like a bad cold

[ldvger]

I just won't seem to go away.  I am once again presented with mapping issues I need help with.  I have a map of a section of the Altlantic Ocean seafloor that I would like to turn into a region.  The map is fairly well detailed and has contours marked at 200 meter intervals.  I have a grey scale map with contours on it AND a color gradient map with contours on it. 

Problem 1 is that both maps are in PDF format.  Using Acrobat, I have been able to save both as JPG's, but the contour lines disappear in all but very high zooms for both maps. 

Problem 2 is that these maps were created from sonar data rather then whatever method is used for standard USGS DEM maps, so there is a lot of "noise" between and overlaying features I would like to retain.

I've spent a good portion of the past two days and evenings going back over all the mapping info I could find both here and over on ST, as well as reviewing questions I posted months ago and have come to the conclusion that pretty much the only way I am going to be able to create game maps from what I have is to trace over them in Photoshop and create a 16 bit greyscale.  I'm willing to do this, or try to do this, but I think that just may be the beginning of the process. 

MightyGoose has a bit of a tutorial explaining how to turn hand drawn maps into grey scales, but (and no offense intended), it leaves a lot of wiggle room for newbies (like me) to mess things up in. 

So...I need step-by-explicit step instructions.  Do I need to convert my seafloor map from meters to feet?  How do I make sure the scale of my seafloor maps is carried accurately to my game maps? 

Anyone???

Lora/LD

[blade2k5]

I have absolutely no idea how you would go about converting your sonar data to a workable grayscale.  I wish I could be of more help on this.

[ldvger]

Blade-

Don't let the fact that the map data I have was generated via sonar intimidate you.  It's just a contour map, like any other contour map downloaded from anywhere or even hand drawn and then traced using Photoshop or another graphics program.  I'm pretty sure all thats needs to be done is to create a new map in PS tracing the contours, then assigning greyscale values to the spaces between the contours that correspond to the greyscale values the game uses to create height gradients.  The concept is, I think, exactly the same as for creating game maps from USGS maps...it's just the process would be a little different. 

I've done some math this evening because well, I have to figure out how to scale my map to something I can use in game.  Originally my map covered 5776 pixels by 2296 pixels.  In PS, that equaled and area 96.16cmx38.62 cm.  My map's scale is 1cm=3000m.  I'm not big on the metric system, but that is the same as 3 km, isn't it? 

I know that a single cell in the game is 16m square and that a single large city tile is 256 cells square.  So a large city tile is 256x16=4096 meters square, or 4.096km.  Now, the largest region practical in game is 16 large city tiles square or 16x4.096km=65.536 km to a side. 

The map I want to use is 291.48 km in length and 115.86 km in width, so it's too large to create a single region from.  I have a choice of either reducing the scale of the map OR making several maps and stringing them together via mosiacs OR chosing a portion of the map to make a region from.  I'll have to think about that and make up my mind what I want to do.  Earlier this evening, playing around in PS, I went ahead and reduced my map by a factor of 4.45 and now have a new map that is reduced to 21.82cm x 8.68 cm or 65.46 km x 26.04 km.  From this I could create a region 16 large city tiles in length by just over 6 large city tiles in width.  The game map would no longer be scale accurate, but it would have the same proportions as the original map, in regard to distances between landscape features.  I think I could live with this, because it is a seafloor map and while there is a lot of interesting things going on in the landscape (is underwater terrain a "landscape"?), there is also an awful lot of very flat or gently sloped land.  So compressing the map down is not necessarily a bad idea.

This brings me to the second bit of math I did this evening.  My highest contour is -80 meters and my lowest is -3800 meters, for a total height differentation of 3720 meters.  Now, I seem to remember reading someplace that the max height above sea level achievable in game is 1152 meters...and I'm not sure that was an above sea level limit.  It may be an overall maximum high/low spread.  If that is true, then I am going to have to compress this map vertically to get all the highs and lows into it, by a factor of about 3.22.  I know there are height mods out there that will allow me to do this, but I don't right now know where to find them or how to use them.  I am also uncertain how compressing the terrain that much will affect it's drama, and it's drama is why I am trying to create a game map from it.  I guess I really have no option but to try and see how it looks.   

