Sbuilder and Photoscenery

[scubakobe]

I started on creating photoscenery in Sbuilder. I am running in to troubles with the calibration. I got the Lat/Lon of each corner of the bitmap, so I can accurately place it in Sbuilder. When I try to calibrate the map by entering the Lat/Lon of 2 corners (I manually clicked where both of those corners were, as Pixel X/Y) I get this error:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9946/error5ey.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

What is wrong with it? All of the Lat/Lon information looked exactly the same as the default coordinates so I thought it was compatible.

Also, does anyone have some tips for getting the coordinates of the corners? It is VERY tedious to do that, took me a half hour lol.

[kjb]

I believe Sbuilder needs the decimal equivalent, not degrees, minutes and seconds. It should read something like 35.94373889/-114.8725278.

[scubakobe]

I will test that out then.
But I was reading in the PTsim forum that for the phototexture thing to work properly, the ground needs to be perfectly level since Sbuilder doesn't know what altitude the ground is at..:confused:
So I thought it may be better to do VTP Photo, but I have no clue where to start. My only guess was to make a VTP polygon and apply a custom texture. That wouldn't make it a VTP Photo polygon though, I think. The people talking in this post went over it, but they never said how to get the VTP Photo in the first place!
http://www.ptsim.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=418

In the guys first post, he described the problem I got. So I just figured I should follow his tracks and go along with VTP Photo.

Can anyone help me make a VTP photo polygon with Sbuidler????

[kjb]

Sbuilder needs mesh if you're doing hi-res scenery. If you're doing normal resolution photo scenery, it will work over default mesh or any other existing mesh you might have. You only need your own mesh if you try to do high resolution.

[karsten77]

Making a Polygon is not a good idea, i think, because the problems with the mesh altitude.

But what is the different between High.Res. Photo and VTP Scenery. And in the Photo Properties, what for settings are recomended?

In my case, the compiled high res Photo scenery will not displayed in FS. The lower resulution VTP works, but i want a little bit more Quality.

Had someone experience creating a super detailes, 1.2m photo mesh?

You only need your own mesh if you try to do high resolution.

What did you mean^^ ?

[kjb]

See this thread (http://www.ptsim.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=737) for a discussion of resolutions above 4.8m.

[scubakobe]

That didn't help. I am not doing high resolution, I just asked how to do VTP Photo. So I tried creating a poly and using a Named texture. But after I place the texture in Scenery/World/Texture and then compile the project and load FS, the loading screen hangs at 41%at the airport I am doing the photoscenery at. So I tried calibrating a map by using points from the VTP poly (which are exactly where they are supposed to be) but when I try to calibrate I get this:
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/696/ypix8ex.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Dang, I thought Sbuilder was going wacko before, but now THIS??? What do you expect out of a number 1-1024? Jeez. Maybe I should convert the Y value of 4 to afjjfaaadw2323sasdas...then it would understand.
:stirthepo

[arno]

Hi,

When trying to make a VTP tile with SBuilder it is needed to load a background image (with the Maps option) that is bigger than the tile you want to cover. After you have calibrated this image, you can use the Photo option to select the tile you wish to generate. But this tile must be fully covered by the photo (that's why the map needs to be bigger).

If FS crashed on loading your VTP tile, this probably means that it can't find the texture or the texture is in the wrong format.

[scubakobe]

The hardest part is trying to make the map size a power of 2! Best way I found to do this is to increase the canvas size to 1024 x 1024. Second hardest part is lining up the textures in photoshop. :)
Thanks for the answer though. I now see that the VTP photo option becomes available AFTER you use photo tiles.

[scubakobe]

I am still getting the "Check Y pixel values" problem. I am always the person that tends to find the bugs in programs, the hard way. :p
I clicked on everypoint on the map but nope nothing worked.

[scubakobe]

Ah. I discovered sbuilder hates 2 points that are right across from each other, so I had to select 2 points in different locations and then refind the actual Lat/Lon for those points.
Then I clicked calibrate and the map disappears. Shoot.But oh yah, theres suuchh a simple fix for that as they explained in another form, you set the center lat/lon for the project. I did that and sbuilder got mad at me again so he decided to stretch the squares into rectangles.
http://img467.imageshack.us/img467/3883/prob8ha.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Sbuilder isn't really fit for photoscenery I guess. That means I will have to learn the dreaded Gmax if this doesn't work..ahhh!!

[scruffyduck]

Sbuilder isn't really fit for photoscenery I guess.

The guys over at http://www.fs-freeflow.com built all the freeflow scenery using SBuilder and I suspect there is some photo scenery in that. Their forum is at

http://www.fs-freeflow.com/forum2/index.php

[kjb]

Sbuilder works fine for photo scenery. See my Albuquerque scenery (http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004scen&DLID=86187) for an example. You mention using 1024 x 1024 for a bmp. That's really small. Are you trying to do a single tile?

[scubakobe]

Yes I was using 1024 x 1024. I could go bigger, to 2048 if I needed to, I would just need to gather more satellite photos. I haven't been able to tell if the area I was planning on mapping would cover more than one tile, because each time I try to calibrate the map something goes wacko. So I may be using 1, or 2 tiles, not sure yet. Does it matter how many tiles are going to be used??

[karsten77]

hmm i thing you must choose even 1 tile. E,G, in my case, Cell 399/107 Area 31/9.

You can find the area using Google Earth:

from
N52.2839355 E7.4835515
to
N52.2729493 E7.4999999

When you want a little bit more on the right or left side, you must cover all the neighbour area (eg. 30/9), too. How many tiles you use should doesn't matter.

But what resolution the bmp´s have doesnt matter, just use the original and cut it in your favorite graphic programm.

This example here i copied from google earth, i marked the locations of every corner before. Then i cut it, and use it in sbuilder (map -> insert -> calibrate). note, the bmp must be a little bit bigger than the corners of the tile (just add +/- 0,0000001) to your measured corners, look example:

N52.2839355 E7.4835515
> N52.2839356 E7.4835514

N52.2729493 E7.4999999
> N52.2729492 E7.5

After calibrate choose photo tool, click on area, it will marked (xxxx) green colored. Choose it all, compile as vtp, ready for FS. But its still 4.8m not more.

So you can "patchwork" your Fsim region. Its easy ^^

[kjb]

Take a look at Google Maps/Sbuilder web app (http://www.ptsim.com/sbuilder/gmaps.asp) to get an idea how your photo will fit with the individual tiles. You can put in your coordinates (decimal, not degrees, mins, seconds) and have it show the grid. If you click on 'boundaries' it will bring up a pop up window with the information to automatically calibrate the image. Save the image and save the boundary information with the same name (ex: image1.bmp, image1.txt). Sbuilder will get the calibration from the text file. The 'new window' button will get a larger version of the photo with the same coordinates.

[karsten77]

umg^^

And i made it all manual, doesnt matter it was exact :)

Try and plz have a look to my post coming in 5 mins, thx

[scubakobe]

Wow that is sure a helpful website!! The downside of it though is that when you crop the picture to cut out the controls, you will not have accurate boundary information. So, it looks like it would be better to use Google Earth. Which is still extremely hard to do because if you zoom out accidently...:eek:

[kjb]

The best way to grab the images is to get the 'new window' at 2800 x 1800 and then use CaptureWiz to scroll and get the entire image at a nice resolution. The 2800 x 1800 image will still work with the calibration information.

[scubakobe]

Ah, just what I was looking for. :)