Help with maps created outside CC3 + newly discovered UI issue
Hi all,
I've been an owner of the CC3 software for several years now, but I started a new city map project some months before I got the program, and not really wanting to redo it in CC3, I let the program hang for several years. Now that I'm largely reaching the end stages of that project, I've decided to give CC3 another go, and began mapping out the country that the city is located in. However, despite not using CC3 for this city, I found that there are certain features I can still use, such as measuring distances, as well as drawing the boroughs of the city, because it's a *huge* map, and if I attempted that in Paint.net (the software I used to make the map), it would kill my machine. Related to this, I have a couple of inquiries about CC3, and whether it allows for what I'm trying to do here.
Basically, what I'm trying to do is import the map and have it exist as a background, and measure all distances along the map through that image. Not redrawing any of the street entities in the software, just using paths like rivers and drawing them along segments I may need the measurements of.
The first thing that I'm trying to figure out is the issue of map scale. The default scale on my map is a 500 foot bar, and as I'm working with km in CC3, that would correspond to 0.1524 units in the program. If the scaling is wildly off (for the sake of my example here, let's say measuring that bar gives me 1 km in CC3 units), is there a numerical command or formula that I could use to rescale the map to the degree that I want it to be? If so, what information would I require from the map in order to execute it?
The other issue concerns what happens if I decide to make a notable change to the landmass in Paint.net, and decide to update the map as it's viewed in CC3. If I scaled the map once, and updated the image to reflect the new changes to the map, will the imported image remain precisely scaled in CC3, or will I have to redo it from scratch?
Thanks for any and all help!
I've been an owner of the CC3 software for several years now, but I started a new city map project some months before I got the program, and not really wanting to redo it in CC3, I let the program hang for several years. Now that I'm largely reaching the end stages of that project, I've decided to give CC3 another go, and began mapping out the country that the city is located in. However, despite not using CC3 for this city, I found that there are certain features I can still use, such as measuring distances, as well as drawing the boroughs of the city, because it's a *huge* map, and if I attempted that in Paint.net (the software I used to make the map), it would kill my machine. Related to this, I have a couple of inquiries about CC3, and whether it allows for what I'm trying to do here.
Basically, what I'm trying to do is import the map and have it exist as a background, and measure all distances along the map through that image. Not redrawing any of the street entities in the software, just using paths like rivers and drawing them along segments I may need the measurements of.
The first thing that I'm trying to figure out is the issue of map scale. The default scale on my map is a 500 foot bar, and as I'm working with km in CC3, that would correspond to 0.1524 units in the program. If the scaling is wildly off (for the sake of my example here, let's say measuring that bar gives me 1 km in CC3 units), is there a numerical command or formula that I could use to rescale the map to the degree that I want it to be? If so, what information would I require from the map in order to execute it?
The other issue concerns what happens if I decide to make a notable change to the landmass in Paint.net, and decide to update the map as it's viewed in CC3. If I scaled the map once, and updated the image to reflect the new changes to the map, will the imported image remain precisely scaled in CC3, or will I have to redo it from scratch?
Thanks for any and all help!
Comments
CC3+ just references the image file on disk, so if you make changes to the image, they will be there the next time you start CC3+. The scale will remain as before (Assuming you don't change the size of the image when editing it of course.
Note that city maps are normally scaled in feet in CC3 though, not km/miles.
I didn't realize that city maps tend to be scaled in feet; I redid the file with the dimensions of the city in feet and I think I've gotten pretty darn close as far as scaling goes (measurements return from 498 to 506 feet depending on where I place the cursor on the map). With that in mind I probably won't require the non-visual scale command for this particular project, although I think it would be useful knowledge to have for later down the road. How exactly does it work? Due to financial constraints I'm not able to pick up a copy of CC3+ at this time, so I don't know how the command line will work on there, so I'm left with the version on the old CC3, and I have to say I'm totally baffled by it.