So what's really hanging me up right now is understanding how to assign greyscale values. 

Lora/LD

[gottago]

Hi Lora,

I'm no mapper, that's for sure, but I'm not bad with PS, so I'll just throw in my 2 cents and hope it helps. 

You say you have .pdfs of a greyscale contour map and a color gradient map with contours, and that you have PS. The .pdf format is really a container file for images (and text) and it's native to Adobe so PS CS will convert it easily; don't use Acrobat, which is really just a reader (I'm not sure that PS Elements, the stripped-down freeware version, has this ability). 

Anyway, if you have a CS version, you can easily convert a pdf to a bmp or a jpg without using Acrobat by using "Save As", and you can also convert the color map to a greyscale by going to "Image>Mode>Greyscale" to delete the color info (my version is in French, so the names may be slightly different). I'm not sure why you want to keep the contour lines--wouldn't they create weird effects when converted to a map?--but one of these methods should give you a usable greyscale.

If you need to compress the vertical scale, I'd go about it by using Luminosity/Contrast and lowering contrast by 2/3, which roughly corresponds to the compression you've calculated. You would doubtless have to try a few versions to get the amount that works for you, but that seems the easiest way.

Another method that might produce more interesting results is to use the Image>Adjustments>Arc function (again, it may be different in English), which opens up a window that allows you to manipulate the density/saturation of an image by way of plotting points on an arc. You can just drag the point representing 100% black at top right toward the left, which will lighten the image and effectively erase the lower elevations and create the compression you're after, but I would assume this is simply reproducing the effect of using Contrast by another method. If you click on the diagonal line and add a series of plot points, you can manipulate those points to retain the diagonal but suppress the darkest black by having it drop off precipitously--in effect, you are erasing the lowest elevations (underwater canyons) and preserving the rest as is. Arc tool is finicky and tricky to use and not perfectly precise, as you can see in the screenshot, but it should retain the remaining elevational data pretty much intact without compression. (Actually the plot I made should be inverted; I did this quickly and realized after ULing it that I was erasing the white, not the black, but the principle is the same).

Hope this helps you.

[ldvger]

gottago-

Actually, this does help some, I think.  My version of PS is 6.0.1, and not the "CS" version.  So far I have not been successful opening my PDF documents in PS...I get an error message saying "There was an error processing this document".  When I attempt to open the PDF I go to File> Open> and pick my PDF file.  I then get a dialog box titled "Rasterize Generic PDF Format" with the following information:

Image size: 36.2M

Width: 113.27 cm
Height: 104.21 cm
Resolution: 72 pixels/inch
Mode: CMYK

Except for Image size, each of the other data are followed by boxes that allow me to change the default data.  There are two radio boxes at the bottom of the window, both checked: Anti-Aliasing and Constrain Properties.  The first time I tried to open the PDF this morning, after reading your post, I left all boxes unchanged.  The second time I tried, I changed the Mode box to RGB (which changes Image size to 27.2M), but still got the same error message, which pops up in a dialog box titled "Generic PDF Parser".  My other Mode options are: Greyscale and Lab Color.  I just tried Greyscale (which again changed the image size down to 9. something) and got the same error message. 

Maybe I should try "Open As" instead of "Open"?  Nope, that doesn't work, either.  I get various error messages, depending on what I try to open the file as.  I tried JPG, BMP, PNG, and PSD (photoshop document).

