OHM Orbiter Base Maker V2.0.3

[Kyle]

:hesaid: I downloaded tiles for Peenemünde (as many as possible at least) and it looks amazing. They fit perfectly to the Earth texture. Runway placement just took a few clicks!

I know, Google propably pays a lot of money for that images, but it's sad that the imagery isn't puplic-domain for educational things like Orbiter.

I agree, rather unfortunate. Is there no way to get around this kind of problem?:facepalm:

 

[4throck]

My understanding is that if you download the tiles yourself, for your own personal usage, as long as you don't abuse the servers, you are ok.

The problem only happens if all of us start to upload the bases, along with the tiles, to OH.


The software for Fsim that I mentioned is TileProxy:
http://www.edtruthan.com/tileproxy/tutorial/
Here is the legal stuff: http://www.edtruthan.com/tileproxy/manual.htm#8

 

[Kyle]

My understanding is that if you download the tiles yourself, for your own personal usage, as long as you don't abuse the servers, you are ok.

The problem only happens if all of us start to upload the bases, along with the tiles, to OH.


The software for Fsim that I mentioned is TileProxy:
http://www.edtruthan.com/tileproxy/tutorial/
Here is the legal stuff: http://www.edtruthan.com/tileproxy/manual.htm#8

What he should do then is put a disclaimer on the addon stating that people are to ONLY use for personal usage, and cannot distribute their creations on this.

 

[ky]

The only thing this addon doesn't have is the ability to add taxiways, but other than that, its great!

 

[csanders]

Still researching open source options. May have some options with USGS Landsat 7. Won't give as high resolution options as google maps, but it's better than nothing.

FYI: if you go into the "add/remove tile" window, and you hover your mouse over a tile it will say "Mouse is over: [tile name]". If you add a 512X512 .jpg file with the filename [tile name].jpg to your "[My Documents]\Orbiter Base Maker\cache\" directory, it will (should) show up as an addable tile in the "add/remove tile" window . So if you're used to making files for Orbiter, you can manually add them into the base maker doing this. You can also make your own images and add them by doing this ::wink wink::.

 

[fort]

Hello csanders,

You could use virtual earth tiles. They are nice too on many places and have a high level of details.

I've used SASPlanet in the past to to compare maps. I wanted to post a link here to that program starting from my old link on the forum, but it is now obsolete. It was for an old version ( 2009 ).

You can download the last one ( and the program is free ) but now i see that if one want to have it with the english interface ( english language ) you will have to follow some "procedure" in window xp and Windows7 ( some informations on that page but also in others places on the web: http://sasgis.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1255#p16254 )

....when there was not any problem about that with the old versions ( now unavaible ).

If you have some problems with the new one, i can send you my old one, via mail.

 

[liber]

Really great add-on,thanks for it.

Suggestion for add new object,it would be good if we can add other type of object then existing one,to import our own structure or some directory where we can expand list of object for import?!

 

[Astronut25]

...
-Tiles automatically have edges blured with transparancy so it doesn't look abrupt in Orbiter
...

Would it be possible to make the program recognize if another base is already using that tile and change the edge transparencies, and leave the tile out of the SurfTile list for the second base? (it causes bugs if two bases share the same tile)

Visual representation of what I'm saying:


"...I'm not really sure how much [Orbiter] can handle..."

If i calculated correctly, Orbiter can support at least 700000 tiles (enough to cover the entire planet in level 3 tiles, propably more)

As a test, I've put over 300 tiles into one single base without issues. (I think there is no practical limit to the number of tiles per base)

 

[AmBaIbA]

EXCELLENT JOB! OBM has a simple desing and it allows understand more how a surface base works, thank you for your contribution!

 

[csanders]

A few good suggestions here, thanks. I'm pretty busy right now at work, so it may be a few weeks before I can get any updates.

 

[4throck]

It's prefectly possible to create your own tiles based on the downloaded satellite images but recreating the general land features using generic textures.

Here's something I'm working on for the Brazilian Alcantara Base:



The runway and blocks / hangars placed with OBM over the Google tiles BUT the surface tiles are then redone and are now completely original.


Now, if OBM was able to draw roads and taxiways and to use Landsat 10 tiles... that would be more than enough for me

 

[csanders]

I've been looking for a way to download landsat files, but the links I've found are dead now.

If anyone knows a url format for downloading the tiles (i.e. [domain]\some latitude longitude zoom info.jpg), that would help.

As for taxiways, I noticed that the taxiways in habana are actually meshes. Which seems the way to go, because rendering them as runways causes strange artifacts over the overlapping areas. I've seen the mesh file format, and it looks easy enough to decode. So it is in the long term plans to add taxiways (as meshes).

 

[Notebook]

Csander, is this site what you are looking for wrt to Landsat files?

http://downloadorbitersim.com/?page_id=38

I had a jpeg of the structure of Landsat tiles, I'll try and find it.

N.

