Google Earth for Tiles?

marvin157th · Post by **marvin157th** » 2007-01-20 08:13:14

Hey guys,

I don't really know much about how tiles are created, or what can be used for theaters so bare with me?

I was checking out Google Earth the other day, and to my surprise I realized they have all ISAF bases and KIAI visible and everything here in Afghanistan.

So my question is, can we use that to tile cities? I thought it would be cool to have accurate photos of cities and bases (since there are not that many here in Afghanistan). It would be cool to plot the whole Kabul city right from Google and turn them into tiles for an accurate theater.

Take care
Jody

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2007-01-20 12:05:21

Yes we can use google earth, its just source as any other. However in my opinion those tiles would have to be generic, ie one set for any city you want to tile etc. Airbase tiles would have to be for airbase TYPE, not specific airbase and so on.

marvin157th · Post by **marvin157th** » 2007-01-20 13:48:37

Snakeman,

I would understand that for lets say the Balkans theater. However for the Afghanistan theater, there really is only one major city, Kabul, and very few operational airbases (I have all the data for those). In that sense we could make them specific as it would not be a lot of work. For all the villages etc, we then could make them generic?

Any thoughts?

Jody

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2007-01-20 21:45:20

How many airbases?

marvin157th · Post by **marvin157th** » 2007-01-21 06:47:53

Snakeman,

Operational bases are, KAIA (Kabul Int) BAF (Bagram) KAF (Kandahar) and there is another one in the North, but I cannot think of the name right now. I have maps, that lists them all etc.

There are many, many, other airstrips, but trust me I have seen almost all of them, and they are nothing more than a sand/rock strip with a couple tents and buildings. No ATC etc.

Jody

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2007-01-22 11:17:25

Well then, post the list of the airbases and if you even can get the rough positions so its easily found on google earth.

I don't make any promises but I could screenshot the bases and try to make some tiles lateron, to test how easy it is to produce few airbases like this. Who knows, it might be turn out great.

marvin157th · Post by **marvin157th** » 2007-01-22 15:22:57

Snakeman,

Well KIAI (Kabul Int) is North side of Kabul city, if you look on Google Earth, you can even see the 6 Dutch Vipers parked on the ramp so it is probably from this summer, as they moved to Kandahar now.

KAF (Kandahar airfield) is South East of Kandahar city at long/lat approx N 89o and East 71o.

BAF (Bagram airfield) is just east of the village, can miss it once you locate Bagram (province of Kabul).

These are the current main airfields under ISAF and have been for the past few years IIRC.

Doing these major airfields and cities would be very cool and accurate as there are not many and should have a light work load. There is also tons of vegetation farms surrounding the cities which would add to the realism of the theater.

When I was thinking of adding to this theater I though of three campaigns:

OIF 2001
ISAF 2006
Russian invasion for the easter pilots

The currect ATO for 2006-2007 is:

KAIA - C-130s Belgium
F-16s RNLAF (moved to KAF in Nov 2006)

KAF - C-130s Canada / US / German / French
F-16s RNLAF (Nov 2006)
UK Harriers
Predators
Apaches
Chinooks
Blackhawks

BAF - A-10s
EA-6B
Apaches
Chinooks
Blackhawks
B1B ( I have read reports of B1s used for CAS just recently, but have been unable to locate them)

T_Rex · Post by **T_Rex** » 2007-02-05 18:42:46

Some tips from Ripsaw, a member of FF:

------------------------
Sorry if this is old news. When I discovered this technique I was very impressed at how quickly you can generate tiles.

From the great minds of the MPS team: Tiling edge borders

My example here is the HCITY43x group.

Note the perimeter area of each tile.

Here are the perimeter borders defined (N-S blue, E-W red). Actually it is (for the most-part) just one border repeated. See below.

This then is used as a 'Master Template' for each tile while the 'body' of the tile is filled with individual features. The borders can be further altered, provided that the tile seam edge between the tiles is not overdrawn/ erased.

I've only tried this technique with city tiles but I have no reason to think it wouldn't work for other tile types.

Hopes this makes sense.

Updated 43x series in-sim:
HERE

:cheers:

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 2007-02-13 20:08:31

<Responding to T_Rex's post..."Darth Vader" voice>

"IMPRESSIVE"!

