FT3 to CC3 Mapping Issues

mike robel

I am probably trying to move too fast here, but that's the way I am. I some cases below, I am pretty much trying to confirm what I understand. I searched through the manual, the Pro Detail, the Tome, and CA155, and several pages of discussion links and probably just missed them.

FT3 display.

Other than by moving the mouse pointer to a particular spot you want to center the map on (for instance. 50.716098 9.858400 which is pretty much in the center of the box defined by:

Upper Left: 50.303434 10.608421
Lower Right: 50.295943 10.631831

Then by knowing the size of the area you wish to map (about 93km high by 79 Wide), then fiddling with the zoom till you get close, and then physiclly chaning the aspect ratio of the FT3 Map display by dragging the top or bottom and left or right sides until it has the desired shape, there does not appear to be anyway to draw a polygon to specify a terrain box or mark its center as a reference point so I can lay it over a "real" map. Is that correct?

On the FT3 display, I pull up Northwestern Europe GTOPO30 file for 2020N90 and it opens fine and display a "rough" view of the area. Rough meaning I am not seeing contour lines, but a 3D view of how the contours look which does not help my visualization at all. Sometimes during a redraw, I see a display flash by that appears to show filled in contourline-like displays, but they get covered up. How do I get them to persist, since I cannot identify any features from the loaded map?

(EDIT: Well, I probably discovered this two or three times today. Lighting and Color, check Blended, Uncheck Shaded. Better yet, uncheck both.)

When I put a grid on, it does not display lat long labels.

When I want to see contour labels, to me it is saying that the lines are marked, but I think that just means that it shows the scale by color in the legend.

Finally, I specify 25 meter contour lines and I want them filled in, but they just come in green. Perhaps this is because I have constrained the lines to -100 to 1000 meters since there is no ocean in central Germany in the Fulda Gap.

I don't suppose there is a way to place each contour on its own layer?

I guess this means I have to look at figuring out Wilbur?

Thanks for everyone's answers in advance!

Mike

Loopysue

Hi Mike

I think you are correct about the first part - getting the exact area.

FT3 doesn't do labels.

When you get your 25 meter contours into CC3 you need to hide all but the contour sheet and change properties so that the contours are hollow, since at that relatively tiny interval they will mostly be all the same colour (most maps exported from FT3 have contours that are much larger intervals than that). Only then when you can see them would you be able to change their colours individually. That is also when you get to manually separate the contours onto separate sheets. I presume you meant sheets, rather than layers?

Not sure I understand why you would want to use Wilbur, since I thought the purpose of this project was to produce a contour map of a real place. Wilbur does erosion, which would alter the geography. The only use for it here that I can see is if you wanted to export a particular kind of bitmap from it, but you won't get labels and separated contours from Wilbur either.

mike robel

Thanks Sue. I did mean sheets. There also appears to be no way to identify what elevation is represented by a specific contour line, so you can't select all the 500 meters lines in one go.

I have to find another solution.

On the other hand, I think my current German map is sufficient for my purposes.

What I need are German maps in 1:50000 scale and access to large format scanner.

Bother.

Loopysue

Would it be easier to get hold of vector maps online than try to make your own from scratch?

Just a thought.

mike robel

Sometimes. But you have to manipulate them anyway to make them suitable for wargaming. This most excellent site has a great map of all of Europe. https://opentopomap.org/#map=13/50.70700/9.85525

The first shot shows most of the battle area I am modeling with the 2nd shot highlighted with a blue rectangle.

The second shot shows where my squadron operated.

The third shot shows OP Alpha, which is from where we watched the Inner German Border. (Blue Circle. The border ran right underneath our tower and the fence was a little ways back from the border.)

The problem is that to get the level of detail I need, I have to scroll around and take overlapping screen shots, then piece them together.

They offer data for ones GPS. I have a Garmin so I downloaded the base map onto my computer. I need to hook up my Garmin and then figure out how to get the files to show the contours and such (which they also provide). Then when I hook the GPS up to the PC, it displays the contours.

