FT 3 Selection Problem

Douglas_Anders

When I try to make a selection in FT3 across certain latitudes, the selection seems to encircle than area all around the globe, rather than the small area I'm trying to select. This happens with all of the selection methods (freehand, polygon ect.) and at multiple latitudes.

This was a problem for me in previous versions of FT Pro as well. Am I doing something wrong?

jslayton

It's a limitation with FT. If possible, I recommend avoiding putting land across the -180 to +180 boundary. FT does offer a way to rotate the fractal function relative to the editing information. On Map>>World Settings on the Secondary page, there is a pair of values called "north pole position". Changing the longitude value will slide the fractal function horizontally with respect to the world editing data.

The long-winded technical reason is that FT stores the editing information as an equirectangular-projection raster image that goes from -180 to +180 across. The wraparound at the -180/+180 seam is the cause of a number of anoyances in FT, of which the selection thing is the worst (in my opinion, anyhow). When you draw a selection, the projection causes the new points added to the created line to wrap back around to -180 to +180 range. Unfortunately, that means that the lines will go all the way around the world rather than trying to cross that seam at the back. I'm not sure if that made sense to you.

The easiest solution would be for FT to allow painting a selection mask rather than drawing the edges of the mask (this is a wish list item for FT). That way, the selection would paint across the back seam without a problem. This feature would have to be done in addition to the existing tools, though.

Douglas_Anders

That makes sense. Thank you This prblem has been bedeviling me for years -- it's great to have a solution.

By the way, I'm pretty happy with update. I appreciate the work you've put into FT.