Author Topic: v3.56 - Color aerials for most of the USA (Read 12110 times)

ScottMorris · « **on:** November 11, 2008, 03:27:16 PM »

Version 3.56 Beta was just released, which features the new "Color" tileset.

It combines color aerial data from a number of servers into one "mega" tileset.

Coverage:

click to enlarge

For list of states covered go to:

http://www.topofusion.com/color-coverage.php

Here's an example 3D view using the new Color tileset in Colorado:

Same caveats apply -- the server responsiveness and quality vary from state to state. For some reason Texas and Pennsylvania are not in true color -- they are red. But other than that this is some very high quality and a MAJOR improvement for TopoFusion, especially over the black and white DOQQ data from Terraserver which is often old and sometimes fuzzy / washed out.

One Note : if you added your own WMS servers to version 3.55 Beta you will have to enter them again. All your servers will be reset to the default. So, if you need to, copy the strings you set up and have them handy for when you install 3.56.

Otherwise the upgrade should be seamless. Questions or problems, fire away here or in email. Thanks.

mcuma · « **Reply #1 on:** November 11, 2008, 10:57:47 PM »

Scott,

those color aerials are awesome. Makes planning for the next camp spot much easier ;-)

One request. How hard would it to be to add an option to photofusion to use the color aerials instead of the old b/w ones?

Thanks,
MC

ScottMorris · « **Reply #2 on:** November 12, 2008, 03:50:53 PM »

Possibly. In general I plan to take another pass at Photofusion in the next few weeks.

The combination of topo and the new color aerials might be a little tricky, though. The maps are in two different projections, so the photos won't quite be in the same place.

I will see if the HTML output can be revamped in some way to take care of it, though. Thanks for the suggestion.

m38a1guy · « **Reply #3 on:** November 18, 2008, 05:10:10 AM »

I cant believe it! Color aerials are now available? HOW? I mean is this just satview or actual hi rez stuff?

ScottMorris · « **Reply #4 on:** November 18, 2008, 08:21:44 AM »

Yes, they are aerial photos, and pretty high res, from what I've seen.

sanewcomb · « **Reply #5 on:** December 29, 2008, 08:52:51 PM »

The hi-res "color" tiles are a nice addition. Agreed the red states are hard to look at, but AZ isn't really that colorful or true to color either. Looks pretty browned out to me and dark. The hi-res color urban tiles around the Tucson area are some of the best I've seen, but I believe they were commissioned by the city or county and were not done over wide areas. Not sure how they ended up on Terraserver, but glad they did.

I don't know if this would be simple to add or not, but it would be nice to have the new color tiles available in the Show/Download tiles table. Although if you think this might tax the server too much and risk not being able to use it in the future, I'd leave it for manual downloads. (BTW, it looks to me that after downloading tiles, the rectangle of the download remains on the screen, even when a different tool is selected.)

On a related note, it would be nice to be able to adjust the brightness/contrast for this tile set in a way similar to how it is down with the combo tiles, or maybe just add it as an option in that feature.

I am enjoying the new set of images. Always fun to go to your favorite places to see what new views there are.

Cheers,

Steve
Tucson, AZ

ScottMorris · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2009, 10:26:54 AM »

Right, auto download of the new images was purposely disabled in the current version. Will probably add it before the next public release as the servers seem to be able to handle the load.

Brightness and contrast should work, but right now they are very limited. Those adjustments have been a problem in DX9. I still need to see if I can figure something better out.

sanewcomb · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2009, 02:26:52 PM »

Well, on my computer/internet connection the color tiles come down very slowly. Often less than 1 tile per second, sometimes less than 1 every 30 seconds. Comcast. Otherwise pretty good internet transfers. It is night and day compared to the topo tiles coming off of Terraserver.

I support either path. Maybe someday your company will grow large enough to add proxy servers for the tile sets. : )

Steve

P.S. I was thinking that maybe the Google sets could be used as long as they weren't cached on the user's computer. Or is there some other restriction preventing using them in other software (other than a browser)? Seems like a number of websites use the tiles generously, but they may not all be following the license rules.

sanewcomb · « **Reply #8 on:** January 05, 2009, 07:03:39 AM »

After noticing no new tiles being downloaded from the AZ WMS server, I lowered the # of internet connections, exited and restarted.

After loading a few tiles I get this error message

"Custom WMS server returned response that was not jpeg or gif. Disabling internet downloading (renable on toolbar) First 1000 byes:

yU

Continue showing this message?....."

Maybe just a temp glitch, but may have to do with their servers as well. It is repeatable on my machine.

Steve

ScottMorris · « **Reply #9 on:** January 05, 2009, 09:44:13 AM »

Steve--

I just downloaded a fair number of tiles at better-than-average speed and no glitches.

Maybe just temporary? Can you confirm it's working better now?

sanewcomb · « **Reply #10 on:** January 05, 2009, 01:41:25 PM »

Scott,

I'm not getting the error message anymore, but the downloads are extremely slow. Seems like the more that is downloaded, the slower it is. I have set the internet connections to 1.

It may be a function of the use of the site, and ip restricted based on amount. I've been moving around the state to areas I visit often. So far the maps.dat files amount to 880 MB, plus another 1 GB or so before I changed the DXT1 setting. If you've only downloaded a few screens the past few days, that might account for the difference between our experiences.

Thanks for checking,

Steve