This will have the same issue of having to piece together screenshots.

There are issues no matter how one does it. FT3 is clearly putting out contours. If I could select the area and size it easily, I could probably overlay them on the maps I have, which would be easier. But maybe not. On a 1:100000 map, the contours get really close together. Looking back, I don't see how I was able to read maps through a taped on overlay, ontop of my map case, with the map inside, in the dark, in the rain, with a red or blue flashlight while not getting my head taken off by a tree or running over a car on the road.

Loopysue

I think the way you just suggested is the best way to get an accurate map, even if you do have to draw all the contours yourself. Accuracy is probably going to be greater than if you do it the FT3 way

mike robel

Yep.

Microsoft offers a nifty thing to let you combine photos/images called Image Composite. It's on your computer. but it limits you to a certain size. So in the end, I still have to assemble everything, stick it into Corel PaintShop and align it by hand/eye. Tedious. Somewhat easier than aligning maps however. Since maps are really the rectangle they seem to be and it is very difficult to accurately crop the map so you don't get any white/black space that overlaps the other images and aligning them Wah wah wah wah. One just does the best one can. BFI.

I found sources for German TK 50 maps. 50 Euros for 10 maps. I probably need 2000 worth for the whole battle area. Sigh. Then I still have to get them scanned and then pieced together. I can obsess over the map or I can get on with the game design/development.

WeathermanSweden

Hello Mike,

these contours are a direct export from FT3 to CC3+.
Every 10m as shown in your OpenTopoMaps above.
The last one covers approximately the area of your third picture.
It is based on a SRTM digital terrain file with a horisontal resolution of 30 meters. It is availble for free download.
They can be imported directly to FT3 - though it is a little bit tricky.
Even the height contours in OpenStreetMaps are based on digital terrain models as far as I know.
Their resolution is about 30 to 90 meters when I checked places that I know well.

/André

mike robel

These are great. I instantly recognize where its from and if I could see through it I could probably align it well enough. With the seeming inability to specify a region to export other than guessing, I don't understand how to define the area so I can use it.

Then the challenge is aligning them with the digitized paper map so I can place the rest of the features.

[Deleted User]

How did you import into FT3, Weatherman?

WeathermanSweden

Hi Quenten,

I started a new discussion with an answer to you question!

/André

mike robel

Andre,

Can you provide any hints on how to produce the renderings you showed? I am quite befuddled.

Thanks

Mike

WeathermanSweden

Hello Mike,
in FT3 I zoomed in to the area I wanted to export and then I did an export "Save Campaign Cartographer File" with the .xpt below.
It has contours every 10 meters and has to be placed in FT3\Export

/André

PS: .xpt files are not allowed for upload in this forum so I packed the file into a .zip file

mike robel

Andre,

I have not had time to do that yet. On one of the other contour sheet you showed me, you marked Setzelbach. How were you able to do that?

WeathermanSweden

Mike,
the coordinates for Setzelbach are approximately 50.69°n/9.91°e - so I estimated it's position on the map.
This was rather easy by applying a grid with 0.1° resolution.

First map shows the whole 1x1 degree field and the second only the part around Setzelbach.
Height contours are here about 25m and pictures are a direct FT3 output.

/André

mike robel

Way cool. I'll be able to devote some attention to this during the weekend.

Ralf

Ah, fond memories of creating real-world height maps with Fractal Terrains at the time. Great work.

choppinlt

Hello all! Ralf and WeathermanSweden, thank you for your insight with this. I am new to CC3 and FT3, and I am just learning. So please forgive my noob questions here. So I found .hgt files to download for 30m SRTM, and I was able to get them in to FT3 no problem. I then exported it per your directions above to CC3, again no apparent issue. I open the file in CC3 and I find the file that I exported, but it appears to be all one single color. There no contours lines or gradient color changes in elevation...and this area has very definite elevations changes. I played with some of the options regarding coloring in FT3 using greyscale, and also just exporting black contour lines. My very first export was solid green and the last export is solid grey....what am I doing wrong here?

Regards,

choppinlt