Your tip about reducing the height scale is one I may try, though, just to see how it works.  I'm not very certain that my existing greyscale PDF is a true greyscale, though.  I know I have 3720 meters of elevation difference between the highest and lowest contours, yet the PDF is fairly monochromatic.  The flat areas of the map at basically the same color, regardless of elevation, so it's more like a B/W photograph than a greyscale of elevations.

Which is why the contours are important.  This morning, using information I found elsewhere that gave me RGB greyscale values for various in game terrain elevations, I was able to discover that for every value increse in RGB greyscale of 1, the game reads an elevation change of 3 meters.  I started with this, which was derived by Mallow the Cloud quite some time ago:

RGB=0: 252 m below sea level
RGB=50: 102 m below sea level
RGB=84: sea level
RGB=100: 48m above sea level
RGB=150: 198m above sea level
RGB=200: 348m above sea level
RGB=255: 513m above sea level

Using this information, I created an Excel spreadsheet co-relating all RGB values from 0 to 255 to thier in game terrain elevations, both in meters and feet.  So now I have 256 RGB greyscale values to work with that cover a range of 765 meters of vertical elevation or 2509.2 feet of same.  I think, not sure, that I can use this information to trace the contour lines on my map and then fill them with RGB greyscale "colors" and hence produce a greyscale map that will export into eiter Mapper or Terraformer. 

I still have the issue of compressing the heights to deal with, but I fooled around a little bit with that last night, too.  My map has 3720 meters of elevation change, but I am restricted by greyscale values to 765 meters.  3720/765=4.86, so if I take my map contours and divide them by 4.86, that should flatten out my terrain to fit within my greyscale range.  So my highest elevation of -80m becomes -16.46m.  My lowest value of -3800m becomes -781.89m. 

Because all my map values are negative (below sea level, remember?), I'm going to have to reverse all my greyscale values.  That will entail making another spreadsheet.  Also, I have yet to decide if my game map (if it ever gets made) will have a coast line on it or not and, if it does, at what contour level do I set it? 

Well, cracking this nut is taking some time and cogitating, that's for sure.  Before I start tracing contour lines, I want to have all the math figured out.  But, for anyone who wants to try thier hand at creating greyscales from scratch, I'd be happy to forward you my values spreadsheet.  It will save you the time of doing the math yourself.

By the time I get done with this (if I ever do and it works), I'll be able to write my own greyscale tutorial, the one I've been looking for so hard for so long.

Lora/LD

[SeanSC4]

That is the default range of possible values. Using SC4Terraformer, you can choose to scale the range of values to allow for a wider range of resulting elevations once the import completes. Are you attempting to import the greyscale via SC4Terraformer or straight into SC4?

If you have a greyscale image, then you really shouldn't need to manually do much. At most, you should play with the greyscale values in Photoshop a bit but not much more than that.

[thingfishs]

Hi idvger,
I'm sorry I can't help you any further than save as in PS, although I do have CS4, if you want to upload it to rapidshare I'm happy to see if it will open in my version. I really like the idea of a map from the ocean floor, it would be fascinating to see what's down there represented in that way.

[SeanSC4]

I agree about uploading it to rapidshare or imageshack. It'd be a lot easier to answer questions if we had the grayscale in hand.

[ldvger]

Wow, lots of new stuff to think about! 

First of all, like I said, I don't believe the "greyscale" PDF I have is a true greyscale reflecting changes in elevations.  It's more like a black and white photo.  I will post a copy of it here using imageshack:



This is NOT the PDF, it is the JPG I created using the "Save As" function is Adobe Acrobat.  In this rendition, the contour lines don't show up except at very close zooms.  But I think you can see that just opening this in PS and then turning it into a greyscale is not going to give me the level of elevational relief the contours indicate exist.  The map you see above has 3720 meters of elevation changes in it, or 12,201 feet...that's more than 2 vertical miles.

That's why I am going to trace the contours and create a new, "true", greyscale from scratch, one based on measured elevations and the contours given.