Thanks T. Good stuff to know...I hadn't seen that point made before.

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-02-18 01:00:32

Hi Gang,

Nice to see the PMC back in action!

---------------------------------------------
First attempt at using the border technique on fields as well as urban tiles in combination.

This tile group contains both city and elements of fields/ agri:

Original Tile Group:
• http://www.tamiknight.com/Screenshots/HCITY80x.jpg

Field Border added:
Since I find I'm often erasing most of the other- I thought I'd try this one quite a bit 'thinner'. As you can see the border is actually an unpaved road- whether or not this will become obviously repetitive- has yet to be determined.
• http://www.tamiknight.com/Screenshots/HCITY80x-RBdr.jpg

Urban border components added as a top layer:
Tile "body" elements are beginning to be filled in.
Some care is used in choosing the body layer so it matches the original as much as possible in terms of the "intention" of the MPS terrain geniuses.
It's rarely a cut and paste operation. Once the source images are assembled (from GoogleEarth™) and the borders are in place- each tile can take roughly between 30 minutes and an hour.

(Full Urban tile border at lower right)

T_Rex · Post by **T_Rex** » 2007-02-18 04:03:39

hehehe

That's one heck of a good first post.

ForsakenOutlaw57 · Post by **ForsakenOutlaw57** » 2007-02-19 01:21:20

Inherent problem with Google Earth is that certain parts were taken at certain times (winter vs. summer and it's just one town away) or places that haven't even been snapped yet...

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-02-19 03:03:50

ForsakenOutlaw57 wrote:Inherent problem with Google Earth is that certain parts were taken at certain times (winter vs. summer and it's just one town away) or places that haven't even been snapped yet...

Spot On Forsaken,

That's precisely what I found when trolling through the Koreas.
It seems that augmenting tiles with selected imagery from GoogleEarth is the best we can do at present.

Cheers.

[/img]

Mystic_J · Post by **Mystic_J** » 2007-02-19 17:58:06

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-02-20 10:06:47

Very nice Mystic_J!

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 2007-02-21 18:40:11

Yes...I second what Ripsaw said. Very nice Mystic_J!

@Mystic_J: Can you describe (in detail, step-by-step form) how you did that tile (those tiles?). Specifically, how did you determine the correct scale to cut it into a tile for Falcon? What website you used to get the satellite image from? How you manipulated the image (special filters? recoloring? Resizing?etc). I would like to try doing some of this but I would liket to know the basics of how to go about doing it first. And having a Primer or Tutorial would be great.

thanks!

Mystic_J · Post by **Mystic_J** » 2007-02-21 19:48:31

Its not mine. Its from a guy named Winder. He is in my squad. I'll ask him

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-02-21 21:17:05

Hi Sherlock,

May I interject what little I know of this?

Tom Waelti would probably know this topic (Falcon tiles scaling) better than anyone I'd bet (...except for BaldEagle?).

I can tell you my caveman method of getting a reference scale is probably not efficient but seems to work ok.

To set scale for source material- sat. imagery, ortho photos -whatever it happens to be- I try to find something in the imagery to compare to the 3D Falcon world, such an F-16 on a ramp or a building, etc.
Through trial and error I get the approximate scale that looks right in-sim. Not scientific - uses the old Mk1 Eyeballs.

From there- comparing cars and trucks in the imagery is a rough indicator of scale between samples/ tiles.

Once you have one panel of source imagery to a good scale- use it for scale reference with other imagery you source using the same method.

• Patching together and creating big panels of source material is a lot of fiddley work but the more source material you have that's ready-to-use, the easier it is to build a bunch of tiles and have good continuity between your tile-groups.

The alchemy part:
keeping the correct scale between samples, the subtleties of getting it all to work together in terms of hue, brightness, contrast, shadow angle alignment, etc.
This all is made easier IMO using the border method above.

More later..

Cheers!

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-02-21 21:45:44

Here's a relatively completed tile group using the 'MPS tiling-border method'.

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 2007-02-21 23:49:41

Thanks Ripsaw! That definitely gives me some ideas to try out.

Oh, BTW, ...those tiles are gorgeous!

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-02-22 00:24:21

Sherlock wrote:Thanks Ripsaw! That definitely gives me some ideas to try out.

Oh, BTW, ...those tiles are gorgeous!

Thanks yourself.

