3 more large chunks of UK photo scenery from Paul Brook

[Guest]

Have you UK fly users noticed that Paul Brooks has done 3 more large photo scenery areas -all complete globe tiles of Birmingham,Leeds-Bradford and Tees-side. They are available in jpeg form, so that you can use Terrascene 2 to complete the large tga's that Fly!2 needs.Both Paul and I are waiting to see how people make out with this process, which is described in Paul's attached .pdf document.Dave Taylor.

[Guest Hagar]

Hi Dave,Birmingham went just fine. Converted it with Photoshop6 and sliced it :) I tried to download Teesside 2 times, but got a "bad CRC" from Winzip each time.

[Guest]

Dave,I also get a CRC error when trying to unzip the .jpg file in the Tee-side zip file.I also have not been successful in loading or converting the Birmingham .jpg file.Irfanview says "Decode error! Insufficient memory (case 4)"I don't have Photoshop. My system is a 1.2 GHz Athlon with 512 MB memory running Windows ME,GeForce 4 TI4400, NVidia 41.09 drivers.Tried using 256 color mode to reduce memory usage, still no luck.I am letting Windows set the Virtual Memory size. I am unsure of what problems I may run into if I set the manual virual memory mode, so I have as yet not tried that.As a side note, I have not had any problems creating 1/4 Globe Tile scenery with Terrascene. Have not tried anything larger than 1/4 globe tile though.Is it possible to get the JPEG in 1/4 tile or maybe 1/2 tile sizes as multiple downloads? This may make this scenery accessible to more users. (Although it would be nice to do it all in one Terrascene session.)

[Guest Steve Brown]

I have the same error, I hope someone can help us.Stevehttp://mysite.freeserve.com/fly2theuk/aragon.JPGUnited Kingdom Sceneryhttp://ftp.avsim.com/library/search.php?Se...y2tms&Go=SearchRepaintshttp://ftp.avsim.com/library/search.php?Se...y2Air&Go=SearchOther fileshttp://ftp.avsim.com/library/search.php?Se...2Misc&Go=Search

[Guest Hagar]

Richdude, the Birmingham tga is more than 800MB converted. As you have 512MB of memory, try setting your swapfile manually. A thumb rule says set the swapfile to at least 2x your memory. I have seen many tips recommending setting the swapfile min/max values to the same number instead of letting Windows manage it. On my system with 1GB memory, I have set the swapfile min and max value to 500MB, to "force" the system to use the memory, and at the same time I have room for a 800MB tga. The swapfile is really a ghost from DOS times, and not much needed on systems with large amounts of memory. Have even been running my system for months with NO swapfile. If I were you, I would try to set the swapfile to min/max 512MB, and try to re-convert the jpg :)A tips link: http://www.karbosguide.com/software/02a.htm

[Guest]

The CRC error on Tees-side is a pity, it unzipped OK on my machine. I tested that before uploading. Avsim do give you a link to a 'CRC error check'when you have successfully finished the upload to them. I never understood what they were telling me with that though I'm afraid.I'll do a download and if I get that problem I'll post Tees-side again.Glad that the Birmingham scenery came out OK Hagar but I did think others might have difficulty getting Irfanview to handle 'the big TGA.As I mentioned in the text file PhotoShop7 is ng at big files whatever the scratch disc setting although PhotoShop5 works fine.My Paint Shop Pro 7 copy used to be OK but very slow .It didn't want to do the 800Meg TGA this time, but I didn't persue why.DaveT

[Guest Hagar]

Dave, I agree the tga size is a problem for many out there. I tried to make my ENZV scenery in 2 parts, but got an ugly border doing this, so I had to render the 2 quarter tiles in one session, which made the border go away, which means your tga`s should not be cut in pieces. I hope people are able to solve this by setting their swapfile value bigger than the tga size just for the conversion job, but I am not shure this will help everybody. Or maybe it is possible to stitch 4 quarter tiles together in Terrascene? That would help...