I do also have a color gradient map, which I'll post here:



Again, this is the JPG image created from the original PDF.  Now, this looks, at first glance, like a color graded topographic map.  However, what this map actually shows is (get this) the levels of intensity of sonar response from the seafloor.  It sorta functions as a color elevation map, in that the intensity of the sonar is stronger in shallow water than in deep water, which is why the map grades from lighter to darker as it moves from shallow to deep water.  However, if you look at the map you can see there is quite a bit of graphic "noise" in it and that, when compared side by side with the grey map, you can see a lot of seafloor features don't show up at all.  Still, it's a cool looking map and may be helpful as a reference.

What is, to my mind anyway, very cool is that in both maps you can see the progress the mapping ship made as it took the sonar readings.  The ship was from Rutger's University, Marine and Coastal division.  The entire mapping expedition was a collaberation between Rutger's, NOAA, USGS, and Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute.  This particular area of the Atlantic Ocean, the submarine Hudson River Valley, is evidently of great interest to scientists.  I have learned all kinds of neat things about it, but that will all go into an MD if I ever get a map made.

So...I don't have a usable greyscale map to start out with, folks...sorry!  And while it may be possible to tweak a greyscale in SC4Terraformer, and I may try that at some point down the line, right now the challenge is to create a greyscale from the information set shown above. 

This afternoon I played with my Excel spreadsheets some more and now I have a new spreadsheet that gives me greyscale values adjusted for my map.  I actually have 2 new spread sheets: One that gives me RGB values for a map with no ocean at all and a second for a map that creates a shoreline at what is the existing -3000m contour line, which occurs about 1/4 of the way up the map from the lower right hand corners of those shown above.  Neither spread sheet was easy to figure out...I had to go back to my original spreadsheet and 1.) create a "No Ocean" version in which RGB=0 was also equal to 0 feet of elevation.  This gave me 84 more RGB values to use for above sea level elevations, thus allowing me to have terrain higher than one with an ocean (in theory, anyway, I haven't tried it out).  This may have been a useless exercise on my part because no matter what values for elevation *I* assign to RGB values, the game is still going to see them as set in it's code.  After I made that spreadsheet, I made one reversing all the values, so that RGB 255= 252 below sea level and RGB0=513 feet above sea level.  I actually used this one when I made my spreadsheet for translating my map contours to RGB values for my "No Ocean" option of a created greyscale. 

But, I think I am going to try the greyscale with an ocean.  These are the values I came up with:

map contour   new contour   reduced contour   RGB value
3800   -800   -107.96   48
3600   -600   -80.97   57
3400   -400   -53.98   66
3200   -200   -26.99   75
3000   0   0.00   84
2800   200   26.99   93
2600   400   53.98   102
2400   600   80.97   111
2200   800   107.96   120
2000   1000   134.95   129
1800   1200   161.94   138
1600   1400   188.93   147
1400   1600   215.92   156
1200   1800   242.91   165
1000   2000   269.91   174
800   2200   296.90   183
600   2400   323.89   192
400   2600   350.88   201
200   2800   377.87   210
100   2900   391.36   214
80   2920   394.06   215


The columns are a little off from thier headings, but I think you can see how it works.  The reduced contour numbers are the "compressed" values, reduced from actual by a factor of 7.41, which I derived by dividing my lowest contour 0f 3800 by 513, the number of meters above sea level the game allows (per Mallow the Cloud's table posted previously).  To get the reduced contours, I just multiplied the "new" contours by 7.41.  Then, using my first "Game Standard" speadsheet, I just looked up elevations and noted thier corresponding RGB values (or whatever was closest). 

So this evening I'm going to try to start tracing the contour lines and filling in with RGB, to see if I can create a greyscale map.  I've decided to use the full scale JPG b/w map (I'm going to stop calling it a greyscale, it's misleading) and then reduce it down to game acceptable sizes later.  Wish me luck!

Lora/LD, and thanks everyone for your help and suggestions!

