32k BlueMarble Virtual Earth Texture is now available

[bh]

Well...I've loaded 1.3.1pre9 to make way for this virtual texture install and I've a few probs... Saturn is white!...I've seen this on another thread...so I will try to fix this one. I really don't like the black crosshairs...can I change this?,,,I nearly got it with 'Alt -C'...but I got a windows 'Doh' sound?

Just about to install 'virtual texture'...I've had a couple of ESB's so...will post later.

Regards bh.

[selden]

no textures = old Nvidia graphics drivers (apparently fixed in newest)
black crosshair = Win98 Nvidia graphics drivers (OK under XP: black on light background, white on dark)

sorry.

[ANDREA]

The 32k BlueMarble Earth Texture created by Walton Comer is now available for download at http://www.marfig.com/celestia/.
There are two versions. A DDS one weighting 90Mb, and a JPG one with 126Mb. Installation instruction are inside the zip file.Thank you Walton for such a beautiful texture Mario

And many thanks to Mario for allowing its sharing .
And here is my one cent addition to the discussion:
following are three images of the Lake Titicaca, at the Peru/Bolivia border:


The first image is of the Realistic-Earth16k.dds texture-Basic.

The second one is the same 16k Earth but OpenGL-Vertex.

The third one is the 32k Earth Virtual-Basic at level5.

The difference is astounding!
But, and here is my one cent, my opinion is that ALL specmaps are too much "shining", and that moreover their effect should be visible on water and ice ONLY, not on the ground . What do you think about this?
Moreover, having I the Realistic-Earth16k.dds that's very nice, installed and ON in the solarsys.ssc, should it be possible to go "Automatically" from 16k Earth Normal texture to 32k Earth Virtual texture, going from level4 to level5?
Thank you very much for your help
By soon

Andrea

[Guest]

Well bugger me! It works. and looks stunning. I can't get to bed. It is staggering..how does it work?...I don't care at the moment...I'm just going to enjoy the view! White Saturn? I'll fix that one later... Great work Mario!

I've had a few...bh.

[meegja]

This really is GREAT!!! .... downloaded the full DDS version and it works so smooth! No delay what so ever when zooming in or out!
Is it correct though that in BlueMarble DDS mode, there are no nightlights and specularity? Don't know if this is implanted yet or if I missed an option?
Anyway, GREAT work M?rio!!!!!

[bh]

Yes...I also have no specular reflections or night lights.

[t00fri]

Well bugger me! It works. and looks stunning. I can't get to bed. It is staggering..how does it work?...I don't care at the moment...I'm just going to enjoy the view! White Saturn? I'll fix that one later... Great work Mario!

I've had a few...bh.

This really is GREAT!!! .... downloaded the full DDS version and it works so smooth! No
delay what so ever when zooming in or out!
Is it correct though that in BlueMarble DDS mode, there are no nightlights and specularity?
Don't know if this is implanted yet or if I missed an option?
Anyway, GREAT work M?rio!!!!!
_________________
Menno

You describe the typical first 32k sensations very well;-). For that reason, I also could not understand why Don.Edwards was so much opposed to this incredible new level of detail...The amount of detail is so stunning that clouds are just in the way, no matter whether they are 8k or only 2k like my old 'classics'.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

Yes...I also have no specular reflections or night lights.

Then they are probably not set up in the alternative surface definition (did not have a chance looking at walton's *.ctx file)

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

It's 512x512 indeed, Fridger.

You can try and download by chunks and leave it downloading overnight. The server supports resume. But meanwhile Walton is working on a smaller size download. It won't be a big improvement but every bit is always good. I will make it available as soon as he finishes it.

Mario

Thanks Mario, I just managed to download the whole lot (Friday afternoon...). I am looking forward to comparing now the /zoom performance/ (smoothness!) of the small tiles (0.5k) versus my bigger ones (2k) given my relatively slow PIII CPU of 1GhZ only, but my very powerful graphics card.

I shall report about the results tonight...


Another most important issue concerns the color corrections to be applied to the BM raw files. It appears to be a rather mediocre compromise to do those without applying selection masks. Notably the Water has to be enormously desaturated in color, but the land needs /much/ less. Notably the land color along the rim of the Andes in South America becomes to bright (almost white) and similarly other regions.

I have not yet found an ideal solution of spreading the necessary selection mask that I have available onto all the tiles...
So far, I have tiled the selection mask as well;-), but there are errors occuring.

