PhotShop 'scratch disks' question

[Guest]

I'm trying to get PhotoShop7 to open an 815Mb full TS2 Globe Tile TGA.Although I have 50 odd Gb of unused drive space on 3 drives I am unable to get the PhotoShop7's 'scratch disks' setting (under 'preferences') to allow me to open this size of file. I know there is a relationship between the RAM set in the memory 'preferences box'(I have 512Meg of actual RAM) but setting all the 'scratch disks' choices to different disks, all of which have lots of freespace still fails.I get the 'not enough RAM' message each time.What am I doing wrong? I can easily open enormous files once they are into PhotoShop format (PSD) but it's the TGA's that I can't open.Some more 'UK scenery'is waiting if I can sort this!DaveT

[Avcomware 1]

Hi. I use 5.5 without problem. Check your My Computer>Properties>Performance>Virtual Memory and let Window handle it. Let us know what your set up is like, OS etc. I use W98SE. TV

[Guest]

I've tried leaving Windows to 'handle my memory', still can't open the 815Mb TGA file with a 'first scratch disc' that's got 12Gb free on it.I've just switched to WinXP Pro but I had the same problem with Win 2000 Pro.Think I'll try and load my old copy of PhotoShop5, but then I never tried to load a TGA that big before.Paint Shop Pro will load it (slowly)but I'm not sure that it's conversion of a TGA file to a PSD file is 'that accurate'-I can't exactly fit the the converted file to the Fly!2 runways and I want to eliminate that extra process.DaveT

[Guest Paul Brooks]

Hi David, First let me thank you for your guide for making UK scenery, it has helped a lot.I also have problems with tga files in Photoshop on the PC and find that any alterations made to them then saved the program stops responding, so I'm afraid that I cheat and use my Mac to do the graphics work the send them to the PC for TerraScene to do the rendering via a usb link. I sorry that I cannot help you in anyway, but have you looked in the preferences file for Photoshop where I think you will find the scratch disk details, perhaps you have to increase the amount of hard disk space to be used as a scratch disk, just a thought.I have so far rendered most of the area from Anglesey in the south to Fleetwood in the north and east to almost Sheffield, but even using you recommendations I still find it is impossible align all the runways, for instance on the Manchester tile Manchester and Liverpool are spot on but Woodford and Hawarden are out,Any ideas why, or is it something we have to live with.Best wishesPaul

[Guest]

Hi PaulGood to make 'contact'. If you aren't getting those runways to align my first thought would be to check if they are accurate in Fly! I would get to that CAA site that allows you to download the CAA 'aerodrome chart' pdf's.Start at http://www.ais.org.uk/ (I notice that you have to register with them to get in now but that's OK,they're still free).Get to the AIP section, then -it's a badly layed out site alas. Download the charts for the airfields that you want and check the Lat and Long co-ord details on the charts. Each main runway's centre point Latitude and Longitude is given.Go into Fly! and either use the 'Editor' or under the 'Aircraft' drop down menu use the 'Teleport' sub-menu to get the Lat and Long selection box. Dial in the runway co-ords you've grabbed fron the pdf chart and you should go to the exact same spot -centre runway. This absolutely proves that Fly!s runway is dead on.If Fly!'s runway is OK then you'll have to adjust the scaling of the pics your using. My figures were based on only one or two area's and I never actually ever got perfect alignment on a full Globe Tile.For instance I put Elstree into my 'Heathrow Zone' scenery but it isn't perfectly placed when referred to the CAA aerodrome chart's lat and Long co-ords.Even the picture source say's 'accurate to 100 metres), then all that 'picture sticking' must produce errors galore! If Fly's runway is incorrect (I noticed that Farnborough is wrong) then you'd better updating first using VolEdit and then making a new TS2 rendering with runway shapefiles on to re-align too. By the way what re-scaling did you use for your existing scenery? Did you do any re-colouring of the source pics? I tweaked the 'pale green's' up a bit in the London area (dull day when the phot's were taken I guess) and also the roads sometimes.Wonder how much better the UK Visual Flight scenery will be when it comes out for MSFS2002 soon? Guess I'll have to buy it and see!But do I love FLY!!DaveT

[Guest andrewluck]

DaveI queried Rich at the Avsim conference as to why so many UK runways were misaligned. The data is based on a US military source. Facilities that they use e.g. VORs are spot on. They only update the data if they visit or use the site and notice it's wrong. I wouldn't want to do a GPS approach at Norwich based on their data :-).Will you be at the Birmingham show?RegardsAndrew Luck18 miles SW EGSH

[Guest]

AndrewHaven't been to the 'Birmingham show' (that's the RGSimulation one isn't it)for a few years now.About time I went again I suppose. It's all MSFS though I imagine?I ought to do a check on the accuracy of the UK runways I sometime, I had read that the 'military UK' airfields weren't very accurate (deliberately?) and wondered why an airfield like Northolt that has mainly 'biz jet' traffic doesn't have an 'aerodrome chart' (ie layout diag)on the CAA site.Pooley's and the 'UK Flight Guide' both have diagrams though I notice.Colin Sare-Soar seems to have been able to open full Globe Tile TGA's in PhotoShop but it's strange that neither Paul Brooks or myself can do that.I notice slight size differences when I use a 1/4 Globe Tile TS2 image as a background to position my scenery photos, as against using a full Globe Tile image. But I am having to convert the TGA (to PhotoShop .PSD file)in Paint Shop Pro first.That's why I want to open the large TGA in PhotoShop , to reduce the size error that might have occured.My 'scratch disks' settings should allow it (12.5Gbfree on the 'first' and the same on the 'second') and I've tried both 'allow Windows to manage your memory' and setting large memory allocations manually.DaveT

[Guest Paul Brooks]

