 3 decimal place limitation... maybe the documentation is not up to date.I think MrSidDecode is the best program to use for converting MrSid images. try to use Geotiff as an output if you can.If Corpscon doesn't work in the future, you could try FWTools:http://fwtools.maptools.org/I'll look at Corpscon, and give my impression from using the program.Dick

[scott967 62]

I did some more searching and found the SAMB data in MrSID that have been recast to UTMN17 and N18 (panhandle) and chunked to USGS DOQQ (4 files for each 7.5' USGS quad) dimensions.I haven't checked it, but you might want to look at either Quantum GIS (QGIS) or fwtools that Dick mentioned. I think they both are based on the open source GDAL library projects. In most cases going from UTM <> geo is more often implemented than SPCS. SID support might be spotty though. There are free graphics tools I think XnView or maybe IrfanView which can convert wavelet compression files though I'm not sure about SID. (I am on my Vista system now and all my tools are still on XP for now).scott s..