The best would be of course to do the color corrections including the selection masks before anything else is done, but my storage seems a little small. Perhaps, it works nevertheless.

Bye Fridger

[Mario]

Then they are probably not set up in the alternative surface definition (did not have a chance looking at walton's *.ctx file)

That's correct.

Walton referred this to be a work in progress.

Mario

[goodday]

Beautiful! It's worth the download! Thank you, guys!

[Guest]

A have problem with bluemarble_L5. After installation i see only white Earth's surface. Please write point by point where each files should be instaled.

[wcomer]

Hi folks,

Firstly, to address the immense download time, I just downloaded WinZip's CLI add on and have been testing it. It works great and this means that it is relatively simple to batch create .zip files for the a grid similar to DBrady's suggestions (although 128 packages seems a bit of an overkill, I'm thinking 32... depends on what Mario is willing to code into html.)

Second, Fridger, your report on the effects of smaller tile size would be very helpful. If it isn't causing a performance degradation, I want to push on to 128x128 tiles as these will get us down to ~120MB installation size (still ~90MB zip size.)

I’ve found a way to get the installation under 100MB without any information loss but it requires using mixed tile sizes. Specifically 512x512 - level0, skip level[1-3], 64x64 - level[4-6], 128x128 - level7 (For reference I’ll call this a [512, 0, 0, 0, 64, 64, 64, 128] tiling scheme.) It sounds like an odd mix, but on paper that should install to under 100MB. I have been testing virtual textures with mixed file sizes and this scheme appears feasible as Celestia is currently coded; Chris's VT work is far more versatile (pun?) than he originally disclosed. A bonus of this scheme is that the full .zip size would come down about ~20% less as well (~72MB.) An even more aggressive scheme would be [256, 0, 0, 0, 32, 32, 32, 32, 64], which is going to be darn near the most compact that can be done. This shaves off another 10% on paper, ~90MB installed size but still ~72MB zip size. That’s a long way down from the 350MB starting point.

Also, Chris has pointed out that tiles do not have to be square. This can be exploited to reduce the widths of the high latitude tiles. We may ultimately be able to get the install size down in the 70MB range, and the .zip in the 60MB range… time will tell. I’ll be working on this over the weekend and will hopefully have some solutions worked out for the dial uppers before Monday.

Third, regarding nightlights and specular maps. Currently there is a 30k earth night light map provided by BlueMarble. This can be turned into a 32k virtual texture. IIRC, some people have already done this successfully; my first attempt was a dud and I will not try again until I’m satisfied with the surface texture. A 32k specular map will have to be created. Sooner or later one of the amazing graphics artist in the celestia community will make one; however this is a daunting task. Ditto for normal/bump maps. Currently Celestia does not support cloud maps as virtual textures – hopefully Chris will wave his magic wand and grant them to us.

Fourth, Guest, if you are seeing white, it is probably because you do not have any of the higher levels installed. Try to keep zooming in until you are under 1,000 km; the level5 texture should become visible.

-Walton

[t00fri]

Hi folks,
...
Second, Fridger, your report on the effects of smaller tile size would be very helpful. If it isn't causing a performance degradation, I want to push on to 128x128 tiles as these will get us down to ~120MB installation size (still ~90MB zip size.)

Yes, indeed!!

Undoubtedly, at least with my slowish CPU (PIII 1Ghz), 0.5k tiles are much superior to 2k ones
The zoom is /almost butter smooth/ and the fps are a factor 2-3 higher(!) than with my 2k tiles or a one-piece 16k texture (despite having 256 MB DDR on the card!).

Probably the optimum will be around 256 or even 128!!

I’ve found a way to get the installation under 100MB without any information loss but it requires using mixed tile sizes. Specifically 512x512 - level0, skip level[1-3], 64x64 - level[4-6], 128x128 - level7 (For reference I’ll call this a [512, 0, 0, 0, 64, 64, 64, 128] tiling scheme.) It sounds like an odd mix, but on paper that should install to under 100MB. I have been testing virtual textures with mixed file sizes and this scheme appears feasible as Celestia is currently coded; Chris's VT work is far more versatile (pun?) than he originally disclosed. A bonus of this scheme is that the full .zip size would come down about ~20% less as well (~72MB.) An even more aggressive scheme would be [256, 0, 0, 0, 32, 32, 32, 32, 64], which is going to be darn near the most compact that can be done. This shaves off another 10% on paper, ~90MB installed size but still ~72MB zip size. That’s a long way down from the 350MB starting point.

