Ground Scenary Moves when applying Blend Mask, how is it possible?

Hi Guys,

I was reading the forum for a while, however I know need some help as I cannot figure it out myself despite the research I did. I am enhancing a famstrip I have found online and as part of this enhancement I need to redo the ground photo realistic texture, did that no problems from SbuilderX, if I apply the .bgl as it is it fits perfectly where it should.

After some trial I have managed to do a blendmask however, despite the blandmask show correctly, the whole texture is totally out of location, checking in TmfViewer I have noticed that the corner do not appear as hidden part (so that could be why the texture isn't where it should be as latitude and longitude are set from the four corners) please see below:

What am I doing wrong? I have tried with TIFF and BMP but the problem is the same, this is my inf:

[source]

Type = MultiSource

NumberOfSources = 2

 

[source1]

Type = BMP

Layer = Imagery

SourceDir = "."

SourceFile = "Benington.BMP"

Variation = Day

Channel_BlendMask = 2.0

ulyMap = 51.8892063698152

ulxMap = -.131149291992177

xDim = 2.68220901489122E-06

yDim = 1.65564313218623E-06

 

 

[source2]

Type = TIFF

Layer = None

SourceDir = "."

SourceFile = "BeningtonB.tif"

SamplingMethod=Gaussian

ulyMap = 51.8892063698152

ulxMap = -.131149291992177

xDim = 2.68220901489122E-06

yDim = 1.65564313218623E-06

 

 

[Destination]

DestDir = "."

DestBaseFileName = "MultiChannel_MultiSource"

DestFileType = BGL

LOD = Auto

CompressionQuality = 100

This is the mask:

This is the original I ma starting from:

I mean the blend works....however the area that is "hidden" isn't complete when I tick "show missing data mask"...

Any suggestion is welcome :)

PS. Please be advised that I had to change the format of the mask to be able to upload it however it should help understanding.

If I download the original images from postimage.org the photoreal source is 5069 x 4454 px and the blend mask is 8448 x 7424 px, yet you have the same ulyMap, ulxMap, xDim and yDim for each source in your .inf and that's possibly why things aren't lining up.

I don't know if the size discrepancy is just what you randomly came up with for uploading the screenshots to postimage.org or if your actual sources are really those sizes but usually what you want to do is open your photoreal source and save a copy of it to another file that will become your blend mask, then start doing the masking. That way both sources are the same size and you can use the same ulyMap, ulxMap, xDim and yDim for each source in the .inf. It also makes it easier to do the blend if you can do it overtop of the original imagery, preferably using layers within your paint program.

If those are your actual image sizes you could try recalculating xDim and yDim for [source2] but you'd need to know the coordinates of the NW and SE corners to do so, they should be in the txt file that accompanied the original map you saved from SBX and this excel spreadsheet should be able to do the math for you:

http://cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/phototiles_spreadhseet.zip

Note: The spreadsheet originated in FS9 so CellXdimensionDeg=xDim and CellYdimensionDeg=yDim when using it for FSX/P3D

If I download the original images from postimage.org the photoreal source is 5069 x 4454 px and the blend mask is 8448 x 7424 px, yet you have the same ulyMap, ulxMap, xDim and yDim for each source in your .inf and that's possibly why things aren't lining up.

 

I don't know if the size discrepancy is just what you randomly came up with for uploading the screenshots to postimage.org or if your actual sources are really those sizes but usually what you want to do is open your photoreal source and save a copy of it to another file that will become your blend mask, then start doing the masking. That way both sources are the same size and you can use the same ulyMap, ulxMap, xDim and yDim for each source in the .inf. It also makes it easier to do the blend if you can do it overtop of the original imagery, preferably using layers within your paint program.

 

If those are your actual image sizes you could try recalculating xDim and yDim for [source2] but you'd need to know the coordinates of the NW and SE corners to do so, they should be in the txt file that accompanied the original map you saved from SBX and this excel spreadsheet should be able to do the math for you:

 

http://cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/phototiles_spreadhseet.zip

 

Note: The spreadsheet originated in FS9 so CellXdimensionDeg=xDim and CellYdimensionDeg=yDim when using it for FSX/P3D

Hi Jim,

Thank you very much (and for the excel file) I have now sorted it out, I think was also an error with coordinates, it now works, shame that the server within SbuilderX for tiles provide very washed out picture, I need to find a way to check if I can buy google data.

I am doing farm strips for the UK (to release for free) so I cannot cover everything with texture :)

Cheers!

I looked at that area in SBX using the Virtual Earth imagery and it really doesn't look too bad, seems the highest resolution available is at zoom level 18 which is quite good, did you capture your map at that resolution?

Also I usually find I need to increase brightness & contrast quite a bit within my paint program to make photoreal look good in the sim, generally it does look pretty washed out if I just use the imagery as downloaded. I use Photoshop CS2 and I usually bump brightness up to around 30 or so and contrast up to around 20, depends on the imagery of course.

RE: distributable imagery, here in the US we have the National Map server and I believe anything you download from that can be freely distributed. If you can find a comparable GIS repository for your area you might be able to download something you can distribute without licensing it. You might try google, search for example "Colorado GIS" replacing "Colorado" with your area of interest and see what turns up.

Doing it that way pretty much removes SBuilderX from the equation, you'd need to write your .inf manually using the spreadsheet and/or most likely you'll also need to reproject the imagery to WGS84 using free GIS tools like OSGeo4W or FWTools anyway so after that, there's a tool available at fsdeveloper.com called GeoTiffToInf.exe that can write a rudimentary .inf for you.

I certainly wouldn't pay licensing on any imagery to give away in a freeware project, lol. Let me know if you need any further help.

Jim