[SeanSC4]

Your greyscale is a shaded relief map and hence is ruined by the shadows that it portrays to help define topographical features of the terrain. You need to find an alternate source of data which will provide you with actual elevation changes minus the shadows. Once you have that, it's a simple task to add an adjustment layer in Photoshop to alter the greyscale values in any manner you choose.

Find a data source that Microdem will read and you're golden. I honestly think your attempts to manually greyscale the ocean are the wrong idea and your time would be better spent on finding a proper data set.

[ldvger]

Sean advises:

You need to find an alternate source of data which will provide you with actual elevation changes minus the shadows.

To the best of my knowledge, these PDF maps are the only ones in existence, at this level of detail, for this section of ocean.  Believe me, I have looked for more/better maps of this area and found zip, nada, zilch, so if anyone reading this has any ideas where such maps may be found, I am all ears. 

The contour lines provide the information for changes in elevation.  Please keep in mind that less than 3% of the ocean floor(s) worldwide have been surveyed, so sources for maps are few and far between.  Most of the ocean floor maps "out there" are actually artists' renditions, because so very little is known about the actual topography of the seafloor.  Besides learning a lot about this particular teensy little piece of ocean floor, my research of the last few days has taught me much about the current knowledge base regarding ocean topography, which ain't much. 

Find a data source that Microdem will read and you're golden.

While I have Microdem installed on my computer, I have no idea of the data set it can read and interpret.  Maybe you can help me there with an explanation.  When I download USGS maps, I get the DEM maps.  There are no DEM maps for the ocean floors.  I don't know the difference between DEM maps and other topographic maps...is it possible Microdem will read the maps I already have, based on contours? 

I honestly think your attempts to manually greyscale the ocean are the wrong idea and your time would be better spent on finding a proper data set.

I know tracing the map manually is going about this the long way around, but lacking any other data set to work from, I really don't see any other choice.  This may end up being a wild goose chase, but I have to give it a try.  There are folks playing this game who make thier own greyscale maps from scratch...I've seen them (the maps).  Not all mappers use RL locations to create maps from and not all mappers create maps using standard available mapping tools.  Mighty Goose has started a new MD, "The Iron Coast", currently being showcased in the O.S.I.T.M. thread, created from hand drawn maps on gridded scratch paper which he scanned, copied into PS, then traced over, greyscaled, and resized for export into the game.  Theoretically, one could photograph any interesting surface (the palm of your hand, highly magnified, say) and create a greyscale map using the manual trace technique.  Is it tedious?  Yes, I imagine so (I haven't started yet, so I don't yet know for sure).  But, IF there is no data set for the map one wants to create, what are the options? 


My next challenge is going to be Photoshop, as while I have a very basic knowledge of the software, I am far from expert.  I may be back with more questions, but probably they will be about how to use PS.

Lora/LD

[SeanSC4]

Interesting comments ldvger and certainly something to think about.

I've made similar regions as mightygoose using Photoshop and linked a few of them in the "Show us your regions" thread on its most recent pages. He's done an excellent job in his most recent MD of showing people how we go about constructing things from scratch.

Photoshop is definitely the way to go but don't let the power of the program scare you. Learn a few tricks and you will find it quite easy to accomplish the type of tracing and manual construction you're intending. The program really shines once you have a tablet to use instead of a mouse. Layers, masks and the magic wand tool are your friend.    Applying a gradient to the image followed by posterize will give you a good starting point.  You'll still need to manually figure out a way to "remove" the shadows based on the surrounding unshadowed terrain but the rest of your image is already in a workable greyscale if you think about it.

I see that Microdem has a menu item that says Oceanographic Data but I have no idea if it has anything to do with the data you have in your possession. Sorry I'm unable to provide you with a solution. The area that you're looking to create looks fascinating and I wish you the best of luck on it.

