Beta v3.87 out! Shaded Relief

[ScottMorris]

I'm happy to announce version 3.87 is out, featuring shaded relief.



Same scene, no relief, for comparison:



To turn it on, look for this toggle:
(or find it in the Map menu as a checked menu option).

Various options are found in Window->Blending / Shaded Relief.  You may or may not want to have it draw shaded relief on every frame, or perhaps play with the detail level setting.  On my computer the display is acceptable on the middle (default) setting and with it drawing shaded relief on all frames.  Please let me know if you have any feedback here.  I hope to make it faster in the future, but I find it quite usable as is.  I'm just a bit of a stickler when it comes to speed and I know it can be faster.  Maybe in the next version...

For those that have been having issues with the Batch Download tool, I apologize.  This version includes some significant improvements and I have tested with some large batches.  Downloading gigabytes of data from a host of servers is never going to be an exact process, but it's now faster, better reported and much, much more robust.  Specifically, the tool will not report 'finished' until it has verified that every tile requested is present on disk.

Also there are a number of small but nice changes elsewhere in the program:

3.87 – [9/5/09]  (Beta)

Added Shaded Relief to all maps types
-   New toggle on toolbar and in Map menu
-   Options (detail, light angle, etc) are in Window->Blending / Shaded Relief
Added “Land Ownership” WMS layer for federal/state/county land boundaries
  For legend see: http://topofusion.com/images/federal-legend.gif
Multiple improvements in Batch Download robustness, speed and reporting
Added checkboxes for individual tilesets for both Color tileset and all
   Custom WMS servers
Added hover over ‘tooltiptext’ for filenames in the file chooser
Added .prj (projection info) file to shapefile exports
Added ability to read polygons in .kml files (as lines)
Fixed DEM tile border issues in 3D mode (was visible in some cases)
Fixed yellow (highlighted) stats being displayed in multi-playback
Changed time format for multiplayback to 12 hour (am/pm)
CTRL-A now selects all in active file list and track and waypoints lists

Ah!  The land ownership layer is quite useful, especially for those of use that like to plan new routes, especially long distance ones.  Any feedback regarding the accuracy/detail of this layer is gladly welcome.  I'm pretty excited about it.  By the way, the data comes from a BLM server.  Check out the legend:

[tec]

Multi-track playback - why this foramt - Sun Sep 06 09:45:50 AM 2009 and not Sun Sep 06 2009 09:45:50 AM ?

[ScottMorris]

Good point, thanks.

[Rich Owings]

Great stuff Scott! Any chance of blending the land ownership with other views (ideally topo)?

[ScottMorris]

Hey Rich,

Yes, blending with TopoWMS is likely to happen soon. TopoWMS is the seamless (no UTM boundaries) lat/lon (geographic) projected topo tileset from terraserver.  The regular tilesets are in UTM, so it would be difficult to combine them, though not impossible.  It may be that TF defaults to using TopoWMS sometime in the future, but the horizontal distortion (esp. near further north in the US) can be an issue.

[jocoyn]

Used the new feature - nice. Did see though that you have to be careful with angle because it can make your drainages look like ridges at certain angles.

The download issue I have experienced I believe is related to the older topo with the UTM issue.  The ability to control the aerial download is a blessing!

The topoWMS downloaded quickly and perfectly and I think the maps look better.  I sure hate the possible idea of loosing printed maps with UTM grids though!

The FEMA default is now USNG, which is the old MGRS - I am not sure if there is a way I can use this or not with these shapefiles as that is all voodoo to me at this stage.  It is easy enough to translate it from UTM in WGS84.........

http://mississippi.deltastate.edu/

Also Played with land ownership in a small area but did not do with batch download due to added file size but pretty cool.

[sarlabs]

Hi Scott:

As usual, good work! Some remarks though, some may be due to my won klutziness but perhaps not.

Layers:

I would like to see the color aerials as well as landownership made as transparent layers, working like the combo does, if at all possible.

