Ah yes, the Far Future of 1991! Sadly, I remember it well (the magazine game Mike showed was published in 1978)...
It would be possible to reconstruct the original game from the images and downloadable files on BoardGameGeek, I think, along with the updated alternate variant, the Dritte Macht. But good luck with your version, should you go ahead with it, Mike!
If anyone fancied a fresh challenge, NW Europe at and after the end of the most recent Ice Age would be interesting to map similarly, perhaps. I've long toyed with the idea of doing a Doggerland map based on the recent sub-sea mapping carried out over parts of the North Sea bed (Doggerland was the area of exposed land where the southern North Sea now lies, connecting the British Isles and mainland Europe, incidentally, named after the modern sub-sea Dogger Bank). I've never got far with it though, as it needs quite some extrapolation to get to a useful level of detail on the final map, plus I'd want to include the Ancylus Lake area as well (now the Baltic Sea, then a vast landlocked lake) and the lands around it.
Today though, when doing a quick search online after being reminded by this topic, I chanced-upon a potentially useful paper from 2017 on the ScienceDirect website, Deglaciation of the Eurasian ice sheet complex, which has several fascinating maps covering from the British Isles east across most of north Russia and the adjoining seas, showing how sea and ice levels changed at various times. I'm not sure how easy it might be to rework some of the maps into CC3+ variants, especially as I don't have FT3 and have never used Wilbur, but felt sure if I mentioned it here, someone more knowledgeable would be able to comment (if possibly in a fresh topic, as I appreciate I'm rather hijacking this one...). The advantage of this paper is there are some excellent hi-res versions of the maps available as free downloads accompanying it, including a timelapse sequence of eight shown in a block as the paper's Figure 4. If this is of interest, I'd also suggest taking a look at the Physics.org webpage here, as this has used a series of similar maps to show how the ice sheets grew and retreated, as a lovely little GIF animation.
Thank you for this! I've been meaning to sort out the export from Fractal Terrains, and Joe even gave me good information on doing it once, but I never got around to it. Now, I can start with your map for my little day dreaming "project"! If anything makes it on-line, I'll definitely give you the credit for the base map. Thank you again, André!
Hello all, this is my first post. I am new to CC3, though I am no stranger to CAD-like programs. I just picked up CC3 on Tuesday and I have been tinkering with it ever since. I stumbled across CC3 by finding a post by Mike Robel, and then seeing the rest of you on this thread. So figure this is a good place to start!
I apologize if this has been covered/well documented, but I have done a lot of looking over the forums to find an answer to my question. I have access to WWII era topo maps (mostly 1:100,000), and I am trying to create CC3 maps. The only thing I am struggling with is trying to get relief contouring on my map. I saw some old discussion about using Wilbur to import contours to CC3, but the conversation I found didn't appear to offer a final solution. The goal is to NOT use terrain data, and solely using the topos. Is there an easy/efficient way to import the contour lines without hand tracing it all? Thoughts, suggestions, guidance?
Which format are these maps in? If they are just flat images, such as scans of the original WWII-era maps, I don't think there will be any good options other than hand tracing then.
While there may be some way to get topographical data from those maps, I don't know where one would start or have any idea about how to do it..
That said, you apparently go to OpenMap.com/DE and get a bootable map that allows access to data. I'm away from my computer right now and will have to check the link and update it if I'm wrong.
Monsen, yes they are scanned TIFF files from originals. I was afraid you were going to say that. ;) It's OK, as that was my plan anyway, BUT I was really hoping for an easier way.
Mike I checked out the link and I'm getting a 404 error...perhaps it is just down temporarily. I will definitely investigate further though. I want to add that based on your work that I have seen we appear to have very similar interests. In fact it was one of your posts that allowed me to stumble across CC3 in the first place.
Thanks to you both for responding! You will probably be hearing from me again.
This should take you to the area near Gemunden, Germany where TF Baum had to leave its planned route to get to Hammelburg on account of a blown bridge.
Another problem I see with importing terrain data, is all the other stuff is left out: roads, cities, bridges, vegetation and so on, so you have to figure out how to put all that onto the map.
Others on the map pointed me to Fractal Terrain which I couldn't get to work and I decided adding the above (augmenting the terrain data) was too difficult, especially trying to align the paper map with the digital data, it was just better to do it manually.
I also found 1:100000 maps to be lacking in detail and so have bought 1:50000 German maps (expensive) or 1:24000 maps (US) and do the tracing thing. USGS offers downloadable PDF maps, which can be stitched together, but the German maps are paper, so one has to scan them in order to manipulate them. Bothersome.
That's a nice site Jim. Easier, but not so many features as the https://apps.nationalmap.gov/viewer/, but still good. I really like the ability to have the map fill the entire screen.
Mike, very cool with the opentopo site. The question is now what? ? I apologize for my being rather clueless, but I am still trying to figure out how all this works together. Is there an effective way to extract the contour data and be able to import it in to CC3 to create contours? And while lower scale maps are better, the 1:100,000 are fine for what I am trying to capture and accomplish. To be clear, my plan has been to hand trace the water, road and built up area features. I was going to do the same with the contours, BUT if there is an effective way to do that automatically that would be great.
Choppinlt: Apparently, you can download data from that site. I have no idea how. If so, perhaps it can be manipulated via Fractal Terrain 3, which went beyond my desire to master. I found it very frustrating, even when following the tutorials.
Comments
I love it that you are getting so much use out of those colour schemes. This one was based on modern topo maps of Antarctica and Greenland.
More about the game if you are interested: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9238/war-ice
Not currently in production.
