Maps of Steve Albers

[CAP-Team]

I know there's another topic around here in this forum, but it was quite old (last post dates 2006). So I thougth I start a new one

I've been using Steve's maps for a long time now, first in Xplanet, and now in Celestia, and I've been keeping track of them since 2005. I visit his site (http://laps.fsl.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html) quite frequently to see if there are updates to his maps.

I thought maybe we can use this topic to point out to other users that there are changes, and maybe Steve can add comments as well.

Today I noticed the following updates:
- 31 march 2008: updated 8K Enceladus map (I have a script available to use in Fridger's Texture Tools to convert this map into a VT)

enceladus_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

- 31 march 2008: updated 4k Mercury map

mercury_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

- 28 march 2008: updated 2k Ariel map

ariel_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

[CAP-Team]

Yesterday 1st of April, the Dione map was updated.

dione_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

[t00fri]

Cap-Team,

the maps of Steve Albers should be very well known to the texture experts and a number of users alike. I hope you took Steve's differing central meridian into acount by horizontally shifting his textures by half the texture width (with wrapping mode activated).

Let me not go into more detail here...

F.

[CAP-Team]

I know the maps are centered at 180° and not 0°, before use I correct the maps (and also generate medres and lores maps as well), ofcourse this could be done in Celestia as well.

[danielj]

I shift the textures by half the texture width and still the locals are not matching.
What do you mean with wrapping mode?Where is this function in the PS?

[CAP-Team]

I edit the images by selecting the right half of the image and pasting it into a new image on the left, and then select the left half and past it into the right half of the new image. After this I resize and save the images for medres (2048x1024) and lores (512x256) resolutions. The hires image resolution I use is 4096x2048, anything bigger than this I use VT textures.
This all may seem a lot of work, but it's what I've been doing for years (using PaintShop Pro 7).

Yesterday a very small update to the Enceladus map was submitted to Steve's site:

enceladus_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

[t00fri]

That's a VERY complicated procedure ...

On any decent image manipulation program (GIMP, Photoshop) it only takes a single click.

F.

[bdm]

Photoshop 7: Filter > Other > Offset, then enter a Horizontal value equal to half the image width, then click OK.
Not sure of the instructions for the Gimp

[t00fri]

Photoshop 7: Filter > Other > Offset, then enter a Horizontal value equal to half the image width, then click OK.
Not sure of the instructions for the Gimp

Analogously in GIMP :

Layer -> Transform-> Offset...

• Enter into the horizontal X field: width/2 in pixels
• Make sure that this is activated (default):
  Edge Behaviour: Wrap around
• Hit Offset.

That's it.

F.

[Hungry4info]

I edit the images by selecting the right half of the image and pasting it into a new image on the left, and then select the left half and past it into the right half of the new image. After this I resize and save the images for medres (2048x1024) and lores (512x256) resolutions. The hires image resolution I use is 4096x2048, anything bigger than this I use VT textures.
This all may seem a lot of work, but it's what I've been doing for years (using PaintShop Pro 7).

That's exactly what I do, lol
Only difference, I use Microsoft Image Manager (or whatever it's called). Lol.

[scalbers]

Greetings Cap-Team and all,

For convenience with Celestia, here are some of the recent map updates I've done in this directory on the web with the 180 degree correction:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/celestia/

Generally in addition to the GIMP (discussed above), I often use ImageMagick with the "convert" and "roll" options to do a 180 degree shift.

Here are some brief comments on recent (and potential future) map updates:

Mercury: Used newer color Messenger image instead of B&W.
Adding in radar data is being explored.

Dione: Improved registration in one of the 9/30/2007 images

Enceladus: Improved the edge blending for a couple of images on 4/3/2008. Glad that Cap-Team was able to spot it Longer term I'm looking at some navigation issues near Mosul...

Tethys: Learning to improve my map based on the way the images were used in the recent official map release. This includes Odysseus as mentioned earlier in another thread.

That's the latest,

Steve

[CAP-Team]

The Tethys map was updated yesterday. Some colour adjustments and some shifting in the south area of the moon.

tethys_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

[CAP-Team]

11th april:

Update of the Mercury map (added a lot of Aricebo radar mapping)

mercury_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

Update of the Tethys map

tethys_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

[CAP-Team]

16 april 2008: some color tweaks to the Tethys map

tethys_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

[CAP-Team]

Steve updated his Oberon map yesterday, to include a little more Uranus-shine.

oberon_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

To use it in Celestia you have to flip it 180°

[danielj]

Interesting.However I saw NO Uranus-shine.
The occult side is completely dark.I tested in both Celestia 1.5.0 SVN R4273 and Celestia 1.5.1.See below:

[CAP-Team]

Steve updated his Mercury map yesterday.

mercury_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

The part of Mercury imaged last January was colorized a bit more.

[CAP-Team]

The Tethys map was updated yesterday.

Part of Tethys is recoloured quite a bit (purple ), and some changes to the south pole.

tethys_rgb_cyl_thumb.jpg

[scalbers]

Greetings CAP-Team. Yes - this was kind of a proof of concept for adding in some color information for the leading hemisphere. Now I can try some needed adjustments

Steve

[RVS]

scalbers, couldn’t you regenerate your maps in TIF format, activating ZIP compression of pictures? This would save plenty of traffic…