UTM/Lat-long grid:

I cannot get grids on the color aerials (and on land ownership too) which make them a lot less useful for SAR. It would be good to have the other grids that the government is trying to shove down our throats available too, should some bureaucrat run a search... THis is not just a 3.87 problem, it was never possible to have a grid on color aerials I believe.

For my last water search I printed 15 8x11 sheets of color aerials for the segment of the river that I considered relevant. It was great to have them in the field, with much more details than the topos, with rapids showing, islands where they really are etc. Not having a grid made it harder to relate them to the topo maps though. I had it all on the laptop too (downloaded the maps etc.) but on a bright sunny day, it was easier to work with the hard copy.

[jocoyn]

Amir, my "workaround " for the color maps is to export and re-import them and calibrate to the map on the screen. Takes less than 20 seconds but you do loose some quality but then you can lay the grids on them when you adjust the blend. That is part of why the batch download in the new versions was such a good idea because now I can just update my maps for our entire response area [almost] once a year or so. ---- of course we are lucky there are not zone lines in SC though a zone error is generated in the lowcountry that I don't "get".  But when we go to the lowcountry it is to help another team and they will have the maps.


They also scrunch up to align with the topos  [its "magic"]

[ScottMorris]

Thanks for the feedback.  I will see what I can do about getting grid lines on the color aerials in the next version.

Likewise on doing combo maps with color aerial, topowms, land ownership, etc.

[sarlabs]

Thanks for the tip. That's a good workaround and will work for a few sheets OTOH, for 15 as in my last water search, it would be tedious.

[Larry]

Hey Scott,

Shaded relief: extra cool! And the ability to control it is very nice, *way* better than say NGS Topo!


While I'm thinking of it, TF is getting very close to eliminating my need for Topo!, which has not been updated in ages. A short list of features I would want before giving up on Topo!: - the ability to annotate easily, any font, without having it associated with a waypoint. A text tool that is.

 -The ability to draw multiple bearing lines from a fixed anchor with just a left click, and to be able to place a text box with range and bearing near the line via right click. And then the ability to quickly save everything on the screen in one file, without having to think about where each annotation, or each bearing line is saved.

- A selection box for printing that can be set based on paper size, and percent of full size, with allowance for optional legends and/or grid lat lon.

Just a personal wish list,


Larry

[Dwight Sunwall]

all good stuff, I have to agree on the better than Topo! except for printing options.

Where is the land ownership legend located in TF?

[ScottMorris]

It's not actually in the program, only on topofusion.com (as linked above).

I'm not sure where to put a link to it in the program.   Hmm.

[sarlabs]

Suggestion for saved tiles.

When saving tiles, the black square remains on screen to show which tiles where saved. But it does not remain on subsequent runs of TF. It would be good to have a map overlay which would show locations of all the tiles saved, currently and previously too. and that layer should be easy to toggle as needed.

Amir K9CHP

[ScottMorris]

Suggestion for saved tiles.

When saving tiles, the black square remains on screen to show which tiles where saved. But it does not remain on subsequent runs of TF. It would be good to have a map overlay which would show locations of all the tiles saved, currently and previously too. and that layer should be easy to toggle as needed.

A map overlay is not a bad idea, but right now you can save out the black box to a .gpx file (there's a button on the batch download form).  Just store all those and you should be good.

I've thought about trying to depict which tiles exist in the cache, but the different layers and many different tilesets/grid patterns makes it a little difficult.  I think the GPX file box is probably good enough for now.

[sarlabs]

Saving tiles has become smarter from last time I had used it! And the save box as GPX was not really clear as to its purpose. Now I got it!

Thanks

Amir K9CHP

[roger8604]

Hello Scott,
I just installed Beta 3.88.
In Version 3.87 under “Window” ..there is “Blending/Shaded Relief” selection that opens a window with slider bars to make adjustments.
In Beta Version 3.88 under “window” this “ Blending/Shaded Relief” selection is missing.
Am I missing it?
Thanks,
Roger Marquette

[ScottMorris]

Oops, I forgot to mention in the beta release that the Blending/Shaded Relief dialog moved to the 'Options' menu, instead of menu.  Seemed like it made more sense there.