Getting jpg map into FT3

Dakcenturi

I know FT has a map for Mars, but it is the much smaller version that doesn't include the north pole.



I want to import the correct version into FT to use but I am new to all this and require some assistance.



I've searched through the forums and found a way to get an image into FT using CC and Wilbur however how do I get the initial image into CC and then what do I need to do with it once it is there to get it ready for Wilbur?



Any help would be greatly appreciated.



Here are some links for reference:



Tutorial for getting image from CC to FT


Map of Mars to use

Dakcenturi

Any thoughts? I am trying to product out to see if it can do what I need and if so I plan on getting one of the bundles. First, I need to see if I can get this into the program first.

jslayton

You can import such an image into FT as an image overlay.

Use Image Overlays>>Show Overlay Window to show the Image Overlays window.
Use Add on the Image Overlays windows to bring up the Edit Image Overlay window.
Use Import Color Image on the Edit Image Overlay window to select your JPEG file. One wrinkle here is that FT only allows a 5100 pixel wide overlay, so set the Width to 5100 and Height to 2600 after selecting the image.
Click OK to dismiss the Edit Image Overlay window. Your image should now be displayed (upside down) in the main FT window.

Note that this technique gives you an image, not an editable planet surface. For that, you'd want to download one of the MOLA altitude data sets rather than an illuminated image. You can import that data into FT as a binary surface (File>>New, select Binary File at the Type window).

If you'd like to use the data in Wilbur, consider working with the MOLA altitude data directly in Wilbur.

What is it that you're planning to do with the data?

Dakcenturi

I want to make an editable planet surface of Mars that includes the whole world. The preset that is included with FT is a chopped off version of mars that doesn't include a large section of the Northern part of the planet.



It looks like the one they used is here. If you look between the two you will see the significant area that was cut out.

jslayton

Now I'm confused. The data included with FT was used to generate the data at http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/mars/index.html and I think you'll agree that it's not "chopped off". The data I used was the lower-resolution MOLA data (such as can be downloaded from http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/mgs/mgs-m-mola-5-megdr-l3-v1/mgsl_300x/meg016/ ) and the images were generated in FT from that altitude data.

The second Mars image that you showed in your last post is a lighted Mercator projection image generated from MOLA altitude data by NASA. A Mercator projection can't show a whole globe. The Mars image that you showed in your first post is a lighted Equirectangular projection image also generated from MOLA altitude data by NASA. In contrast to a Mercator projection, an Equirectangular projection can show a whole globe, but with significant distortion in the polar regions.

Dakcenturi

Ah ok, I see now.

Well then it looks like it in fact does have what I need. Although I need to adjust the elevations a bit to get the "sea" level higher.

Is there a way to mass edit all elevations and increase them by a certain amount or something?

Basically, I want to make it so that based off MOLA altitude data the sea level is at around -10000 ft instead of at 0.

jslayton

If I recall, the binary files can't be directly edited. However, you can convert that to an FT world that can be edited using the following steps:
Use Map>>World Settings and change the Editing resolution to something like 5000.
Use Tools>>Actions>>Burn In To Surface.

Now lower the altitude of the data using Tools>>Global Lower>>Land Offset and use an Amount of -10000.

Dakcenturi

That worked perfectly!

Now is there a way to flatten out the craters into the same altitude of the surrounding land? I tried doing Global Smooth>Land Offset but then it just seems to blur every thing together. I don't want to lose detail but simply raise the craters to match the surrounding terrain, ala a Mars before planetary bombardment via meteors.

jslayton

You would have to manually paint in those areas, sorry.

Dakcenturi

Ok, that's going to take some time hehe but I need it done so going to start working on it.

Do you have any recommendations as to the easiest/most convenient way to do this. Is it better to have it at a higher or lower resolution in the world settings? Smaller or larger brush sizes? I assume I need to simply use the Paint Raise>Land Offset brush?

Once I get it finished I'll post up a link to the export in case you want to utilize it for anything.

jslayton

Resolution will depend largely on what you're intending to do with the final result. I would guess that taking out craters is a huge task, and not one I'd like to tackle myself. Most folks are interested in placing craters, not removing them.

One tip that might help is that if you hold down the Ctrl key the paintbrush tools allow you to directly resize the tool without having to click elsewhere. Sadly, there is no modifier that allows you to pick an altitude from the display, though. Not even a median paint tool...

Dakcenturi

Maybe a suggestion for a future enhancement then, something similar to photoshops clone stamp tool or something to duplicate similar terrain.

In any case, thanks for all the help and I'll let you see the results once I get something together. Right now I'm adjusting some of the world settings to closer match that of Mars and also a new Color Altitude overlay since it has a much larger height variation than on earth, even if most of it is all close to the same height.

jslayton

Wilbur has a clone stamp but it's not really feasible in FT for technical reasons.

Dakcenturi

Hm.. could I export from FT to Wilbur and then import back to FT?

jslayton

http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/ThereandBackAgain/index.html may help.

But you can import the MOLA data directly into Wilbur as easily as you can import it into FT, so what is the advantage of starting in FT, going to Wilbur, then back to FT when you can start in Wilbur and go to FT for finishing?

Dakcenturi

Hm.. the clone stamp doesn't seem to work inside the application unless I am missing something. So looks like I will manually have to fill in the craters.

jslayton

I seem to have broken that thing in Wilbur in the last couple of versions, it seems. Sorry about that.

Dakcenturi

So I've been trying to fill in the craters in different ways. This is my best(ish) result so far where I at least got all the terrain levelled off. The one really low spot in my map is not there yet which is why it is missing. The problem is that you can see all the small places where I was filling things in and there are still a lot of craters.