I'm really a noob to all this..learning all the while.

A couple random thoughts about GoogleEarth™ and compiling source sample materials.

• If your desired area isn't under a hi-rez footprint or is in the wrong season, etc:
Find the best quality, hi-rez, correct season, etc. imagery nearest your desired region and use it for your source.
• Keep an eye on your scale indicator at screen bottom-left. The more consistant this is between samples the easier it will be to patch into a bigger source image and with fewer errors to correct.

• Displayed elevation data will cause distortion from sample to sample.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2007-02-22 00:56:31

How do you determine the high res status, just by eye or is there some google earth notes or something to specify that?

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-02-22 03:43:55

Snake Man wrote:How do you determine the high res status, just by eye or is there some google earth notes or something to specify that?

Hi Snakeman,

With most available satellite stuff- best rez is one-meter. If you can find ortho-rectified images, you can get much, much better detailed imagery- often one-foot resolution or better.

In GoogleEarth it's obvious where the better detailed stuff is at a pretty high altitude- but whether those pass muster or not- I still use the cars and trucks; "How well can I make them out?" Light, time of day, exposure- it all comes into play.
Tiles without road vehicle traffic ..well..it's totally Mk1 Eyeball territory.

• For general terrain tiles- I'm using 512x512 original and HTile output. Generally, I like to use double-output rez but this keeps the tilegroup .psd 'masters' from being over 300 megabytes each in size.

Cheers,
~R

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 2007-02-22 05:37:27

So you take your screen shot from Google Earth at whatever is decided to be the best resolution. What next? Can you step me through the steps you take?

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-03-04 22:12:37

Sorry Sherlock,

I probably didn't phrase that explanation very well.

In GE™ at a few miles of altitude you can begin to see the patches of higher resolution imagery.
It's from these areas that you gather your terrain samples.
( Interestingly enough in places like the DPRK, the higher rez 'footprints' are often areas 'interest'.

37°46'13.43"N 125°20'20.35"E )

Once you get your reference scale, maintain that scale between samples.
This can be a bit fidgety, in GE™- you move around at the same Elevation above sea level- so you're constantly adjusting elevation to get the correct scale.

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-03-06 03:32:53

Zaggy · Post by **Zaggy** » 2007-03-06 13:21:26

Whilst i can go into detail on various techniques for making 'regular pattern' tiles (Cities & Farms) looks DAMN sexy (and even post old examples from years back), I will be a KILL-JOY for a sec and point out that Google Earth is COPYRIGHTED stuff...

Now having a passing interest in GIS too, i also think Google Earth have got nasty with the odd person for ripping off their imagery too...

That said, if you look hard enough, there are the odd jems out there for imagery (like the NASA imagery of Bahgdad for example) that is sweet to use...

Zaggy · Post by **Zaggy** » 2007-03-06 13:23:37

Just to re-iterate, i think using Google Earth Imagery in a theater, and advertising the fact, would be DUMB!

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-03-06 21:56:38

As I read their data use policies I didn't see any problem with using images in this way- particularly for a non-commercial and so highly modified from the original and additionally blended with other source imagery. These do not represent 'cut and paste': No pixel in a 512x512 tile is original.
While some could conclude derivitive work, with the addition of many additional overlays such as road features, buildings, reshaping major elements to fit- using the MPS tiles as a template, etc.- it does seem changed enough to be well within reason.

Were I selling a commercial product I would have sought out licensing from them. However in such a situation, I wouldn't likely be using Google as a middleman to the data provider for that data. In this case I'd hope that fair use and common sense would apply.

I guess I'm "dumb" so I'll let you be final authority Dan, but I would love to hear any input you have about tile building.

Cheers, eh?

http://earth.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=1141

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2007-03-07 19:13:33

When I made generic tiles the main problem was that with too broad edges, you will get fractal patterns when flying high over the terrain, and that is ...ugly. So the edges in a generic tile have to be very narrow to avoid the fractal (repetitive) patterns. If you want to have variation tiles, for large terrains, more than 10 variation tiles should be made.

As for the problem with lack of woods and 3D structures, why do we make trees instead of a 3D structure called minor, major forrest ? I think it would look better, and have less impact on FPS. The same of course goes for buildings versus block or similar. These 3D structures can of course not be target type 3D structures.