Hi David,Thanks for your reply, its appears from Andrew's response that the main problem is the inaccuracy of the Fly data which means that as I am incapable of doing anything in that department I will have to accept these anomalies.My own view is that it is preferrable to have the roads etc, lined up so that when one tile joins another you do not see a straight line and the two tiles merge into each other, however that is difficult in itself.I used the UK Downloader converted the jpgs to tga using Infraview and MegaPatchPlus to stitch them together and saved each mega targa as a jpg and transferred them to the Mac where I joined the parts together after rescaling each part before adding to the main tile and then tweaked the resulting tile as near as I could, then sent the resulting targa file back to my PC.The colours are as downloaded, but they could be wrong, I think its a question of personal perception.I would like to upload them to the Avsim library, and I am hoping a friend who has access to ADSL will help, how long does it take to upload a 150+mb file?Best wishesPaulp.s. Did you resolve scratch-disk problem?

[Guest]

PaulHaven't yet solved the scratch disk problem. I'd be pleased to upload your new scenery file if you haven't found anyone else.I have ADSL, the 150 Meg file will only take a few minutes.My e-mail address is davet@davidtaylorsound.co.uk. I'll reply with my address so you could post a CD. I'm in Bucks.I completly agree that it's desirable to have the 'joins' between scenery areas matching as much good as possible. One reason why I have been playing with using the Latitude and Longitude co-ords as a way of aligning scenery.I've been musing on uploading a complete Globe Tile but don't know what Avsim regard as 'top whack' for an upload.'PaulVR' for his Holland scenery, had suggested that people uplaod compressed jpegs for large scenery areas but the most of us would hate to see further degrading of images.Going to look into the accuracy of other Fly! UK runways to see what problems need 'chasing'.DaveT

[Guest]

By the way just checked the Fly! accuracy of EGCD Woodford (53 20 17N 02 08 56W) and that puts you at the right spot but with that miss-placed tower on the aircraft!(Thought I'd moved that Andrew!)EGNR Hawarden (53 10 41N 02 58 40W) also correct, as I'm sure StevieGeeBee has already checked!So I guess the alignment of pics is in error.As I've said before with so many picture manipulations taking place it's easy to 'creep out'. Even using MegaPatch to join them produces some small discernable errors but I couldn't imagine doing 1:10000 scale pics all manually!So we have to discover the 'best fit' for rescaling and then find a way of slightly shifting that when alignments still aren't correct.How out of place are Woodford and Hawarden in your assembled image?Could you make a shift in scale somewhere away from the airfields?It would be a pity to alter correct Fly! database entries to suit scenery but I'm happy to alter incorrect ones. I almost tweaked Heathrow's northern runway because it seemed out (by only a few yards) against the CAA documentation, but didn't in the end.DaveT

[Guest andrewluck]

DaveIt's not just image manipulations that are causing you problems here. You're taking a picture (flat image) of a spherical object (i.e. the ground). That will then be orthocorrected (the platform taking the picture might not be aligned to the local vertical) and then attempting to wrap that around whatever model TRI used for the world. It's just not possible to align anything over the longer distances.When I did the Isle of Man for Fly! I only had one airport to align and that was tricky enough. As soon as you have anymore in the frame then things deteriorate rapidly. I'm really impressed by what you guys are attempting.Andrew Luck18 miles SW EGSH

[Guest]

Andrew,You may well be right.However the photo source allows you to superimpose a map over the photos proving an accurate alignment of the photos to Ordance Survey mapping.Since Fly! accurately shows the lat/long co-ords if you want I have become convinced that once the UK 'National Grid' is corrected for, against the Fly! Globe Tile view of the world, then things should agree in both 'worlds'. These are aerial survey photos not satellite pics (with all the problems they bring)and I think the problems lie in the mutiple aligning and re-aligning in sticking individual aerial photos together. Anyway it's a beautiful view of the world, just like real life and I'll be interested to see how the forthcoming Visual Flight UK photo scenery (Just Flight are now releasing it)will look. Only MSFS of course and 3 CD's at

[Guest Colins2]

Dave & Andrew,I don't want to butt-in here, but this is the info that I've received/found out over the years that I've been using Fly!Fly! uses the WGS84 model of the world, i.e. the latest internationally recognized version of the global sphere.The OS maps are in UTM projection to 'flatten' them as are most other maps of the UK.Other nav charts are probably in Mercator projection or something similar, again to flatten them, but they could be based on a different spheroid.The marine nav charts that I use at work, for example, are mostly based on OSGB36 datum and we have to correct GPS positions in order to plot them accurately.Satellite images like those from Terraserver are not flattened and should thus line up perfectly, but the arial photos that you are getting, have been flattened and are going to require 'distorting' again to make them match up.The Fly! runways are pretty accurate, the odd one here or there might be a bit out, but not very much. I feel that moving the runways to match the scenery is not the way to go. You would throw everything else out as well.Do you have accurate co-ordinates of the corners of your images?Colin

[Guest andrewluck]

ColinButt in all you like. There's a wealth of experience here that we need to tap to avoid everyone having to discover the same things for themselves.I agree that moving runways to match the scenery is not the way to go. I'd rather airbrush out the mismatch in the scenery.A few years ago I had a spreadsheet from the Ordnance Survey website that converted Lat/Long and NGR to pretty good accuracy. I've not been able to locate a replacement copy as I lost the original. Do you have anything similar?Andrew Luck18 miles SW EGSH

[Guest andrewluck]

DaveNot too far from Wymondham. We're just outside the MATZ stub for Lakenheath; next to the battle area (nice quiet spot in the country :-) ).I'll look at East Anglia as I get the time but I can't commit to anything at the moment as I really have to nail down a Cisco certification by the end of the year. Study time's been in short supply recently.Andrew Luck18 miles SW EGSH