[ldvger]

SeanSC4-

Well, I hope you check back with more helpful advice, because just as I suspected, now that I am beginning to trace and fill my map using Photoshop, I'm runing into problems not doubt based on my lack of knowledge about how to properly use the software.  Perhaps you can point me in the right direction.

I started out with my JPG image of the PDF greyscale.  Not wanting to work directly in that file, I then did a "Save As" and created in essence a copy of the JPG, also in JPG format, as a working copy.  The two JPG files have different names (of course), so I can tell them apart.

You mention using the Magic Wand tool.  Mighty Goose recommended it, too.  I tried, but ended up using the Lasso tool instead.  When I try to use the Wand tool, I am not able to draw lines with it...it seems to "select all".  Obviously I'm doing something wrong, as I can see in MG's MD that he was able to use the Wand tool to hand draw free form lines.  Can you give me some tips about how I might learn to accomplish the same?  Do I need to select the tool and then press Shift or Alt or Ctrl?  Many of the PS tools do have lternative fubctions brough into play in that manner.

I got 5 contour lines traced last night and the spaces between them filled.  Using the Lasso tool is slow and having to make a closed loop is not something I was counting on having to do.  The closed loop requirement means I have to not only trace my new contour, but also retrace the previously drawn contour as well.  I can't retrace exactly the previous line I drew, so I end up overlapping in some places and leaving un-filled spaces in other.  I'm working at 100% and greater zooms, to the un-filled spaces are quite small, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to go back and fill them in before I do anything else in regards to manipulating this greyscale In creating. 

So my technique last night was this.  First I create a new layer, then using the Layers Properties dialog box I get by right clicking on the new layer, I rename the layer "RGBxxx" with the x's being the RGB value of that layer.  I'm creating a new layer for every contour line.  In the Layers Properties box, I leave the Color as "None".  Then I go to the tool bar and click on the foreground color and in the box that pops up, I change the R and G and B values to correspond to the Layer name (and the RGB value I figured out I want for this contour line).  Those are the only three values I edit in the Foreground Color box.  I've noticed that the other values (some of which I understand, most of which I don't) also change automatically when I change the RGB values.  I close the Foreground Color box and, making sure I'm on the new layer I created, select the Lasso tool and begin tracing.  Once I have traced a closed loop, I go to the Edit>Fill command and get a new dialog box.  There are two section in this box, Contents and Blending.  Under Contents, I select Use: Foreground color from among the drop down menu of options.  There is a second options box for Custom Pattern, but it is greyed out and I don't need it anyway (I don't think), so I ignore it.  Under the Blending section, I have another box for Mode with another drop down menu.  I've been selecting "Behind", as I want each new contour filled to go behind the previous fill, even though they are not strictly layered over each other, other than the little areas of overlap that occur when I retrace a previous contour line.  Under Blending there is also a box for Opacity and the default is 100%, which I leave as is, because, well, because I don't know any better, I guess.  Lastly and still under Blending is a greyed out option box labeled Preserve Transparancy.  Once I have completed with the Fill dialog box, I click OK and the area I had Lassoed fills automatically.  Then it's start over with a new layer and contour, after first using the Save function.  And this was a little bit wierd, too.  Using Save doesn't usually trigger a pop-up dialog box, but it did for me every time and the box I got was not Save but Save As, despite making sure I selected Save in the File Menu.  Each time I saved I had to tell PS I wanted to save my work in JPG format and then select the file name.  After doing this, PS told me a file by that name already existed and did I want to overwrite it.  I said yes and the file would then save.

This seemed to be working fine for a while.  My first couple of layers were extremely close to each other in color, so I couldn't really tell if they were forward and back of each other they way they needed to be.  There were a couple of small contour "islands" on these layers and they may not have come through, but I can live with that, if so.  I'm tracing all the contours on the entire map and will crop it down later and besides, if that level of detail become problematic to create in PS, I'll do it later using God Tools or SC4T or SC4M. 

