TopoFusion support forums

TopoFusion Development => Beta Testing => Topic started by: sanewcomb on February 02, 2004, 02:30:52 PM

Title: Bugs in Beta 1.54
Post by: sanewcomb on February 02, 2004, 02:30:52 PM

1. switching tiles set in 2d mode no longer changes tiles automatically. Must move location to see new tile set.

2. Pressing 'r' in 2d mode shows black screen. Pressing '3' after this puts you somewhere on the equator! Must restart.

3. Vertical Exaggeration is not saved between starts.

I put all of them in one post because this board limits users to 1 post per 25 minutes.

Steve

Title: Bugs in Beta 1.54
Post by: Alan on February 02, 2004, 08:51:07 PM

Quote (sanewcomb @ Feb. 02 2004,2:30)

1. I hadn't noticed that, will look into it, thanks for pointing it out.

2. Sweet, yeah, I added 'r' at the last minute since I thought it would be useful.

3. Yep, you're stuck with our defaults (but get the hack that 'o' and 'p' change it for the current session.)

Title: Bugs in Beta 1.54
Post by: on February 03, 2004, 02:35:16 PM

Just a comment on the directions that went out with the beta. If you download multiple tar/gzip's files and unzip them all at once, you will overwrite files from adjecent segments from time to time. Examples include tortolita and reulas canyon. So, the best fix for this is to iteratively unzip and run sdts2dem one archive at a time.

This process is rediculously tedious. I don't think you guys can expect the average joe to do this. Since the data is in the public domain, is there any way you can mass convert the data and republish it somewhere? Also, it's fairly difficult in some cases to find the file that you want for the area you are looking at.

Last but not least, PRAISE! These 3d views of the mountains are AMAZING! I'm really glad you guys added this feature, as I was considering buying the national geographic software in order to create 3d maps.

Dave

Title: Bugs in Beta 1.54
Post by: Alan on February 03, 2004, 04:58:40 PM

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 03 2004,2:35)

Some of the .ddf files have the same name from different quadrangles?

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 03 2004,2:35)

This process is rediculously tedious. I don't think you guys can expect the average joe to do this. Since the data is in the public domain, is there any way you can mass convert the data and republish it somewhere? Also, it's fairly difficult in some cases to find the file that you want for the area you are looking at.

We'll do what we can to make it less tedious. I've written, and will soon post, a simple program that will unzip/untar and convert the files for you.

Unfortunately, we don't have the resources to aqcuire the DEMs and make them available. The USGS wants $1 per file, and you'll notice that no one else out there has the entire set available for easy download either. We also don't have the hosting space (gigabytes) and bandwidth that would be required.

I agree that it's often a pain to figure out which quad you need, we'll see what we can do about that. I know in the least there are some sites out there that tell you the names and let you pan around to find neighboring ones.

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 03 2004,2:35)

Last but not least, PRAISE! These 3d views of the mountains are AMAZING! I'm really glad you guys added this feature, as I was considering buying the national geographic software in order to create 3d maps.

Thanks!

Title: Bugs in Beta 1.54
Post by: Krein on February 03, 2004, 05:30:45 PM

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 03 2004,2:35)

You're right, the average joe can't handle this and it is tedious. But TF was never for the average joe anyway, and if you want to use the 3D capabilities, there is unfortunately a price to pay.

As Alan said, it is not possible for us to make DEM data available for the whole country. However, I do plan on putting together a southern arizona ZIP (converted and everything), since many of our users are in Tucson.

Title: Bugs in Beta 1.54
Post by: on February 06, 2004, 04:34:28 PM

It's too bad they haven't made the download interface clickable kind of like the map selection in Garmin MapSource (which I suspect you've all used to load topo maps into your Garmin GPS). That seems to work really well.

I ended up writing a shell script to process the zip files, and I thought I'd post it here. It may only be useful to a limited set of people, because I do things strangely. First of all, I downloaded and compiled the unix version of the f123 libraries, which includes the C version of sdts2dem. I store my dem files in a directory which is samba shared to my local LAN and referred to by topofusion (G:\dem). I have a subdir of dem called zips where I put the files when I "Save to..." off the GIS data depot web site. So, if you store your dem files on a Unix box, then this will work. Otherwise, You'll have to adapt for an installation of cygwin, or the like, which includes Unix applications like awk as well as the Unix-like shells for your windblowz box.

Anyway, you will start with a zips sub-directory full of zip files, and end up with a bunch of .dem files in your dem directory full of .dem files named by their established Title (probably the Title you saw when you downloaded it originally).

YMMV. This is the first shell script I have written in over 3 years (sometimes it sucks being in management)

#!/bin/tcsh
# Put this shell script in your directory that you want to
# contain
# your dem files, create a subdirectory called zips and save all
# your downloaded zipfiles from the GIS data depot to that
# directory.
#
foreach zipfile (`ls -1 zips`)
tar zxf zips/$zipfile
set quad=`ls *CATS.DDF | awk -FCATS '{ print $1 }'`
set fileout=`echo "$zipfile" | awk -F'.' '{print$1}'`
sdts2dem $quad $fileout
rm *.DDF
set title=`awk -F, '{print $1}' $fileout.dem`
mv $fileout.dem "$title".dem
rm zips/$zipfile
end
exit

Title: Bugs in Beta 1.54
Post by: Alan on February 06, 2004, 04:59:10 PM

Here's the program that I promised:

http://www.topofusion.com/demconvert.zip

It will do the same thing (roughly) that Dave's script does, but for windows.

unzip it to a directory, then copy your .tar.gz files in there, run 'demconvert.exe' and it should give you the .dem files.