Elevation Tiles- Comments

[KenF]

Just comments-
Wow! Is that S-L-O-W!
Any way to store data or imagery to speed it up?

Interesting feature but, for now, I cannot envision any real "use" for it. 
But that's just me. Maybe using it in some  "combo" display may prove beneficial.
For now, the glacial redraw speed is likely to inhibit my desire for playing with it much.

But one small detail that I do like is the "maximum/minimum" elevation (shown in "Relief/ Elevation Tileset Option" box) for the displayed view.
I would love to see those figures added as a "permanent" part of the displayed elevation data in the bottom bar, along with cursor elevation as is presently shown there. That would be an easy addition, wouldn't it?

KenF

[ScottMorris]

Ken,

Wanted to clarify one thing -- are you talking about the redraw time when the tiles come in from being 'downloading' tiles to displaying?  Or are you seeing slow redraws even after the tiles have been generated and are visible?

They are slow to come in, but once there, should be fast.

It's just a different way to visualize data, and yeah, used with combo you can get some neat effects.  Good for pretty pictures, but not necessarily planning trips or what not.

Re: max/min - I could try.  It might be a tad slow to have always displayed, but perhaps if there was a second delay before it appeared it might be cool.

Thanks for the feedback.

[KenF]

Ken,

Wanted to clarify one thing -- are you talking about the redraw time when the tiles come in from being 'downloading' tiles to displaying?

Yes, that seems to be the case.  Lots of "downloading" even for areas where elevation data should have been acquired in the past.

  Or are you seeing slow redraws even after the tiles have been generated and are visible?

That seems to be true too. Example - when changing from "color aerial" display to "elevation" the whole process, downloading and all, seems to start over. The same thing seems to happen when  the "shading preset" is changed while viewing an "elevation" screen.

They are slow to come in, but once there, should be fast.

Not knowing what is going on behind the scenes I don't quite know what I am seeing - but it just seems agonizingly slow. MUCH MUCH slower than the other views that I typically use  (Color, MyTopo, or combo )

Re: max/min - I could try.  It might be a tad slow to have always displayed, but perhaps if there was a second delay before it appeared it might be cool.

Or maybe avoid constant on-the-fly calculation by just adding a control to allow showing it upon request for a given view, turn it off if and when the the view has changed.   

KenF

[Seebonk]

Elevation was not slow enough to be annoying on my system.  (Q6600 2.4GHz).  In fact it does OK on my Win 7 laptop.

The really annoying thing is how long it takes TF to exit (not just beta version).  10's of seconds.

[KenF]

Elevation was not slow enough to be annoying on my system.  (Q6600 2.4GHz).  In fact it does OK on my Win 7 laptop.

Example of what I am experiencing:  Looking at an elevation display representing  a 4x3 mile area right around home (and viewed regularly) - If I change the shading preset (and nothing else), the fastest redraw I have seen is about 40 seconds,  but it can takes several minutes.
This is on an an admittedly old machine running at 2.4 Ghz. 

The really annoying thing is how long it takes TF to exit (not just beta version).  10's of seconds.

And for me, exiting is instantaneous.

KenF

[ScottMorris]

Ken -- sorry about the confusion with the downloading tile.  The elevation data is there, so the downloading tile is misleading.  It just shows that tile while the tiles are being generated.  I should plug something different in.  The speed that the tiles come in is definitely tied to your processing power.  I've never seen it take 40 seconds.

When you change the 'shading preset' -- you mean the color scheme, right?  That will force a regeneration of all elevation tiles -- so that is the expected behavior, I think.

[ScottMorris]

The really annoying thing is how long it takes TF to exit (not just beta version).  10's of seconds.

Wow, wonder what is up with that.  Shouldn't ever be more than a second or two.  Sometimes it can stall a bit if it is waiting to kill threads.  How many download (internet tab under prefs) threads do you have yours set at?

