First Whack at Custom Layer Import

[Der Zeitgeist]

While the imagery from Bing Maps is working pretty well for me, an annoying problem came up while I'm building a few German airfields. Bing Maps is blurring the images, and the GMap-Application mostly doesnt show the satellite imagery from Google, which is not blurred. It's still possible to get accurate results, because the outlines are still visible with Bing Maps, but I have to double check with Google Earth to find out the exact type of building to put down:



Another funny thing is the different ways old and closed military airfields are used for nowadays. Eggebek Airfield is mostly covered in solar arrays nowadays:

[mikmykWS]

Its not a fault they are blurring them on purpose. You see this a lot with nuclear weapons facilities. Thats why I like GMAP as you can grab from multiple sources.

Thankfully when I was building most the imports that exist in the game now google worked for the most part and hardly anything was blurred.

Mike

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

Its not a fault they are blurring them on purpose. You see this a lot with nuclear weapons facilities. Thats why I like GMAP as you can grab from multiple sources.

Thankfully when I was building most the imports that exist in the game now google worked for the most part and hardly anything was blurred.

Mike

I wonder if anyone actually requested the blurring or if Microsoft did it themselves for active military areas.

[mikmykWS]

Assume somebody asked. Google usually covers in black and to do wonder if the delta in available high res imagery has something to do with it. Thankfully enough sources to mine from.

[SilentHunter]

So is there a size/area limit on what this program will actually convert at zoom level 17? I saw a post about keeping size down to airport or city level, but what's the limitation in going larger, for me it seems to be gmap but I don't know it's something I'm doing wrong or the software.

[Jakob Wedman]

@ Der Zeitgeist
I don't know which airbase you showed that is blurred but Geilenkirchen is blurred in Google Earth and you are still able to look at historical images that is not blurred.

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: Jakob Wedman

@ Der Zeitgeist
I don't know which airbase you showed that is blurred but Geilenkirchen is blurred in Google Earth and you are still able to look at historical images that is not blurred.

Yes, finding high resolution imagery usually is no problem at all, but the program we use to create these custom overlays has some trouble with pulling data from other imagery providers than Bing Maps, and Bing Maps sometimes blurs military areas.

[SilentHunter]

I'm still having issues and wondering if there is a max size allowed either my gmap or command. I'm not able to convert large areas using zoom 17, see post above. Anyway this is a tile set of 3 tiles for the default air training mission. Using photo scenery makes it hard to see the blue colored units. For some reason using fraps though to take pictures left the units off my screenshots and only included the landscape.

DEFAULT



BING SATELITE

[Paul Wykes]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

Paul sometimes you're not going to get a 100% match. This is because the layers are from two different sources. This is the nature of open source imagery. As long as their is terrain under it (has an elevation) you can add the facility.

If something is really off in terms of terrain let us know. We do have somebody that can fill holes[:)]

Thanks for that. From the image they do seem quite far off, but the facilities I`ve added are obviously "on land" or I would have got an error message, which is one of the things I was worried about.

[Paul Wykes]

ORIGINAL: SilentHunter

I'm still having issues and wondering if there is a max size allowed either my gmap or command. I'm not able to convert large areas using zoom 17, see post above. Anyway this is a tile set of 3 tiles for the default air training mission. Using photo scenery makes it hard to see the blue colored units. For some reason using fraps though to take pictures left the units off my screenshots and only included the landscape.

I tried to convert a much larger area and it crashed the programme, so my guess it is driven by the amount of area trying to capture. I need to play around with it a bit more.

[SilentHunter]

ORIGINAL: Paul Wykes

ORIGINAL: SilentHunter

I'm still having issues and wondering if there is a max size allowed either my gmap or command. I'm not able to convert large areas using zoom 17, see post above. Anyway this is a tile set of 3 tiles for the default air training mission. Using photo scenery makes it hard to see the blue colored units. For some reason using fraps though to take pictures left the units off my screenshots and only included the landscape.

I tried to convert a much larger area and it crashed the programme, so my guess it is driven by the amount of area trying to capture. I need to play around with it a bit more.

If you come up with anything let me know, I posted in the tech forums, the custom layer tool is acting sporadically funny for me. tm.asp?m=3423261

[mikmykWS]

Yeah guys keep what you're importing in about city sized or a little bigger tops for the high res stuff.

[El Savior]

When layer is added to Command can I delete original png files or do Command load them everytime?

[Dimitris]

It loads them every time, they are not absorbed into the scen file (ie. it's not like MS Word where you are literally adding an image directly into the Word doc).

[smudge56]

Silenthunter is that an exact picture of the training area or made up?

[pjb1]

Are there any other programs besides Gmap that can do this?

[JK07]

I know this may not be the best place to ask, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Anyone have any idea as to why I get a "X has stopped working" error as soon as I click the .exe file in the Gmap download?

[RoryAndersonCDT]

Do you get the same error with the version I modified?

[JK07]

Yeah, I'm getting the same message "Demo.Windows Forms has stopped working" with "Windows is checking for a solution to the problem" beneath it. I'm sure its something to do with my computer and not the file, but I'm not sure whats causing it.