Whangarei Northland Scenery

[nzcoaster]

Hi guys

As you know I had started Northland scenery
Northland Scenery Picasa Shots

I ran into a long patch of not so good health and difficulties achieving the results I wanted to fully create the Scenery plus there were areas of permission and licensing to use the scenery for public use .
Well I just found some good news and that is that the exact photo scenery that I have at my home and the source files Geotifs and MrSid is now released Under Creative Commons at
Northland Aerial Photography
Now they are asking money per megabyte just for storage and handling costs but essentially the data is free for public if you read there site ,, they also have other Northland areas

Since I have the Data already in a single Sid format and also I have grid and partitioned that sid to Geotifs with a basic alpha (rather huge 70gb geotifs!!)
I also have the full area although unrefined as far as Blend masks and coastline masks go in FSX Scenery format somwhere on my dvds and backups.
Since the data is now public via the website above, I have emailed Whangarei district council GIS manager to ok my full unrestricted use of the Files I already have ,as that would save megabucks.

Here is some ofthe text of what I have emailed

"just asking can I go ahead and have a team of NZ Flightsim GIS enthusiasts help me out in doing a final package of Whangarei Scenery
since I already have the data and MrSid of the area Whangarei Regional Council have released under creative commons.

http://koordinates.com/maps/northland/#/la...rict-1999-2004/

This would help in the completion of FS enthusiasts ongoing contribution to NZ Scenery
I would like to have it designed and distributed in a way that promotes Northland Tourism and its Exposure to our wonderful area
I need the collaborative help of others to accomplish this and to make sure it is synchronized with areas others are developing.
Thanks and Regard Greg"

If I get the green light to use my existing data from Harvey instead of the above $website I would like to ask for some help to make this scenery happen
as I haven't been all to well in accomplishing the bigness of the project due to a number of reasons.

If you can help please email me Gregs Email address

I just need to wait for a positive response from WDC GIS manager and it should be a happening thing.
I need to wait for his reply so a tad of patience is still needed to use the files I already have.

I hope this is welcome news to the NZ Flightsim community.

Regards to all
Greg

[Kelburn]

Well good to hear you're back in the game!
Great news I must say. I would help but I've got no experience in this but I look forward to the finished product!
Cheers,
Kelburn.

[redkiwi]

I'll get in touch in the new year. Things have been a bit hectic for me and I'm not sure how I'm going to be placed in terms of work next year. If I find I've got some free time then I'd be happy to come onboard and help where I can - I have said I'd do some local (to me) airports first which will put me in a good position in terms of experience to help with a project on a large scale like this.

One thing that just crossed my mind is how much of the inland area (forest and farm) will need to be done photo real once Timmos VLC is released - perhaps just focus on the coastal areas, towns and airfields for the mean time?

[NZ255]

If anyone's got air side access and a decent camera I might be able to build NZWR

[nzcoaster]

Thank you for your willingness to help,

I have the green light so I can get things cracking at this end
My biggest challenge is the water blend masks as you know ..I just need to get a good working method that helps me syncronize the tiles of scenery where they meet up,
I welcome any points to help in that regards as well.

Burning the midnight oil here
Have a good week
Greg

[Timmo]

You're in for a fun time with that water masking....not

QUOTE

I just need to get a good working method that helps me syncronize the tiles of scenery where they meet up,[/quote]
Are you going to join them all up and make one big image?

[Kelburn]

NZ255,
I'm going up to Whangarei to visit family in a week. I should get some airside access at one point hopefully...
Did you want some photos?

[NZ255]

Yes please, all building faces if possible, as straight and close as possible. And some with just an overview so I can get my bearings.

Remember to take pictures of all the little things. Everything you would want in the sim needs a photo of it with all of it in view, things like signs, for example etc

If you can, overcast days are the best, as they reduce obvious shadows, but not to worry if you can't

Thanks

Nick

[Timmo]

Greg are the Sids in NZTM or NZMG?

