Terrascene in Canada

[Guest desmondw]

Hi Folks, I am trying to TS Part of the prairies of Saskatchewan but have a couple of questions: I TS'ed a quarter tile around Fort Qu'appelle lakes & flew across it but near the East end of the quarter I got the error message - Can't load texture Datad181169Fulltex2.raw File not found. File:texture.cpp Line 1376.Also the shapefiles I get through Arcexplorer2, although very limited does have a shapefile for populated places showing small towns but when I try to map the file PPPoint.shp which does have a type description, all I get as choice to map it to is various roads, railroads, streams or pole lines. Is there any way of getting it to give me the main menu which includes residential areas?Also is there any cheap downloads of programs which can change .E00 files to .shp files so I can get the Land use files to use in my scenary. I can't aford the $1000 that FME want! Although the program did work superbly. Thanks in advance for any help.Desmond

[Guest Colins2]

DesmondPPPoint shapefiles contain points, not polygons.You need pppoly.shp for the population polygons.I'm surprised that TerraScene offered to map it, I thought that it would only accept arcs (lines) or polygons.TerraShape will extract E00 files to shapefile sets.It will also give you better mapping facilities than TerraScene.TerraScene was made primarily for US data and the mappings for that are built-in.I got the full set of mappings from Todd and incorporated them into TerraShape.TerraShape will do almost anything you want with shapefile data, although you will need a cheap (or free) CAD program for editing them.There is a mistake in the dem routines in TerraScene. The extraction works fine, but the outputs have to be Big-Endian and I wrote them out as Little-Endian. This will be fixed in an upcoming release.TerraShape costs $0.00 and is available on my hangar site :-)ColinMy Hangar Site

[Guest desmondw]

Hi Colin, Thankyou very much for your very informative reply. Alas, I have not visited your hanger site but I will be as soon as I have finished this reply. I am lucky I do have AutoCad, although it is an older version but hopefully it will do what will be needed. Again thankyou for developing what sounds like a super program. Hopefully I will be FLYing across the Prairies & actually recognising where I am on a VFR flight soon.Desmond

[Guest HeliFLYer]

Hi Colin,read your reply and will get TerraShape immediatly from your Hangar Site. Have some E00 files of Germany, could not convert them until now. Didn't know anything about TerraShape (just start with scenery-design). Without having tested it, thank your very much in advance for your information and tool.Georg (EDDW)

[Guest Rob Westhouse]

http://www.safe.com/evaluation/index.phpThe trial program (FME) here will convert .e00 files to whatever format you desire. It is a 14-day trial version. With their old trial version you needed only roll your computers date back before opening the program to keep it working longer. The website and program have changed since I used it. In the TerraScene tutorial there is a section by me regarding using FME.GeoGratis data freely available Canadian Landuse data. I also discussed using this in the tutorial. TerraScene did bog down when doing prairie scenery due to the many "islands" of trees across the prairies. Todd improved it somewhat, but prairie scenery still took a long time to render.http://members.shaw.ca/fly2/images/snoopyace.gifRob Westhouse, VE5VKSaskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada"Land of Living Skies"

[Guest desmondw]

Hi Rob, Thankyou for your reply. I followed your tutorial & used the trial version for the 14 day trial period, & as you say the translator worked superbly for at least the E00 to SHP but I only used it to translate Calgary, at the end of my trial period I did contact FME to purchase at least the translator portion of the program but they wanted $1,000 for it which I am afraid is to much for what I want to do with it. ie: make scenery for FLY!! I have since downloaded Colins TerraShape but I haven't had time yet to spend enough time to complete the tutorial in it so have not as yet actually tried it. I hope to in the very near future. Thankyou for sharing your knowledge with us & giving us such super maps as we FLY!!Desmond

[Guest desmondw]

Hi again Colin, I have just tried to convert E00 files to shapefile but I seem to have done something wrong because when I tell TerraShape the file I wish to convert, either within a project or stand alone I get the same Error message:"Unspecified error, could not continue". The file I am trying to convert is from Geogratis & is EDMAB81U.E00. This should be a Land Usage file for the Edmonton, Alberta area. Any help on this would be greatly aprieciated. The program you developed looks great & I am looking forward to experimenting with scenery for the prairie provinces here.

