Max photoreal tile size?

[Visualize-HD]

I found some really nice 30cm/pixel imagery on USGS, the only problem is that it's in JPG2000 format. So I ended up downloading all 42 files and put them together like a puzzle. My end result, a 30000x35000 pixel tile! This brings up the question, how detailed can you go with a single tile? The area is only about 9sq miles, so it's not all that big, however it is 30cm/pixel.

My Questions:
How would I compile this into a BGL and is it even possible to use SBuilderX with a HUGE tile like this? What's the easiest way to port this over to FSX?

 

[hcornea]

resample.exe can only compile bgl files up to 2gb in size.

There is categorically NO Way that SbuilderX will handle a map that large.

Create an inf file and compile it directly, and see how you go. There are switches to break up or grid the output of resample.exe

I have used 27000 x 20000, edited, and larger sizes without editing.

 

[JRobinson]

Probably 5000 x 5000px tiles? Depending on how it's laid out I'd make something like 5 separate sources of around 15000 x 15000px each and write a multi-source .inf. No need to use SBuilder at all, just drop your .inf on resample.exe and let it handle the rest.

You can use gdal_merge to stitch the tiles together. You'll probably need to reproject your sources to WGS84 which you can do with gdalwarp, then use gdalinfo to get the coords for each one so you can make your .inf. Those are all part of the FWTools bundle BTW.

You can deal with a 30000 x 35000px file in Photoshop, you'd need to use large document format (.psb), but you'll run into problems when you try to export a .tif - you'll most likely exceed the 2Gb max filesize. Dealing with something that large is also very sluggish even on a blazing fast computer, it takes 5 minutes to open something like that from disk, another five minutes to save it, etc. (probably not that long actually, but it will seem like it) Smaller sources are more manageable and it leaves you some filesize overhead so you can add your blend and water masks as alpha channels in the .tif without exceeding the 2 gb size limit.

Jim

 

[Visualize-HD]

Is there a tutorial out there on how to do this? Whenever I try to edit my .inf file with SBuilderX, it resets back to the default stuff. I've tried editing the permissions in the properties too.

 

[JRobinson]

There are some examples in the SDK and Shaun posted a good example in your water mask thread as well.

Jim

 

[Visualize-HD]

Okay, I'll have a look. Thanks

 

[arno]

Hi,

I recently did a test project with 30 cm as well, it covers an area of something like 30 by 20 kilometer. What I did was make an inf file that contains all the separate files (I downloaded 101 tiles). Each of them I had converted to WGS84 with gdalwarp.

Then by adding in the inf that the bgl files should be split on lod 10 areas, I could tell resample to make multiple bgl files and stay below the 2 gb limit for the bgl files.

With a few handy batch files it didn't take long to make the photo scenery. Only compiling with resample took a few hours .

 

[arno]

Btw, this is the blog post I wrote about it:

http://www.scenerydesign.org/2013/06/nantucket-photo-scenery/

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Arno:

Excellent info in that worked example shown in your Blog post linked above !

Could you also attach here in this thread, or on the Blog itself, the *.INF file which resulted from the batch processing shown in that Blog post ?


Thanks for considering / sharing new ways to make FS Development with FSX SDK Resample more "expeditious".


PS: FireFox shows this code in your Blog post:

@setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

@echo [Source]
@echo Type = MultiSource
@echo NumberOfSources = 101

@set icount=0

@for %%f in (..\geo\imagery\gtif_wgs84\*.tif) do @set /a ICOUNT+=1 & @echo [Source!icount!] & @echo Type = GeoTIFF & @echo SourceDir = "..\geo\imagery\gtif_wgs84" & @echo SourceFile = "%%~nf.tif" & @echo Layer = Imagery & @echo Variation = All & @echo NullValue = 0,0,0

@echo [Destination]
@echo DestDir = "..\..\scenery"
@echo DestBaseFileName = "Nantucket"
@echo DestFileType = BGL
@echo LOD = Auto
@echo SplitFileLOD = 10
@echo Compression = 85

...Are there supposed to be any line breaks in the long line shown ?


Thanks again for all your help.


GaryGB

 

[arno]

Hi Gary,

No, there are not supposed to beeline breaks in there, hen the batch file does not work anymore.

Like I said in the blog post, maybe I better add this to scenproc or so. More user friendly than a batch file.

I'll add the inf later, not behind my development pc now.

 

[arno]

Here is my created INF file:

 

[GaryGB]

Thanks, Arno; it's good to see how well text-based CMD mode (DOS-like) batch processing can still work in Windows !

 

[arno]

Yes, not really user friendly, but very flexible and quick to make

(or maybe it is just me, too lazy to type the entire INF by hand)