The last layer I traced last night, the 800 contour (which was RGB183) would not fill properly.  When I selected Fill, I got a partial transparent fill in parts of the closed Lassoed loop I wanted to fill.  I used Undo and Step Backwards and tried several times, but the loop would not fill.  I checked my Layers Properties and everything looked normal, I checked my Foreground Color box and everything looked usual, I made sure I was on the correct layer, and I double checked to make sure my Lasso loop was indeed fully closed.  It was almost 1 am, so I did a final Save and called it a night...almost.

I wanted to see if when I opened the file again, the Lasso loop I had spent 1/2 hour painstakingly tracing had been preserved, so I opened the file.  No Lasso loop of the 800 contour.  I didn't figure it would be there, but still it was a drag to lose that bit of work.  But, what REALLY tweaked my brain is that all 5 of the previous layers I had created where gone.  The fills I had laid over the drawing were all there, but now everything I did last night is on the Background layer and I have no way to manipulate any of that previously drawn information. 

Another thing I found out last night is that there seems to be no way I can go back and edit a fill once it is in place.  I can't erase it or change it.  I can fill over it or bring it forward or back, but I can't edit the fill itself.  And, mostly, I can't edit my Lasso loop lines, either. 

I'll post here a shot of my progress so far:



You can see I'm working from highest elevation to lowest and that I have a long ways to go yet, so if there is a better way to do this, I really don't mind too much starting over.  However, I'm going to work on this most of today and this evening, so suggestions for improvements and/or help with issues stated above will hopefully roll in semi-quickly...otherwise I'll just continue to blunder along as I have been doing.

And yeah, a tablet instead of a mouse would be wonderful, but all I have is a mouse and no money, so I'm stuck with the mouse for the time being.

Lora/LD

[SeanSC4]

Lora-
The Lasso and Magic Wand are selection tools akin to highlighting a block of text in a word processing application. They're temporary areas of your document that you've selected to act upon and hence aren't saved with the document itself. Once you select another area using either tool (or via the Marquee tool) *POOF* then you lose that area.

The magic wand selects areas of similar values near to the spot clicked. It has a variety of options and you can do very useful things like unions, intersections and inverses of selected regions. By holding down shift as you click, you can construct a larger selected region. Then you right click and can choose the inverse, feather, grow etc to create a custom area of selection which you can use to copy into a new layer or to use as the basis for drawing in whatever layer you choose. It has an enormous number of uses and takes a small amount of experimentation with it to see how it works.

[ldvger]

Ok then, so how do I create filled areas I can save on discreet layers and manipulate/edit after I have created them?  I have looked for some kind of line tool, something that will allow me to draw a freehand line, but have not found such a tool.  There is an airbrush tool and a paint brush tool and they both kinda-sorta work like a freehand drawing line tool.  The pen tool confuses the heck out of me, it lays down splines between points and then I have to dink around trying to align the splines to the underlying line I'm trying to trace...time-consuming, difficult, and frustrating.

I am used to AutoCAD, which I know quite well, and a few other graphics programs that I don't know very well (less well than PS, to tell the truth).  Using PS, *IF* I could draw a freehand line using one color, then draw another freehand line using another color, could I then fill the enclosed space between the two differently colored lines with a fill of my choice?  Because that is, in essence, what I am trying to do/would like to do.  I also want to have my lines and fill on discreet layers that stay with my drawing file as I work AND that allow me to go back and edit in those layers, if I want/need to. 

I could do this fairly quickly and easily in CAD, but I can't import CAD files into a graphics program and turn them into a greyscale.  At least, I don't think I can.  I have GIMP, but it doesn't make 16 bit greyscales, only 8 bit. 

Any suggestions?  Would a line tool behave as I want it to? 

