Request Earth Textures for past continental layouts

BruceJohnJennerLawso

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Hello everyone,

I was just watching this video


And it occured to me that it would be kind of cool if there was an add-on that allowed users to see Earth as it appeared at different times in Geologic history. Anyone interested? I would love to see Pangaea from orbit :thumbup:
 

T.Neo

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Here are some paleo maps in rectangular format. Unfortunately, other issues aside, they are very low-resolution in the context of planet textures for orbiter.

It should be possible, though not without a considerable amount of time and effort, to research paleogeography and create one's own paleo-texture for Earth.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

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Here are some paleo maps in rectangular format. Unfortunately, other issues aside, they are very low-resolution in the context of planet textures for orbiter.

It should be possible, though not without a considerable amount of time and effort, to research paleogeography and create one's own paleo-texture for Earth.

Thanks. Definitely not terrific quality, but I suppose they could be scaled up by 200-300 percent without becoming too grainy. I dont know how to make them into planetary texture maps though.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

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Orbiter\Utils\pltex.exe

That's what you need. It will do global maps, cloud maps, etc.

Okey doke, will try that.

What conventions do the files need to follow? ie, what height-width ratio should they follow? How exactly does Orbiter choose the latitude/longitudes that the texture starts & ends at?
 

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Simple cylindrical projection:

The equirectangular projection (also called the equidistant cylindrical projection, geographic projection, or la carte parallélogrammatique projection, and which includes the special case of the plate carrée projection or geographic projection), is a simple map projection attributed to Marinus of Tyre, whom Ptolemy claims invented the projection about AD 100

plate_caree.jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection

That means a 2:1 ratio, because it's 360ºx180º, right ?:thumbup:

Because computers like numbers such as 2048 ou 4096, you can use actual resolutions like 2048x1024 or 4096x2048. But ideally you need higher resolutions.

Just make sure that 0 is at the middle. For planetary maps it might not be.
 
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Linguofreak

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Thanks. Definitely not terrific quality, but I suppose they could be scaled up by 200-300 percent without becoming too grainy. I dont know how to make them into planetary texture maps though.

There would probably be copyright issues with using the particular files in question as textures in a published Orbiter addon.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

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There would probably be copyright issues with using the particular files in question as textures in a published Orbiter addon.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll try to contact the right people to see if I can get permission.

:hailprobe:
 

4throck

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Not talking about this case (I haven't checked) but most of the time even though an image is free to use, it's not free to redistribute. Specially when you will use it on another context.

In principle, as Orbiter is very neutral, I don't see how you could do the original author any harm, but one never knows.
For example, the author might be a hard science guy that doesn't what his stuff shown alongside unrealistic stuff such as the DeltaGlider. So for him that could be considered damaging :lol:

This being said, there's no need to become paranoid about permissions. By all means try to contact the original authors, but you can also use common sense regarding credits, and add a disclaimer. It's important to state the original author and also provide some contact for removal, in case they object. Or in case they want to update the data! :thumbup:

_______________________

For reference, here are some sketches regarding Mars evolution:
http://explanet.info/Chapter06.htm
06_53.jpg


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AncientMars.jpg


http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12448
noachi16.jpg


If you have old Earth, you need old Mars :)
 
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BruceJohnJennerLawso

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Not talking about this case (I haven't checked) but most of the time even though an image is free to use, it's not free to redistribute. Specially when you will use it on another context.

In principle, as Orbiter is very neutral, I don't see how you could do the original author any harm, but one never knows.
For example, the author might be a hard science guy that doesn't what his stuff shown alongside unrealistic stuff such as the DeltaGlider. So for him that could be considered damaging :lol:

This being said, there's no need to become paranoid about permissions. By all means try to contact the original authors, but you can also use common sense regarding credits, and add a disclaimer. It's important to state the original author and also provide some contact for removal, in case they object. Or in case they want to update the data! :thumbup:

_______________________

For reference, here are some sketches regarding Mars evolution:

If you have old Earth, you need old Mars :)

Thats great, but could you take down the picture of mars & just leave the link to the 30 mb image? My computer is exploding every time I load this thread now.
 
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Linguofreak

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Thats great, but could you take down the picture of mars & just leave the link to the 30 mb image? My computer is exploding every time I load this thread now.

FYI, since you quoted his whole post, I'm pretty sure that when he edits his post the image will remain in yours.
 

4throck

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Sorry for the inconvenience!

Did notice that it was a large image, but since it didn't cause any obvious problems on my laptop... :blush:

Anyway, don't think your PC will explode. Just crash :thumbup:
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

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A bit of disappointing news on this: I contacted the person running the website, and it appears that the textures are proprietary, and 150$ at that. The email wasn't really clear on the matter (I'm still trying to figure out what he said in his response, odd wording), but it looks like those textures wont be usable for this project. Thanks anyways to T.Neo for the link.

I'll continue looking around for alternatives, and if anyone sees anything that might be usable, please give me a shout.

:hailprobe:
 

4throck

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Probably one of those cases where you can "see" but not "use & redistribute".

The only option would be to built your own. Given the resolution of the original maps, it would be the best option.

Don't know if Planet Editor gives you the option to edit to terrain to reproduce a specific map, but it may be helpful:

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2542"]http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2542[/ame]
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

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Probably one of those cases where you can "see" but not "use & redistribute".

The only option would be to built your own. Given the resolution of the original maps, it would be the best option.

Don't know if Planet Editor gives you the option to edit to terrain to reproduce a specific map, but it may be helpful:

http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2542

Actually, wait, no

All maps are copyright to me, Ron Blakey, and may bu used, with citation to Ron Blakey, NAU Geology, for educational, non-profit, non-commercial purposes. For commercial uses, please contact me.

We should be fine then. I must have misunderstood his response, he appeared to be under the impression that OHM is a commercial site for some reason that eludes me. I think I can proceed with this project as planned then.

:hailprobe:

Edit: Okay, trickier process than I thought, but still managed, textures are generated, but Ive gotta get to class. Will test later.

---------- Post added at 19:48 ---------- Previous post was at 16:51 ----------

Okay, so, did the import, but something went wrong here.

working from this:

600Marect.jpg


I got this:

8eXCkGw.jpg
 
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Linguofreak

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We should be fine then. I must have misunderstood his response, he appeared to be under the impression that OHM is a commercial site for some reason that eludes me. I think I can proceed with this project as planned then.

It would probably be good to contact him again and clarify that Orbiter is non-commercial and pointing out the license from his site that you believe to apply before actually publishing anything on OHM, though.
 
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