It would be possible to reconstruct the original game from the images and downloadable files on BoardGameGeek, I think, along with the updated alternate variant, the Dritte Macht. But good luck with your version, should you go ahead with it, Mike!
If anyone fancied a fresh challenge, NW Europe at and after the end of the most recent Ice Age would be interesting to map similarly, perhaps. I've long toyed with the idea of doing a Doggerland map based on the recent sub-sea mapping carried out over parts of the North Sea bed (Doggerland was the area of exposed land where the southern North Sea now lies, connecting the British Isles and mainland Europe, incidentally, named after the modern sub-sea Dogger Bank). I've never got far with it though, as it needs quite some extrapolation to get to a useful level of detail on the final map, plus I'd want to include the Ancylus Lake area as well (now the Baltic Sea, then a vast landlocked lake) and the lands around it.
Today though, when doing a quick search online after being reminded by this topic, I chanced-upon a potentially useful paper from 2017 on the ScienceDirect website, Deglaciation of the Eurasian ice sheet complex, which has several fascinating maps covering from the British Isles east across most of north Russia and the adjoining seas, showing how sea and ice levels changed at various times. I'm not sure how easy it might be to rework some of the maps into CC3+ variants, especially as I don't have FT3 and have never used Wilbur, but felt sure if I mentioned it here, someone more knowledgeable would be able to comment (if possibly in a fresh topic, as I appreciate I'm rather hijacking this one...). The advantage of this paper is there are some excellent hi-res versions of the maps available as free downloads accompanying it, including a timelapse sequence of eight shown in a block as the paper's Figure 4. If this is of interest, I'd also suggest taking a look at the Physics.org webpage here, as this has used a series of similar maps to show how the ice sheets grew and retreated, as a lovely little GIF animation.
Thank you again, André!
Hello all, this is my first post. I am new to CC3, though I am no stranger to CAD-like programs. I just picked up CC3 on Tuesday and I have been tinkering with it ever since. I stumbled across CC3 by finding a post by Mike Robel, and then seeing the rest of you on this thread. So figure this is a good place to start!
I apologize if this has been covered/well documented, but I have done a lot of looking over the forums to find an answer to my question. I have access to WWII era topo maps (mostly 1:100,000), and I am trying to create CC3 maps. The only thing I am struggling with is trying to get relief contouring on my map. I saw some old discussion about using Wilbur to import contours to CC3, but the conversation I found didn't appear to offer a final solution. The goal is to NOT use terrain data, and solely using the topos. Is there an easy/efficient way to import the contour lines without hand tracing it all? Thoughts, suggestions, guidance?
Welcome choppinIt.
Which format are these maps in? If they are just flat images, such as scans of the original WWII-era maps, I don't think there will be any good options other than hand tracing then.
While there may be some way to get topographical data from those maps, I don't know where one would start or have any idea about how to do it..
That said, you apparently go to OpenMap.com/DE and get a bootable map that allows access to data. I'm away from my computer right now and will have to check the link and update it if I'm wrong.
Updated the post above with the correct map link.
Monsen, yes they are scanned TIFF files from originals. I was afraid you were going to say that. ;) It's OK, as that was my plan anyway, BUT I was really hoping for an easier way.
Mike I checked out the link and I'm getting a 404 error...perhaps it is just down temporarily. I will definitely investigate further though. I want to add that based on your work that I have seen we appear to have very similar interests. In fact it was one of your posts that allowed me to stumble across CC3 in the first place.
Thanks to you both for responding! You will probably be hearing from me again.
Hmm. my edit for the correct link didn't work. Here is the correct one: https://opentopomap.org/#map=11/49.9991/9.8383
This should take you to the area near Gemunden, Germany where TF Baum had to leave its planned route to get to Hammelburg on account of a blown bridge.
Another problem I see with importing terrain data, is all the other stuff is left out: roads, cities, bridges, vegetation and so on, so you have to figure out how to put all that onto the map.
Others on the map pointed me to Fractal Terrain which I couldn't get to work and I decided adding the above (augmenting the terrain data) was too difficult, especially trying to align the paper map with the digital data, it was just better to do it manually.
I also found 1:100000 maps to be lacking in detail and so have bought 1:50000 German maps (expensive) or 1:24000 maps (US) and do the tracing thing. USGS offers downloadable PDF maps, which can be stitched together, but the German maps are paper, so one has to scan them in order to manipulate them. Bothersome.
I found https://www.topozone.com/
to be substantionaly easier to work with than the recent version of the Coast and Geodetic Survey site.
That's a nice site Jim. Easier, but not so many features as the https://apps.nationalmap.gov/viewer/, but still good. I really like the ability to have the map fill the entire screen.
Just don't use the keyboard arrow keys and be careful with the mouse wheel. Egad.
Mike, very cool with the opentopo site. The question is now what? ? I apologize for my being rather clueless, but I am still trying to figure out how all this works together. Is there an effective way to extract the contour data and be able to import it in to CC3 to create contours? And while lower scale maps are better, the 1:100,000 are fine for what I am trying to capture and accomplish. To be clear, my plan has been to hand trace the water, road and built up area features. I was going to do the same with the contours, BUT if there is an effective way to do that automatically that would be great.
Choppinlt: Apparently, you can download data from that site. I have no idea how. If so, perhaps it can be manipulated via Fractal Terrain 3, which went beyond my desire to master. I found it very frustrating, even when following the tutorials.
This thread https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/9720/ft3-to-cc3-mapping-issues#latest has some details. In the end, I gave up on FT3 - it wasn't an expensive gamble for me - and decided to just use Brute Force and Ignorance to work my way through using CC3. BFI has its own reward.
Great, thanks Mike for the info. This really helps me to get going in the right direction. I will definitely check all this out.