Lora/LD, thinking about a nap

[toja]

Hello Lora,

I've found DEM-Data for the Hudson Canyon at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/coastal/crm.html and converted it to GeoTiff already. The DEM covers the whole canyon, but parts of the surrounding areas are missing. I don't want to raise high expectations, but I think I already know how to solve this problem .

I'll give it a try at the weekend...

[ldvger]

toja-

Wow!  What a find!  I followed the link to the site, but could not find DEM maps, not that I would know what to do with them if I found them  .  Great find, nonetheless, and a possible solution to the myriad problems I've been struggling with to create this map.  I'll keep my fingers crossed this weekend to see what you can come up with.  Thanks so very much!

Sean-

Ok, paint me dumb.  After my last post I went back to PS and did some further exploring.  I found the Line tool, but could only make it draw straight lines.  I also found the Freehand Pen tool and this looks like what I may have been looking for.  I played around with it a little bit, also used the Magnetic Pen tool a bit.  But of course now I have a new set of questions.

1.) the shape tools, of which the pen tool is one, all seem to autofill once a shape is complete OR when the user stops in the act of creating the shape.  Can this auto-fill be turned off and on some how?

2.) the shape tools all seem to draw only in black.  Can I vary the color of the lines I draw in any way?  If so, how?

3.) how do I name/rename the new layer a shape tool creates? 

Just for fun, I'm going to continue as I have been doing, just to see how things come along and because I have too much time on my hands these days.

Lora/LD

[toja]

This is what I've achieved this afternoon:



... it's not a beauty. Some parts of the map like the continental shelf in the north look good while others doesn't - it all depends on the quality of the source data ... Anyway, you can download a 16bit-PNG of the region here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mzij5ldgtmn

Although the region is not accurately scaled it still covers 10x14 large city maps, one grid cell (16m x 16m) represents 90m x 90m in RL but I did no rescaling on the height data - there's still a height difference of over 4,000 meters. If you want to rescale the height data too, you can use SC4Terraformer.

Have a nice weekend,
toja

P.S.: If you don't like the result don't hesitate to ask for another region - to be honest, I wouldn't use this one but I could give you - and anybody else - step by step instructions how to do it. 

[ldvger]

toja-

Looks pretty good as far as it goes, but I am wondering how it would render out in game with all the graphic "noise" and extra lines?  Have you tried importing it into Terrafromer or Mapper yet? 

I got 3 more contour levels traced last night, they are taking about 40 minutes each right now, but I am working across the face of the continetental shelf, which is very detailed, and this is also the portion of the map that is widest.  It's starting to look like a real greyscale:



I think it kinda looks like a new Ice Age right now, with the portions of the map I have traced being the encroaching glaciers.  Don't you?  And BTW, I have decided to include a coastline...I may have said that already.  It will follow the existing -3000m contour line.

I've modified my tracing technique somewhat.  Instead of Lassoing the entire contour area and then using the Edit>Fill command, I am now Lassoing and Filling as I complete partial sections of the contour levels.  Because I am re-tracing over previously drawn contour lines, I often have gaps between the previous fill and the new fill, so I am going back and filling those in after I complete a contour level.  I'm pretty happy with the results so far, but I worry a bit about how the transitions between fills is going to translate into Terraformer or Mapper, once I have the greyscale complete and cut down to a reasonable size. 

Thinking ahead to cropping the map and exporting it, some questions arise.  It has been said that a region of 16x16 large city tiles is as large a region as the game will handle.  Does that mean 16 large city tiles in any one direction is the max OR does it mean that 256 large city tiles is the max (as 256 large city tiles could be configured in other than a 16x16 square)?  For example, could I configure a region that would be 32 large city tiles long and 8 large city tiles wide? 

How many pixels are there in a single 16mx16m game cell? 

Off to trace more contours...

Lora/LD

[toja]

Second try:



This time I've combined two different DEM sources (3 arcseconds for the continental shelf and 30 arcseconds for the rest) but lost a lot of details. Do you want me to convert it into a SC4-Region?