User Map Calibration & Image Quality with Beta 3

[Metzen]

I absolutely love the User Map feature, but I'm struggling to get it to work with the image I have.

Here is the image I'm using:
http://www.atvutah.com/tristat....map.jpg

It's a 10.2 MB JPEG, 8451 X 4821.

If you ATV in southern Utah it's a great map.

Two problems I'm having:

1.  When calibrating, I can get close with 3 points (as discussed elsewhere, more would be great).

After calibrating those 3 points I clicked on Calibrate by Hand, expecting to be able to tweak my 3 points, but instead was given two points in the top left and bottom right corners. It seemed to have discarded my 3 calibrated points.

It would be better if you could nudge the other calibrated points (which I haven't found a way to do yet).  Maybe both could be there, "Calibrate Points" and "Calibrate Corners".  In fact, being able to calibrate by all four corners would make a lot of sense.

Calibrating this image may be complicated by the fact that the image crosses over into another zone.

2.  Once I have it in TopoFusion and calibrated pretty close, the image quality is really fuzzy.

Here you can compare the original and how it displays in TF:
http://www.winchesterhills.com/MailDropOrig.jpg
http://www.winchesterhills.com/MailDropTF.jpg

Is there a way I can resize / resample the original image so that it displays better?  For instance, so many pixels per mile, etc?

Thanks,
Metzen

[Krein]

Quote (Metzen @ Feb. 06 2007,9:39)

It's a 10.2 MB JPEG, 8451 X 4821. After calibrating those 3 points I clicked on Calibrate by Hand, expecting to be able to tweak my 3 points, but instead was given two points in the top left and bottom right corners. It seemed to have discarded my 3 calibrated points. Calibrating this image may be complicated by the fact that the image crosses over into another zone. 2.  Once I have it in TopoFusion and calibrated pretty close, the image quality is really fuzzy.

Hi,

Thanks for the quality feedback.

What you expect (being able to adjust all 3 calibration points) is what should be happening.  I will try testing with an image that crosses zones to see if that could be the problem.  I've never seen a map go back to the starting 2 calibration (at the corners) mode -- unless you push the 'reset calibration' button, which I'm sure you're not.

As for #2 - the quality will suffer because your image is so large.   Right now the size of the map is limited by the maximum texture size of your video card.  On most modern cards this is 4096x4096, though it may be as low as 2048x2048.  Simple answer would be to split the image into two pieces.  Or downsampling it to roughly 4000x4000 might work OK (would certainly be faster than having TopoFusion downsample it every time it is loaded).

Next time try switching to the 'select points' tool when you've set your third calibration point.  Also, you can try setting the first two and going to adjust those.  You can do 2 calibration points w/o a third, but have them NOT be the corners.

I'll try a 3 calibration map across zones right now.  Let me know if you discover anything else.

[Metzen]

Thanks for the quick reply.

You may want to download and try that same map, since it will be a good point of reference if we continue this discussion.  It covers the very southwest corner of Utah, and crosses over into Arizona and Nevada a little.

I'll resize or split the image.

Thanks again.

[Krein]

Hi,

I had no problems adding it.  By the way, this is a great map -- I'll keep it in my user map library (though disabled since it is slow to load).

I visit St. George 2-3 times a year and though I mountain bike, this is still a great map.  We've been thinking about linking several of these great riding areas into a monster race loop, and these routes  look interesting for that.

Here's what it looks like on mine (note my GPS data for other rides in the area on there too):

http://www.topofusion.com/images/temp/stg-umap-export.jpg

Your video card must be limited to 2048, since mine doesn't look nearly as blocky.  You can check the Topofusion.log file -- the maximum texture size is output there.

Are you sure you didn't hit 'reset calibration' by accident?  

There's actually no need to hit the 'adjust manually' button.  After you select a calibration point on the map you are already in the select points mode, meaning you can adjust the point you just clicked on.

[Metzen]

I'm pretty sure I found out what was happening.

When I had a problem calibrating the image, I would delete it and start again.  But I ~think~ the program was remembering my previous points and screwing things up.

I would enter points 1 and 2, but when I tried to go further it would screw things up.

The calibration points are associated to the filename, which hadn't changed.

So to try to work around this I loaded the image, immediately hit "reset calibration", which shouldn't do anything, and then proceeded.  Calibration then worked as expected.

You will have a better way than I for confirming whether or not this is happening.  If it is, a simple fix would be to call the "reset calibration" function(s) immediately after adding a new file, before giving back control to the user.

Now the maps look good and I'm able to get them dialed in quite well.  More than 3 points would help, but isn't completely necessary.

Thanks for all the hard work.

[Krein]

Hi,

OK, what you are describing does sound like the cause of the problems.

So, I have a question -- when did you download version 3.0?  Or are you on an earlier version?

I shot myself in the foot on this one -- there are multiple 3.0's, and in the latest I fixed a problem where removed User Maps were not actually being removed.  And I suppose this would mean if you added the same one back you'd get the old settings and probably a conflict / odd behavior.

I can't duplicate it on mine, but of course I have that fix.  Try downloading 3.0 again and let me know if you notice the problem or not.

Thanks.

[Metzen]

I downloaded it yesterday morning (Feb 6th), I think.

I'll download it again and assume it's fixed unless I can duplicate it.

Thanks!

[Krein]

Doh!  The fixes are older than that (by a couple days), so I don't think it covered the problem...

I'll try to duplicate it again with this in mind.  Sorry 'bout that.

[Metzen]

My last week has been a hectic one, so it could have been before that.

The file time on my topofusion.exe is Feb 3, 1:31 PM, but I wasn't home then, so that may have been the time you built the file.

It's 1,916 KB.

I'll still download and upgrade then try to duplicate the problem.

Thanks.