[KenF]

Ken -- sorry about the confusion with the downloading tile.  The elevation data is there, so the downloading tile is misleading.

Yes I understood that possibility. I long ago learned not to necessarily believe that a computer is doing something just because it says it is.

But the time involved, in my case, would certainly seem consistent with a new download of elevation data.
 

When you change the 'shading preset' -- you mean the color scheme, right?  That will force a regeneration of all elevation tiles -- so that is the expected behavior, I think.

Yes color scheme from selectable presets - simply changing from "Classic TF"  to "hot/cold" will do it. 
But I also ran into the "downloading" behavior when switching to a 3D view even though the elevation tiles had been fully rendered in the 2D view. In other words from a nice colored (and shaded) 2D display of elevation tiles, I hit "3" and I see a display comprised of black and white "downloading" tiles, but in full 3D.


KenF

[KenF]

Re: max/min - I could try.  It might be a tad slow to have always displayed, but perhaps if there was a second delay before it appeared it might be cool.

OK, call this a feature request but I see the max/min elevation having more than just passing interest.

How about not just identifying the max/min elevation of a view but providing a tool to tag those location(s) with something like a temporary waypoint(s)?

A simple version would simply identify any point that shares the max/min value and note that there are other with identical values.
A more sophisticated version would identify and mark numerous points, maybe with a threshold distance required  between them before they are considered "different" locations.
Or perhaps, instead of a point, a region which is the highest.

Hmmm....,

OK ....that can be done now to some extent with  the elevation tileset by using the "Get max/min from the current scene" option and then changing the min value manually to something like Maxelevation-100.

Never mind, what is needed for the elevation tiles is an option to have "transparent" as a color option, for areas tiles that are inside or outside the selected "elevation range."

[edited]
In other words, if an elevation isn't in the selected range, don't paint it.

That would greatly enhance the usability and flexibility of coloring by elevation.
It would also be nice to have user selectable "breakpoints" for elevation shading along with the selectability of max/min as it exists now.

How about adding more choices for color range like 7 instead of 5 and make  "transparency" an option for any of the custom color boxes, but especially for the first and last.  

Now I am starting to see some usefulness (well, stuff to play with anyhow) for the elevation tiles.
Did I mention they are too slow?  

KenF  

[ScottMorris]

Thanks Ken, those are good ideas.  I do plan on adding more colors and the ability to select ranges for each color, not just the min/max as is now.

Having a transparent option for each color is a great idea I hadn't thought of.

Slowness -- I can, in the future, try using multiple threads to generate the tiles.  On machines with multiple cores it would definitely speed things up.  Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Having waypoints for the high points in a scene is an interesting idea, I'll have to think on that a bit.

Thanks for the feedback.

[ScottMorris]

But I also ran into the "downloading" behavior when switching to a 3D view even though the elevation tiles had been fully rendered in the 2D view. In other words from a nice colored (and shaded) 2D display of elevation tiles, I hit "3" and I see a display comprised of black and white "downloading" tiles, but in full 3D.

Right, that is because you are using the texture multipler to get a higher resolution texture in 3D mode, so it is actually going to the next detail level of tiles -- which them need to be generated since they haven't yet.

Just wanted to note that this is expected...

[KenF]

I do plan on adding more colors and the ability to select ranges for each color, not just the min/max as is now.

Having a transparent option for each color is a great idea I hadn't thought of.

Next step - There's some obvious correlation that can/should exist between elevation shading, track shading and profile shading
 
But, in particular, the horizontal or vertical  color coding of the profile tool should be able to match the elevation shading.

KenF

[ScottMorris]

Yep, an option to lock them together would be great.  I see both ways being useful though -- correlating them, or not.  Thanks.

[KenF]

Yep, an option to lock them together would be great.  I see both ways being useful though -- correlating them, or not.  Thanks.

Yes, there is the obvious "problem" that if tracks are shaded by elevation, a track would become invisible against identically shaded elevation tiles.
KenF