Importing from a png

Hi, i recently bought CC3+ to make better maps for my RPG.

I have some questions :
I have old maps (.png) that i made with Gimp.
I want to enhance this map with CC3+

Is it possible ? How can i import old maps in a layer or what is the best way to make a map with that existing .png ?

Sorry for my english, it's not my native language.

Comments

  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    edited April 2018
    Hi Vorapsak, and welcome to the forums.


    CC3+ isn't an image editor, and as such cannot work with your .png directly, but you can import it as a background image and then trace over it.

    To import it as an image, simply use Draw -> Insert file. Note that before you do this, I recommend you make a new sheet to hold the image, and make this sheet the active sheet before importing the image. Having it on it's own sheet means you can more easily move it up/down in the drawing order (Sheets in CC3+ are analogous to layers in gimp, while layers in CC3+ is just a grouping mechanism, which doesn't control drawing order of entities.

    Note that when inserting an image files, CC3+ only inserts a reference to the file, so once you have done this, you cannot move/delete the source file, otherwise it will just show up as a missing image (red X) in CC3+.

    Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions about this. You'll also find some basic information about this starting on page 94 of the user manual (ignore that it talks about hand-drawn maps, the only difference between a hand-drawn one and one from an image editor is that you need to scan the hand drawn first to get it as an image)
    AtomicTiki71ThomasHendrich
  • Ok, thank you Monsen, i'll try this :)

    I already figured out that sheets are like layers in Gimp, i see now :)

    And I will come back with a lot of questions ;)
  • What about one of the new commands in the latest update?
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    It may or may not be appropriate, depending on the map. But I don't think starting out with a new undocumented, largely untested command-line only command is the best starting point for a new user. I think the more experienced people should play around with it a bit first.

    But yes, CONTOURSM can be a nice tool when importing a map, especially to get the outline of things like landmasses into CC3+.
  • Well, i have some basic skills in things like this, i'll try too !
  • About CONTOURSM:
    I have a png with transparent, black where there's lands and transparent where there's sea.

    I import this file on a new sheet.
    Then i type contoursm and it ask for a selection, how can i select the sheet ? I tried to select with the tool, but it selected 8 entities, and seems to not working then (i enter 1.0 for distance, maybe it's too low ?)
  • Ok, i understood something, i selected too much, i tried again with selecting only the old map png i have inserted, but when i click "DO IT", then, it disappears and i dont know what i'm supposed to do next to make this land alive.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    edited April 2018
    Given that the command was only released a couple of days ago, I don't have too much experience with it yet, so I don't have all the answers or know about what can go wrong, but here are a few things to try/check
    - Make sure your landmass is a solid color with a sharp edge (i.e. no partial fading transparency at the edge) and the ocean is fully transparent
    - Remember that the outline drawn by contoursm may be hidden behind the picture. Make sure to use LIST or similar to check if there is anything else than the image there.
    - Try reducing the resolution of your image. Note that CC3+ cashes the image in memory, so if you do this with CC3+ open, you need to go into the display speed settings and click the clear bitmap cache button before issuing a map redraw.
    - If your image contains multiple landmasses, try splitting it up in several images and do one landmass at a time.


    The distance number you pick is the distance the contour will be drawn from the outline of the image. For testing, it is easier visible if you use a large (positive number), but when doing it for the actual trace you wish to keep, it should be as low as possible, such as 0. Below is an image of my test landmass and result (community atlas users may recognize that landmass). Original image is to the left, resulting contour is to the right. (I obviously manually moved the contour, since otherwise it would just overlap the image)
  • I did that exactly, but CONTOURSM just draw the outline line then i dont know how i can "color" this to have landmass (i mean : i want it to be grass)
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    edited April 2018
    As long as you get the outline, you can use change properties on it, and change the fill style to a grass texture, make sure line with is set to 0, and also move it to another sheet if needed.

    You can also right click the change properties button and select change as draw tool. Now right click again (inside the map) to bring up the drawing tools picker, pick the landmass one, and finally when prompted on the command line, select the outline contoursm made and hit Do It. That will convert the shape into the same style as the drawing tool.
  • Thank you :)

    I'll try this when i can.

    I have so much to learn to use it, i'm comfortable with commands but not yet with the rest of the program. I will watch some basic tutorials, expert things looks easier than basics things to me XD
  • Once you get the import and trace method down you will find it very useful. Back in CC2 days I was able to import scans of my 5mm hexagon maps into CC2 and make uploadable maps of them. I continue to do this in CC3 and CC3+.
  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    The origin of CONTOURSM is that Joe is far too lazy to do that whole tracing thing. CONTOURSM draws an image of the selected entities, traces around the non-transparent parts of that image automatically in as many pieces as required, and then uses SIMPLIFY to get things down to a tractable size. It works for vector entities, images, and symbols. CONTOURSMX goes even further down the laziness path by letting you chop out entities from the image before it traces the contours. If CONTOURSM is like the Striping effect, then CONTOURSMX is like Color Key effect combined with the Striping effect.

    Sorry, just babbling about my new toys.
  • JimPJimP 🖼️ 280 images Cartographer
    edited April 2018
    No problem Joe. I'll check into it next time I need to trace something.

    edit: Hmmm... this just might help me with drawng starships. I'll try and find time this month to see if I can do that in a way I have been looking at.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    All hail lazy developers.

    There might be a blog post showcasing this command in a few days.
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