If we pair this with the tiles and hi res elevation data, more life would come to the terrain.

Zaggy · Post by **Zaggy** » 2007-03-08 15:55:35

Nah Rippy, its been looked into with Google Earth for source... And as i said, there are friendlier, safer sources out there...

What Goggle IS great for tho, is building your own textures for say, an airbase... Lay out their imagery in PS on a Layer, then just build on top of it with legal source...

As for other tiling techniques, well, the key is to start with a BLAND generic; no significant features for around 5-10px around the egde... Like stated above, this forms your basis! I like to then cut a 'border' of 2-3pxl from the entire tile, and put this on the top most layer. Then i will paste additional source in a middle layer and blend. The border pixels ensure you dont screw up just a little (which we all do at one stage!)...

City and Regular patterned tiles use a similiar approach at first... First tile, you make is BLAND. Then the key is to past data in, reduce the opacity to 50% or something youre comfortable with, and use a hardedged rubber tool, to take stuff back to 'edges'...

Just some OLD examples from a flight sim that new got to release... These images are nothing but tiles, butted together, no fancy mappings or shaders or anything...

This second was from higher altitude, looking for repeats, which is this image, you WILL see some, that were then fixed...

But yeah, that appears to be all i have on line about it ATM... I can always find more if need be...

Still, I will say it again, using copyrighted source, no matter how much you 'modify' it, always has the potential to go south!

T_Rex · Post by **T_Rex** » 2007-03-08 17:26:23

Nice tiling.

The inlets look alot like what we worked on for the Cuba theater, which ironically was also never released... or finished for that matter.

I think Rippy's workflow is similar to yours, but with a larger 'border' area.

I my experience, getting tiles to be interesting, but not repetitive, is a very artistic endeavor, and every artist will approach it a bit differently and find their own style.

In terms of GE, I think what Rippy's doing is fine. He's more or less using the imagery as inspiration for his own artistic interpretation for what the city tiles should look like.

:thumbs:

Zaggy · Post by **Zaggy** » 2007-03-09 04:14:43

GE for inspiration is GREAT... (as i kinda outlined re: airbase tiles in last post)...

What its also good for at times, is colour balancing... Free sources often dont have the right area's you want, so you'll need to adjust the colour balance to make the colours right... Like more arid rejoins will need the greens pulled back a bit and maybe a bit more yellow and vice versa... Maybe you want to make the area 'snowy' with a bit of colour correction and some layers of white/black 'cloud filter' (with noise) set to 'screen' to give things a dusting, whatever...

As for those tiles in my last post, IIRC, its part of the southern coast of england (of all places)!

As for workflows, yeah, he sounds like were pretty much on the same page there... I have been known to go right down to essentially 1pxl (at 100% opacity) wide borders in places, with whatever blending needed on the next pixels...

The major problems I normally see regarding repeats is either IN the border areas (ie, youve got some manner of specific item in that area, which soemtimes can be helped, so you need to try and minimize it), or the other extreme is too much in the middle of the tile, so you have an interesting area, bordered by 'BLAND'... The only fix for BOTH issues is basically experience; knowing what you can get away with...

And now that ive said all that, i'd expect a good portion of ppl reading this thread will know most of that...

I ramble sometimes...

T_Rex · Post by **T_Rex** » 2007-03-09 13:15:43

hehehe

Yeah, and as long as we're talking about tips'n'tricks

one thing I found is if you HAVE to have recti-linear areas, it sometimes helps to orient them on the diagonal. It minimized any residual edge-of-texture effect, since they eye is being drawn in a different direction. You have to be careful, though, because someone flying at altitude might see the diagonal pattern!

:thumbs:

Zaggy · Post by **Zaggy** » 2007-03-09 15:24:03

Yeah, you never place stuff on the axis of the tile, always an angle... Esp Farms and Cities! You also try to avoid putting 'feature' kinda stuff on the centerlines too...

noname · Post by **noname** » 2007-03-09 15:50:18

Hi everyone,
I just came across this Blog where some peeple report how to get: Super-Close Google Maps Zooms.
regards

Ripsaw · Post by **Ripsaw** » 2007-04-05 18:40:00

noname wrote:Hi everyone,
I just came across this Blog where some peeple report how to get: Super-Close Google Maps Zooms.
regards

Very cool, Hannes.

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