[Kelburn]

QUOTE (NZ255 @ Dec 22 2009, 02:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes please, all building faces if possible, as straight and close as possible. And some with just an overview so I can get my bearings.

Remember to take pictures of all the little things. Everything you would want in the sim needs a photo of it with all of it in view, things like signs, for example etc

If you can, overcast days are the best, as they reduce obvious shadows, but not to worry if you can't

Thanks

Nick

Yeah, I'll try my best though my thoughts are that I will have limited time available...
You could also give the author of the other whangarei scenery (David Quirey - search AVSIM) cause he had quite a few photos.
Once again, I'll try hard but time will be limited for me (as I mentioned )

[nzcoaster]

QUOTE (Timmo @ Dec 27 2009, 09:36 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Greg are the Sids in NZTM or NZMG?

Hi there Timmo

The Sid file is NZMG (NZGD49 NTv2 Grid)

The sid is about 1.01 GB Total

Though also I have it chopped up and converted to 104 Geottifs with Alpha layer (Photoshop format for tiffs) saved and put back the georeference header with GeoTiffExamine
each one is around 100 to 300mb uncompressed including straight alpha though i guess some don't need the alpha's in all of them unless there on the edges of the scenery or the coastline to serve as a blend feature
The lot including The Poor Knights Island is 14 GB compressed (rar format to save on storage) . If uncompressed to work on them they take up 75 gbs or so of Geotiffs.
I think I've got a converted set of bgl's already for FSX on a dvd somewhere that I used for visualization and planning purposes.
They are really good but do not have fancy blend masks around the coastline which is fantastic in its own right and I really wanted to capture and retain the rustic beauty of them as you can imagine from my screenshots on picasa website
I also have the Poor Knights Islands in geotiff which I had to georeference from scratch.

The following is the Meta Data from Global Mapper 8.03

FILENAME=G:\GIS_PROJECTS\MRSID\COLORAERIALS.SID
DESCRIPTION=COLORAERIALS.SID
UPPER LEFT X=2578125.000
UPPER LEFT Y=6656825.000
LOWER RIGHT X=2655000.000
LOWER RIGHT Y=6566825.000
WEST LONGITUDE=173° 44' 24.09" E
NORTH LATITUDE=35° 16' 44.56" S
EAST LONGITUDE=174° 36' 12.55" E
SOUTH LATITUDE=36° 05' 59.84" S
NUM COLUMNS=102500
NUM ROWS=120000
NUM_BANDS=3
PIXEL WIDTH=0.75 meters
PIXEL HEIGHT=0.75 meters

The Coloring saturation varies a in some areas and is quite vivid as you can see on the screenshots or on Koordinates Northland

Kind regards
Greg

I am really chuffed that Harvey has given the go ahead on this

[redkiwi]

0.75m is pretty high detail. Perhaps they could be resampled down a bit to 5-7m for the wider area and then maybe down to 2m for the 'high definition' parts like the city, coast and airport? That'd save a lot on file size and make it run smoother in FS as well.

[NZ255]

Well, you may as well use what you've got. Maybe if the file is too big you could resample it to 1m per pixel or something.
Also, I would probably split it into 3 or so pieces, because other wise with that bit sticking out on the left you will have to mask all above and beneath it which will increase file size.

In the .ini file put the quality to 85 or 90%, that will reduce the file size greatly from 100% but will still look fine.

Looks like you'll have to recolour it a bit as well, and it's made up of different pictures.

QUOTE (Kelburn @ Dec 22 2009, 11:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, I'll try my best though my thoughts are that I will have limited time available...
Once again, I'll try hard but time will be limited for me (as I mentioned )

Not to worry, what ever you can get

[redkiwi]

Just realised that 'high resolution' according to Robin is 10cm/pixel - this is 0.75m per pixel. I'll think a bit harder before I talk next time!

[NZ255]

Try 7cm, the highest that FSX supports!