Now, before I get to describing the scaling issue, I realize that what I am trying to do here is very much outside of what CC3's purpose is, and as such, I won't really be surprised if no solution exists for the problem I'm posting, I'm just posting it here to see if there is any chance of correcting it.
What I wanted to know is if there is any distortion at play when importing bitmaps into CC3?
I've noticed that the measurements along the imported map tend to be pretty precise when it comes to measuring the scale, but the further I measure out, the more discrepencies there are. For example, according to the measurements I did in Paint.net (because it is the original raw file, I view these measurements as being absolute), the east-west distance across the entire city is 118751.05 feet. When the map is properly scaled, and measuring the scale returns 500 feet exactly, the actual measurements across the city can be off - for example, CC3 returns the same distance as being 117268.35, a size discrepancy of about 1480 feet. In both instances, measuring within Paint.net and measuring within CC3, I zoomed in to the closest extents possible, thus ensuring I was hitting the actual map edge, and not somewhere wildly off, so I figure to account for the margin of error, the measurement should differ by a foot or two at most.
A similar discrepancy exists within my overland map - whereas measuring the 500 foot scale returns me exactly 0.1524, the E-W dimensions of the city return as being 35.76 km, when they should be 36.19 km. In this case it is less of an issue, as I required *that* import of the map just to outline where important roads are and figure out where to place down the appropriate mountain contours, but in the case of the up close city map, I'd hoped to use it to measure precise distances between individual city blocks and the like, so the discrepancy becomes far less easy to turn a blind eye to. I can, of course, do this in Paint.net too, but that's not a terribly user friendly method, so I thought it would make my life easier to use CC3 for that purpose.
Now, again, I realize this is very much beyond CC3's mission statement, so it's completely understandable if no solution exists for this problem, I just figured it couldn't hurt to throw the idea out there and see if I might be doing something wrong, or anything like that, aha.
However, I've encountered another strange issue that directly affects the functionality of CC3. Sometimes, when I'm drawing, the map screen goes white, and I have to quit my drawing process, hit save, and redraw in order to restore the view. A friend of mine, who recommended me the program so many years ago, informed me of this issue, and I've managed to learn to co-exist with it.
However, since yesterday, I encounter this problem every single time I open a new instance of CC3 with that particular overland map. The screen opens on that dark green loading screen that displays when sheet effects have been turned on and the software needs time to render them. What happens in my case is that the cursor shows a "loading" symbol until I actually move it, at which point it no longer show it's loading. If I zoom in or out, the screen transforms to that infamous white one, I hit "save", and redraw, and the view is restored back to normal. I launched the program about 20 times to test this, and got the exact same result every single time. Now, as a standalone issue this isn't process breaking or anything like that, but it doesn't seem like normal behaviour, and I hope it's not an indicator that the file may become unusable if I continue to work in it, or anything like that. I made a copy of the map fairly early on in the process - it has less entities in it, and when I try to recreate the process with *that* map, I'm unable to, so whatever it is that's causing this behaviour is inherent to the most recent version of the file I have. If anyone can assist with this issue, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
EDIT: It would appear that I have solved the issue of having to save and redraw the map every time I open it. I created a test copy and began deleting stuff I worked with yesterday, and I deleted the import of the map, and that seemed to have done the trick. Very thankful for the non-visual scale command, as if I ever need to change anything about the land on the overland map in the future, I can use that to get it to be exact again, haha.
CC3 is very precise in it's calculation, but when images, who are measured on a whole different type of scale, enters the mix, some inaccuracies occur. You may have noticed that you sometimes can see tiny gaps between the hexes when making a hex map (using raster symbols), which is also caused by a similar issue.
For instance I have done a number of hybrid GIMP/CC3 maps, where the background is generated in GIMP, and imported to CC3. The largest of these was about 6000 x 10000 pixels (the bitmap image). During the generation of these maps I have also exported from CC3 to match with work in GIMP, and never found a mismatch of any degree between, for instance, the buildings from CC3, and the shadows I've painted in GIMP.