Author Topic: Downloading Tilesets Stalls and Starts Over (Read 5994 times)

Metzen · « **on:** February 22, 2007, 12:32:06 AM »

Using 3.0 I turned off every tileset except for Topo 4 Meter, then selected the entire state of Utah. 0 / 490817.

After a few hours it was 1/4th the way done, but had stalled (hiccup in the internet, disturbance in the force, whatever).

So I hit cancel, drew approximately the same box again, and it started all over again.

I expected that after drawing the box the total would be more like 0 / 380000 or 120000 / 490817.

Were the downloaded tiles just discarded? Is this the normal behavior?

Krein · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2007, 07:59:57 AM »

Disturbance in the force, yep. I felt it too.

It doesn't check which of the 50,000 tiles are downloaded already for the total. So, you do have all the tiles that were downloaded -- they weren't discarded.

They will be skipped as it goes. If you let it go you'll see it goes fast and skips as it goes.

Metzen · « **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2007, 08:06:42 AM »

Like the sound of 120,000 tiles crying out, and then nothing...

Glad to know the tiles are kept.

Thanks!

Metzen · « **Reply #3 on:** February 22, 2007, 12:24:03 PM »

It has restarted a couple of times now. Each time the total is almost exactly the same, but I haven't noticed it going faster than normal or skipping some blocks.

The drawn box is as close to the same size as possible each time (within about 20,000 tiles on a 480,000 tile download).

Unless the tiles are being downloaded in random order, or at least a different order, I was thinking I would see it going faster or jumping ahead, but haven't.

It really does appear the tiles are being downloaded again.

It got to 120,000 the first time, and nearly 250,000 the second time (running all night).

I guess I'll keep watching it and see if I can glean something. Or stop watching and just remember the old proverb, "A watched download never finishes".

Thanks again.

Krein · « **Reply #4 on:** February 22, 2007, 10:51:30 PM »

Hmm.. sounds fishy alright.

I was building trail today, but tomorrow I'll have a look at the box download stuff. I need to give it some proper testing in the Pro version -- it's possible something is messed up.

It might be a problem with UTM zones. One thing to do is check the size(s) of your mapsX.dat files. If they are growing then tiles are being downloaded. Only thing I can think of right now is if the zone is messed up you'd be downloading (but not saving) the white fuzzy tiles that are outside your zone.

I'll know more tomorrow. Thanks.

Krein · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2007, 07:24:23 PM »

OK, it seems to be working OK except for one thing -- the running total. It wasn't being incremented for tiles that are already downloaded just as you noticed.

I've got that fixed but am working on a speed up for user maps that I want to get going before I put out another beta. Stay tuned.

Re: the zone thing. You do need to make sure that you are in the zone that you want to download the tiles for. That needs to be in the documentation, or perhaps the dialog. As long as you are, it should be fine.

Metzen · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2007, 08:59:58 PM »

I was drawing a box that included Utah and a small part of Nevada, which I believe are in different zones.

So you can only download from one zone at a time? Is that determined by where you centered?

Thanks!

Krein · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2007, 09:59:52 PM »

Correct, the zone where you are centered.

When you get a chance head over to:

http://www.topofusion.com/beta.php

And try out the latest. You now should see it going faster when you restart the download.

Also, try your larger user maps. I did a rough test and they seem to be loading twice as fast. I'd still like to get them faster, and I think I can, but this is a big step in the right direction.

Also, as long as you have a relatively (last 5 years) new video card I turned on texture compression for the user maps. In theory this should speed up frame rates if you've got many maps loaded AND displayed at the same time.

Let me know if you think things are better/worse/same.

Thanks.

Metzen · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2007, 10:26:30 PM »

I haven't tested the map downloading yet, but oh man, the user maps are MUCH better!

Bless you! :}

I have 10 user maps totaling 24 MB scattered around Utah, and when I would zoom out before it would really start to stutter and often become unstable.

Now it is completely usable and quite smooth. Nice!

I have about 10 more to add and was putting it off afraid I would never be able to zoom out again. Now I'll add them tomorrow without hesitation.

Thanks!

Metzen · « **Reply #9 on:** February 26, 2007, 10:44:43 AM »

OK, downloading the tilesets makes more sense now, because it goes skip ahead or go faster for tiles that have already been downloaded.

One problem, one suggestion.

After downloading an area for a given tile set, I go to that area and as I'm looking around in that tile set most of them are there, but I'm coming across swatches of tiles that are missing. If downloading is enabled they are immediately downloaded. But since this is a computer for my ATV I won't have internet access, so that isn't an option.

When using the download tool, does it retry images that fail? Perhaps if a particular tile doesn't download, it can be added to an array and after the download operation is finished, the tiles in that array are tried one last time, or even loop through the array 3 times to be sure.

Which leads to my suggestion. When downloading a large area and leaving it running overnight, often I'll come back to an alert saying that the internet downloading was disabled because it couldn't communicate with the server. It would be nice if it retried every 30 minutes (or some user configurable value).

Or have a button that says "Retry", whereas right now your only option is "Cancel". I've tried re-enabling downloading, but then the current download never resumes. Then you have to redraw the box and start over.

Thanks again for the great software. I've always loved TopoFusion since I bought it. But I never appreciated just how great it is until I bought National Geographic Topo!. Their maps are great, but their interface is horrible!!! If they had any brains in their head at all they'd buy you guys up for millions...