[Guest Colins2]

Hi DesmondI tested TerraShape with line, polygon and point files and they worked OK.TerraShape is designed to work with TerraScene and only supports the formats that TerraScene does.Without seeing the E00 file, I cant say what the problem can be.Is it too big to email?If so, can you post the URL for these files and I'll have a look.Colin

[Guest desmondw]

Hi Colin, thankyou for your prompt reply & interest. The file is about 25Megs but the file is in .Zip format at this URL: http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/download/clump/clump_1981/ & it is only about 6Megs. The file name is "edmab81u.zip". Thankyou for any help you can come up with.Desmond

[Harald_Kraft 1]

Hi DesmondI had a similar Problem. I added the answer from Colin. MAybe this helps. My Workaround is:1.) I convert the E00-File to "binary Coverage" with Import71(freeware by ESRI)2.)I view this file with Arcexplorer(freeware by ESRI)and export it as windows Metafile.3.) I use Mikrografx Draw 6.0 to convert the Window Metafile to DXF-Format and to edit it. I bougth this program years ago for about 30 USD.4.) I use Terrashape to convert the (edited) DXF-file to shapefilesgreetings HaraldHi Harald, I

[Guest Colins2]

Desmond / Harald,I've looked at the data file for Canada and it has some of the same problems as Harald's file + one more.The 'spec' (unofficial) that I have on E00 files says that the file name and path are at the beginning and the data starts at byte 0x51 or 0x52 depending if it's a Unix file or PC.The Canadian data does not have this information, therefore TerraScene exits.The other problem is the same as Harald's, namely that there is point, polygon and line data all mixed up in the same file.You would end up with 3 shapefile sets from this data.At the moment, the routines in TerraShape do not allow for any of the above, expecting a straightforward line OR ploygon file. Points files are ignored anyway as TerraScene can't use them.I will take a look at my code to see what I can change to accommodate these types of file.CheersColin

[Guest desmondw]

Hi Harald & Colin, thankyou for for your excellent replies & for the time & effort you put into them. I will try Harald's work around suggestions over the next week & keep an eye on Colin's hanger site for possible updates on TerraShape.Desmond

[Guest Colins2]

Harald,I'm busy re-writing the E00 translation code at the moment but in the process of experimenting I've found some strange things.Using Import71, I get the arc/info coverage files which as you say can be viewed with ArcExplorer etc. However, AE doesn't show the polygon files properly! (Neither does Global Mapper).I have access to ArcView at work and the polygon files show up totally differently with that.I am trying to reproduce the same output as ArcView with TerraShape.The dnnet.e00 file that you sent me is a good example of this.If you are interested, I'll make some screenshots to send you or post here.Strange that 2 ESRI products produce 2 different results!The ArcView results do look much more realistic though.I can produce shapefiles from ArcView, of course, but not many people have access to it.Colin

[Guest desmondw]

Hi Colin, I have just downloaded your new .Exe file & tested TerraShape converting the Edmonton E00 file to shapefile & it worked super. I have just tried using it in Terrascene 2 with no problems making the digital map. Many thanks for your excellent work again. I will try to Terrascene my Edmonton scenary this weekend I hope. Thankyou again for giving us such a super utility.Desmond

[Guest Colins2]

Hi Desmond,I think I must have worn my d/l file out, it was tested that many times :-)You might be better off applying the mappings for Activity / Cover from within TerraShape rather than TerraScene.Todd sent me the full list of polygon map values so they are all available in TerraShape.TerraScene was written more with USGS data in mind and maps those values automatically. It doesn't give all the values in the mapping wizard.CheersColin