 

[csanders]

I would like something like this:
http://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov/browse....0,-90,180,90&format=image/jpeg&styles=&zoom=5

http://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov/browse.cgi?wms_server=wms.cgi&layers=modis,global_mosaic&srs=EPSG:4326&width=1000&height=500&bbox=-180,-90,180,90&format=image/jpeg&styles=&zoom=5

but that link is now broken.

or:
http://wms.jpl.nasa.gov/wms.cgi?req...,5,55&format=image/jpeg&version=1.1.0&styles=

http://wms.jpl.nasa.gov/wms.cgi?request=GetMap&layers=global_mosaic_base&srs=EPSG:4326&width=512&height=512&bbox=-5,45,5,55&format=image/jpeg&version=1.1.0&styles=

but that link is broken too, and returns an xml file saying: <"ServiceException>This server no longer provides full WMS services!"

From a URL like this, (a link that has some lon/lat and zoom info) I can find the boundaries of the image, and download the tiles into OBM.

 

[Notebook]

Well, you lost me off there, I'm more the screengrab and crop type!

Still looking for that .jpg. Put it somewhere safe, very safe, can't find it.

Did find this old prog from "peaceman"
called nasa2orbiter. Oddly, its not on Orbit Hangar?

EDIT:
Oh yes it is, you just have to look harder...

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2207"]Converting Landsat2Orbiter Tutorial[/ame]

Another EDIT:
this is the image I was thinking of:
http://issues.worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/confluence/download/attachments/394/world+wind+tile+systemt.gif


N.

 

[fort]

From a URL like this, (a link that has some lon/lat and zoom info) I can find the boundaries of the image, and download the tiles into OBM.

I do not remember how but in worldwind, one have the possibility to show in a window, at the top of the application, the current downloading of the map ( blue marble, virtual earth/landsat... ) that you see in worldwind, and by the fact, the complete server http adress of that tiles. That, two or three years ago. Try to see if you can make something with that.

Also: when you go on the Bing map page there is a possibility to get the long/lat/level of a map that you are seeing, that through the"share" button. But the link is related to the Bing site. For example:

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=51...59501585290652&lvl=15&dir=0&sty=a&form=LMLTCC

Meaning that, at the same time, all the pictures are in the cache of your browser or, if you want to register the page on your hard drive, as a jpg files, in the ..._files folder of that page. The problem is that the names of that jpg have to be "decrypted" to reorganise them from north to south and east to west.

I, in the past, begun to explore that encryption ( with google maps ) in the intention to understand, compare, between sources ( google, virtual earth, yahoo...), scales, rendering, level of details... but i have not completely finished the research relative to that jpg naming.



http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=21316&highlight=sasplanet&page=4

(see: "Here, a preview images, during assembly, recovered in the folder on the desktop of the registered page...")

I hope that you understand what i'm writing, because my English knowledge is poor...

EDIT/

If i take a look at the jpg ( six jpg ) names on the Bing link provided, and only the six last numbers for each - once redistributed to obtain the right map - i have that:

- from left to right
...130031,...131020,...131021 ( first row )
...130133,...131022,...131023 ( second row ).

Let's consider only the:

131020,...131021 ( first row )
131022,...131023 ( second row ).

This looks furiously as quadtree ? ( don't remember exactly the name ) numbering in the bing/Worldwind/VirtualEatth... maps, as described in documents related to Worldwind.

What to do with that ? I don't know.

 

[csanders]

New update available. Added i-cubed Landsat ability from NASA World Wind. One can add these tiles to levels 1-4. The 'Google Maps' download ability is removed though.

If I'm not mistaken, these satellite images are safe to share with others right? So if someone made a base with tiles, they could share them?

Also, does anyone know if the earth image for Orbiter is the "NASA Blue Marble Image"?

 

[astrosammy]

I'm not sure. I think Blue Marble is a bit darker.

BTW, nice that you found a way to download Landsat files!
I'm not 100% sure about sharing. They may be public domain.
http://worldwindcentral.com/wiki/Copyright_Questions_When_Using_Images_From_World_Wind

---------- Post added at 03:58 ---------- Previous post was at 02:00 ----------

Looks like I found a bug creating a base at LON -151.818985 LAT -11.430556 .

Something is rotated by 180° and copied here...
This happens in all versions. Maybe because of the part of the world where it is placed (negative latitude and longitude)?

 

[csanders]

Looks like I found a bug creating a base at LON -151.818985 LAT -11.430556 .
Something is rotated by 180° and copied here...
This happens in all versions. Maybe because of the part of the world where it is placed (negative latitude and longitude)?

Interesting. Orbiter's tiles are rotated 180 degrees between the north and south equator. I thought I corrected it. Is it the rendering and/or transparency in Orbiter or OBM.
UPDATE: replicated the bug. Seems to be a rotation problem in some transparency layers.

 

[4throck]

Yes, Orbiter rotates for the Southern Hemisphere. Found that out while working on the Alcantara base...

I think that Landsat/Wordwind is OK to share, as long as credit is given and the addon is also freely shared. I'd say it's the same as with the Moon or Mars global tiles we are using.

Nevertheless the ability to use Google / Yahoo / Bing /Openstreetmap to locate and draw objects would be a plus No downloading, just online viewing in the draw objects window.

I'm looking forward for the taxiways option. It's a must. We can also build roads with it, important for some bases.