[Guest]

Paul's 'method of manufacture' is to create a complete scenery area in TS2 but only specify 'runway' shapefiles to be used (via TerraShape from Colin). The scenery TS generates is then a pure white file with only the Fly!2 runway positions showing. The source photo images are the overlayed in a suitable graphics program with considerable time spent re-sizing and stitching the souce images to suit the Fly! scenery area.The end result is large TGA that TS2 'thinks' is the original image it produced. By specifing 'Keep Existing' in the TS2 Render menu you obviously jump to the Fly!2 slicer and complete the area, including podding if you want.Both Paul and I have had some difficulties sometimes with 'adjoining' areas and I have found that TS2 doesn't seem to produce the same 'project bounds' if you specify a quarter globe tile area as against a complete globe tile area.It may be that quarter globe tile could be used for this work (to help get acceptable download sizes) but I don't think he could just take an existing full globe tile and quarter it, then change the tsp file project bounds. Perhaps one of the 'scenery guru's' (Colin Sare-Soar are you there?) could ponder on this.DaveT

[Guest Hagar]

I am only rendering quarter tiles, except from ENZV which was 2 quarter tiles from 2 separate globe tiles. I do not have the experience with full globe tiles anymore, but I have seen the problems with adjoining quarter tiles now and then. I am also interested to hear if it is possible to do something about the project bounds...BTW hope to see the Liverpool tile jpg soon. I downloaded the complete sliced scenery, and Fly II crashes after every takeoff, and I hope this can maybe be solved if I slice it on my own system.

[Guest]

I'v now downloaded a copy of 'Tees-side' and can confirm that the jpg image is a corrupted zip file.I will upload another copy on Monday, when I can get to my broadband equipped machine.If anybody can report any problems (apart from the above) for any of Paul's sceneries please tell us here.The only other one we are aware of is the fact that the 2 Manchester sceneries Manchester EGCC and Woodhead 'interact' and you need to have both on your machine to avoid an error message.So far Paul's UK photo sceneries have been-a)Large complete scenery pods -North Wales,Manchester EGCC,Manchester Woodvale,and Woodhead (that's north of Liverpool includes Blackpool).b)Jpeg sceneries for TS2 to complete-Birmingham,Leeds-Bradford and Tees-side.My measly contribution has been a pod of a quarter tile at London Heathrow. Paul is to be congratulated for persisting with the problems that aligning aerial survey photos to Fly! brings.Dave T

[Guest Hagar]

Dave, thanks for the information, I didn`t know that. I`ll try Manchester and Woodhead again, together this time.And thanks Paul :)

[Guest Paul Brooks]

Are the people who are having trouble converting the jpgs to tga using Ifranview? On my machine I only have 512 megs of ram yet I have converted these files over and over again, I think that the problem comes in Photoshop and perhaps Paint Shop when you try to "save as", which is something that you do not do in Irfranview, I say this because if you enable the additional properties and in that and alter some of the settings, you will also get an error message.I think that Irfranview simply converts one file type to another. This appeared to be the problem when David first tried to convert via Irfranview.I hope this helps.Paul

[Guest Steve Brown]

Hi Paul and everyone ;-) I have tried what you have all said, but Im unable to convert the jpg of Birmingham. I tried your idea Andy but sadly that didnt help, tho' I have noticed its helped me in a few other ways. Below is a picture of the error I get with Irfranview!Regards Stevehttp://mysite.freeserve.com/fly2theuk/aragon.JPGUnited Kingdom Sceneryhttp://ftp.avsim.com/library/search.php?Se...y2tms&Go=SearchRepaintshttp://ftp.avsim.com/library/search.php?Se...y2Air&Go=SearchOther fileshttp://ftp.avsim.com/library/search.php?Se...2Misc&Go=Search

[Guest Paul Brooks]

Hi Steve,Make sre that you do NOT have "use advanced options" checked.I have just tried to do a conversion with the box (ringed in red) checked and I received the same error message.Paul

[Guest Hagar]

Steve, good that the tips did some good for you, if not the problem. You`ll get there soon :)Paul, thx for the tip. I will try Infanview, as conversion with Photoshop takes a very long time, using the "save as" method.