Author Topic: TopoFusion and Direct3D (Read 12573 times)

Krein · « **on:** September 29, 2006, 01:40:23 PM »

TopoFusion was originally written with DirectDraw7. This made sense since it is primarily a 2D application. However, DirectDraw is becoming antiquated and current versions of Direct3D have some cool features for doing 2D stuff in 3D mode.

The upshot of this is that we've moving TF to Direct3D. One goal is to modernize it, but mainly we want to optimize and take advantage of some new cool features.

Some things we've been able to take advantage of so far:

Anti-aliased track lines (smoother, less jaggy)
Better control of line width, dashing, transparency
Bilinear filtered sprites (runner, cyclist, etc)
Rotating sprites (runner, cyclist)
Animated sprites
Faster on higher end cards (optimized for 3D)
Easy "combo" tiles - will support comboing of all types of maps
Much faster combo tiles
Faster text output (waypoint names, etc)

That's only the beginning though. We plan on doing a lot more cool graphical stuff that wasn't possible before.

For a little preview, check out this movie:

http://www.topofusion.com/images/running-TF.mpg

It shows the runner icon both rotating along with the angle of the track and also running!! We didn't think it was going to be as entertaining as it turned out to be.

Another note - the runner's legs move faster and slower depending on how fast the GPS track being played back is going, including going crazy at really high speeds. We're working on a new bike icon with spinning wheels, too.

Stay tuned for more cool stuff and for a full release of TopoFusion in Direct3D.

Krein · « **Reply #1 on:** October 04, 2006, 10:07:13 PM »

Here's another screen shot from the development version of TF:

Some things happening here:

1 - We have much larger tiles than before. It's possible to look at the whole world at once.

2 - The image is from 08_26_2006 and represents the cloud cover at that time. There is a daily archive for the last two years. It'll be cool to check out conditions on a given day of a ride/hike/run/whatever.

3 - Transparent lines for state boundaries and (kind of) the red tracks in the pic.

4 - Lat/Lon (geographic) projection. Had to make this change to properly use the Nasa OnEarth server. Loading tiles from that server is much, much faster now.

More coming....

Krein · « **Reply #2 on:** October 29, 2006, 02:44:47 PM »

Here is another screen shot, this one showing off some the new PhotoFusion features:

Yep, photos on the map, semi-transparent. Mouse over enlarges the photos, and clicking on it opens up your computer's jpeg viewer on the file.

Photos are also now simply waypoints with a filename associated with them. So you can move photos around. The photofusion dialog is only used to place the photos initially. (Before all photos were tied to the tracks).

Playback with a photo enabled track enlarges each photo as it is reached. It's pretty cool.

This also gives the functionality to add a photo that doesn't have EXIF info, or was taken from a different day, or whatever, to a map.

Still working out improvements to the HTML generation stuff, as well as trying to keep the display as fast as possible.

Krein · « **Reply #3 on:** December 02, 2006, 12:38:50 PM »

Just another quick update on a new feature in progress:

User scanned maps! Finally!

Here's a screen shot:

Right now it's google maps style -- you can reposition and resize the map using the mouse. There's a user map library window that you use to add maps, turn them on/off, etc. Still to go is calibration via points. Just trying to work out the best way to make this process as easy as possible.

Bosti · « **Reply #4 on:** December 02, 2006, 01:43:18 PM »

Just, one word: Superfine!

When do you plan to publish this update?

Krein · « **Reply #5 on:** December 02, 2006, 01:51:38 PM »

Sometime this week! Stay tuned.

Bosti · « **Reply #6 on:** December 03, 2006, 12:35:53 PM »

Hi!

One little request about FotoFusion.

Could you add possibility to select which map or aerail should be used for background. This would be very useful, when we could add our own maps - for now I have always just white background.

Thanks, Bosti

Krein · « **Reply #7 on:** December 03, 2006, 07:59:46 PM »

Yep, that's the plan for PhotoFusion.

User maps will show up if you just have them on (over any current map), so you'll be covered there.

But we want to make it possible to choose which background maps you get in the HTML page.

dumketu · « **Reply #8 on:** December 05, 2006, 05:05:28 AM »

Waiting with baited breath! This looks to be a significant leap forward for TopoFusion! Excellent!

Brian

Krein · « **Reply #9 on:** December 13, 2006, 02:15:25 PM »

Hey guys, sorry about the delay. Cleaning up other small issues before getting this version out.

2.984 is up. I'll be putting together the email and some info on the beta forum later today.

Thanks.

Bosti · « **Reply #10 on:** December 13, 2006, 05:11:38 PM »

Hi!

I tried to calibrate my map. It looks simple, but I have a few problems:
1. first of all, how to save the calibration?
2. what's the best procedure to calibrate big map (around 10 km * 10 km). I used a track to calibrate, but when i do zoom out, i can not recognize the points of track anymore... advice please...

Thnx, Bosti

Krein · « **Reply #11 on:** December 13, 2006, 05:40:49 PM »

1 - calibration is automatically saved, no need to do anything
2 - Not sure I understand. It might help if you send me (smorris@topofusion.com) the track and map. So far I've only calibrated things using U.S. topo maps from terraserver as a reference.

You can zoom in, zoom out and pan around as you are choosing the calibration points. One tip: hold CTRL down when you are in select points mode -- this switchs you temporarily into pan (hand) mode -- it works for all mouse tools, but it's especially useful here.

So there shouldn't be a problem of zooming out too far and not being able to see what points you are clicking on.

You can also get the points "close" and then just adjust them using the select points tool. Transparency is nice here.

gpsdualsport · « **Reply #12 on:** December 18, 2006, 08:41:14 PM »

What is the recommended graphics card for use with the new Direct3D features?
My old computer hardware will not run the new Beta flavors.
Rather than beat up the overworked programmers to write code to work with graphics systems that are over 5 years old I'm buying new hardware.
Which list is shorter?
Current graphic cards that will not work with Direct3D?
Current graphics cards that will work with Direct3D?
Since I'm not a computer game guy I building a mid performance system and want to make sure the graphics card works with Direct3D.
Any recommendations?

Krein · « **Reply #13 on:** December 19, 2006, 07:35:10 PM »

Thanks for sparing us a beating.

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The shorter list is definitely current graphics card that will not work with TF Direct3D. Pretty much any new card should be able to handle it.

The only thing I'd steer away from is 'onboard' graphics cards. Get a dedicated card from nvidia or ati (even a cheap one) and you won't have any problem running TF.

You could check for DirectX 9.0c compatability, but that's pretty much a given.