ORIGINAL: benpark
In the new system, how do you select only the 1k square box in GE if the Sketchup step is now being skipped? I've always needed to use the ruler to measure it off, and then I crop it in Photoshop to use for maps.
Ben,
There is a little GE trick that I discovered to allow you to do this. I am at work now and can't show you a SS (which I am happy to provide later when I am at home), but in general it works like this.
In GE zoom roughly to the area you want to map. Use the distance legend in the bottom left corner of GE to get a rough estimate of the zoom you need to be at.
Next use the measure tool to draw a straight line of 1km in length.
Then click the Add photo button. In the URL field simply type "X" and set the transparency slider so that the image (in this case the X) is no at actually visible. Now use the resize tool at the corner of the "photo bounding box" to resize the box so that the X length is the same size as the 1km line you drew earlier. If you hold down shift when you resize GE will resize in the same aspect ratio so that it will remain completely square. Now just move the bounding box over the area you want to map. Press PrtScr to make a copy of the map in the past buffer. Press ok. Then right click on the new photo you just added (in the places bar on the left of GE) and select "save place as" (save it as a kml somewhere on your machine).
Now get into your paint editor click copy. Crop the map to the green boxes and you can start on your terrain map. In MM simply import the kml file you saved earlier and it will make the correct heightmap for you. If it takes more than 120 seconds to do the whole thing it is taking too long! The kml will get saved along with your map. I will add an option to MM to allow it to take you back to the exact GE site of the map from within MM!
Actually when you import the SRTM map into MM, it gives you a statistical breakdown of a whole bunch of map parameters, so you can use this data to fine tune map sizes if you want. Keep in mind that SRTM of russia is 3sec arc (~90m - 1sec arc ~ 30m for USA), so you will still likely need to sculpt some height map changes with the MM tools if you have historical photos for example. MM by default uses 15m res on the terrain and if you use the highres switch you can get 7.5m res.
Pretty Cool Hey!
Note: It is a very good idea to press the "N" (North) icon in the GE map navi controls prior to doing all this to ensure that the map is truely north facing. Often using the pan controls makes the map non north facing after a time.
This is some c r a z y stuff. You keep making this game more and more interesting and worthwhile to stick with. You deserve a "Matrix Hero" thingamajig.
Thanks, I went from concept to working implementation in less than 24 hours. Which was faster than even I expected. I have also added some other nice features to the next MM build (0.9x) including the ability to force register activeX components so that people who have tight security settings can get it to work (this was a problem I found from the public beta).
Regards
S.