What I did to get it this far was turn off the color shading and increased the color range to 60. Not sure if maybe it would be better to put it back to a lower level or increase it higher or what. Then I simply used the raise and lower terrain tool at about 100 value.



Any suggestions of thoughts on trying to get this smoothed out and more natural looking would be much appreciated! I even tried selecting by Altitude Range and doing a global smooth but then it just makes things look all blurry.



http://www.thegeekenders.com/resources/misc/map1.jpg

Dakcenturi

I've spent several hours trying to get these craters filled in correctly and the results just aren't right. Does anyone have any suggestions on a better method to get these things filled in?

Is there any way I could move it over into photoshop use the copy tool and then move it back into FT? I don't know if there is a way to generate the height off of the colors because then I could just copy the colors as appropriate and then re-generate the terrain or maybe there is some other way since the copy function does not work in Wilbur as per an earlier suggestion?

jslayton

The cloning brush feature should be working again in Wilbur 1.78.

Dakcenturi

Very nice! Works like a charm!!



Ran into one issue however. When I brought the map back into FT3 now it has extra water around the entire map.



http://www.thegeekenders.com/resources/misc/map/issue.jpg

Dakcenturi

Got it, yay crop tool in Wilbur

Dakcenturi

Ok... ran into another issue it seems now with the rivers.



I followed the instructions here http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/CGTutorial/index.html and started generating the rivers.



The problem is that on the far right and left sides of the map, around the middle the rivers just go off the edges of the map and don't trail into an ocean anywhere. It's almost like it is treating the edge of the map as the ocean for purposes of generating the rivers.



Any thoughts? See below:



http://www.thegeekenders.com/resources/misc/map/issue2.jpg

JimP

From your screenshot, the continent looks like it is going all the way around the globe.

Dakcenturi

I am going to try loading the info in Wilbur first and then moving it over to FT3. I tried loading the bin file but I just get error messages, when you mentioned loading the data directly into Wilbur how were you recommending doing that if not with the Bin file? Whenever I try and do an Mdr from FT3 it gives that extra border around the whole map. I'm thinking that is probably why it messed up the rivers because I had to crop that border up and it must have created some sort of valley that it thinks the rivers need to fill.



This is what I am particularly interested in:

The data I used was the lower-resolution MOLA data (such as can be downloaded from http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/mgs/mgs-m-mola-5-megdr-l3-v1/mgsl_300x/meg016/ ) and the images were generated in FT from that altitude data.

How did you use these files to generate the Mars data? I was going to see about using the higher resolution ones if possible. I've got 16GB or RAM so my PC can handle the processing.

jslayton

FT is a 32-bit program and so can address a maximum of about 4GB when sued with a 64-bit OS (much less than that with a 32-bit OS). You're probably not going to get it to handle a binary file much more than 1GB in size in any case. Most of the higher-resolution data is in chunks smaller than whole-world size, meaning that you'll need some way to assemble the data into the single binary file that FT wants.

To use the MOLA data:

I downloaded megt90n000eb.img and megt90n000eb.lbl from the above site. Opening and reading the .lbl file shows that the .img file has 2880 lines, 5760 samples per line, 16 bits (2 bytes) per sample, and is in MSB_INTEGER format.
Then in FT, File>>New, Binary File. Then click Choose Elevation File and enter the above information as shown in the attachment (the only weird bit is the 11520 that comes from 5760 samples * 2 bytes per sample). Click OK, Next, and Finish. The Mars data will appear in FT.

Dakcenturi

So there isn't an easy way to make the high res version of Mars with these images then?

What about opening the raw data of the completed Mars that you have in WIlbur instead of transfering from FT to Wilbur and then back to FT? I get that extra border around the whole world when I do it that way, which is why I think I have the issues with the rivers.

jslayton

FT and Wilbur are both limited in what they can do for binary import. FT is a little more limited due to its need to keep the binary file open during normal operations, but both programs have about a 1GB hard limit imposed by the 32-bit OS underpinnings. If you use another program such as Photoshop to put together multiple MOLA tiles, then you should be able to get at least a 30000x15000 sample image. The full-resolution 1/128 degree MOLA data is 46080x23040 samples; FT should be able to handle the 1/64 degree data set if you can get it into a single 23040x11520 file.

When going back and forth between FT and Wilbur, I recommend the MDR file format. For whole-world data sets, try the "Special MDR" format under FIle>>Save As. FT can directly use the MDR as input to the binary file import and Wilbur can read an MDR file using File>>Open. There may still be a vertical flip issue between FT and Wilbur; I can't remember if I've fixed it or not.

Dakcenturi

Ok another question, something a bit different this time around.



I am now working on the climate/regions etc There is the one large area in the middle that it classifies as Alpine/Tundra I assume mainly because of the height data. This should be a volcanic region so I would think the temperatures would be higher due to the volcanic activity from the three huge volcanoes in the region.



Do you have any recommendations on adjust just that region or what are your thoughts?



http://www.thegeekenders.com/resources/misc/map/volcanic.jpg

jslayton

I'm not aware of an area here on Earth that has a significant modification of temperature due to volcanic activity. Of course, the topography of Mars is quite a bit different than Earth, so you can call it as you like.

Dakcenturi

I've got another somewhat un-related question on FT3. As you mentioned before:

If you use another program such as Photoshop to put together multiple MOLA tiles, then you should be able to get at least a 30000x15000 sample image. The full-resolution 1/128 degree MOLA data is 46080x23040 samples; FT should be able to handle the 1/64 degree data set if you can get it into a single 23040x11520 file.

How can I get a .jpg image or something similar, ie a flat image into FT and have it calculate height? Does it calculate it based off colors or how does that process work?