another suggestion by Chris is this:

I have one interesting idea . . . Have you considered reducing the
horizontal resolution of texture tiles near the poles? There's no
requirement that the tiles all be the same size. The circumference of the
Earth at 60 degrees latitude is exactly half the equatorial circumference,
so you should be able to use half widthtextures. At higher latitudes, you
could reduce the tile width even further. This could be a significant
advantage, as my tile culling algorithm isn't very good at the poles
because of the degeneracy in a cylindrical projection.

Third, regarding nightlights and specular maps. Currently there is a 30k earth night light map provided by BlueMarble. This can be turned into a 32k virtual texture. IIRC, some people have already done this successfully; my first attempt was a dud and I will not try again until I’m satisfied with the surface texture. A 32k specular map will have to be created. Sooner or later one of the amazing graphics artist in the celestia community will make one; however this is a daunting task. Ditto for normal/bump maps. Currently Celestia does not support cloud maps as virtual textures – hopefully Chris will wave his magic wand and grant them to us.

I have made 2k tiles of a 16k nightlights file. It is certainly better to redo a 32k with much smaller tiles.

I think for the spec file we really do not need such a high resolution!! 8k seem more than enough I think. After all, the spec file only limits the specular sun reflections to the sea and to lakes. By god, we do not have this toooooooo accurate!

Bye Fridger

[Mario]

Hi folks,

Firstly, to address the immense download time, I just downloaded WinZip's CLI add on and have been testing it. It works great and this means that it is relatively simple to batch create .zip files for the a grid similar to DBrady's suggestions (although 128 packages seems a bit of an overkill, I'm thinking 32... depends on what Mario is willing to code into html.)

I too think 32 is a less daunting number.

Mario

[bh]

Walton and Mario...many, many thanks for your wonderful texture. It's turned my brain around.

To get the spec and night lights you have to edit BlueMarbleDDS.ssc thus...

AltSurface "BlueMarble DDS" "Sol/Earth"
{
Color [ 0.85 0.85 1.0 ]
Texture "BlueMarble DDS.ctx"
NightTexture "lights-aurora.jpg"
SpecularTexture "earthspec4k.png"
SpecularColor [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
SpecularPower 25.0
HazeColor [ 1 1 1 ]
HazeDensity 0.3
}

This is using my existing spec map and night lights texture.

Regards...bh.

[t00fri]

Before we do the "final" production runs on the 256 or 128 tiles, we should not forget this important issue of color corrections to the raw BM texture.

To do a good job, they have to be incorporated with a selection mask picking out the water on the one hand and the land on the other!

Bye Fridger

[wcomer]

Fridger,

Did I read correctly... it runs better at 512x512? That's fantastic!

As for the color corrections: can we use the 8k spec map as the mask for that? You might have to put some gradation at the edges or else there will be hard edges in the water where the 8k specular map doesn't match up with the 32k texture map. This is not my forte; but if you can come up with a CLI sequence to make the spec map usable as a mask then I'll crank it out and upload it instead of the constant color correction version I'm working with now.

In your set of tiles, have you noticed an scratch mark looking errata in the south pacific? If not it must just have been a error in my .tif's from download and I'll reload the files. If they are embedded in the original .tif's then I think I can correct it pretty easily on my end by filling in empty water.

Walton

[t00fri]

Fridger,

Did I hear correctly... it runs better at 512x512? That's fantastic!

Yes, it does. Yet I have now switched off in my 2k tile display also the spec + nightlight + normal map tiles. Then the performance difference becomes definitely less striking, but still clearcut....

As for the color corrections: can we use the 8k spec map as the mask for that? You might have to put some gradation at the edges or else there will be hard edges in the water where the 8k specular map doesn't match up with the 32k texture map. This is not my forte; but if you can come up with a CLI sequence to make the spec map usable as a mask then I'll crank it out and upload it instead of the constant color correction version I'm working with now.

I have a 16k selection map which seems quit satisfactory to me for the 32k resolution. I shall try to experiment with this over the weekend and let you know...

In your set of tiles, have you noticed an scratch mark looking errata in the south pacific? If not it must just have been a error in my .tif's from download and I'll reload the files. If they are embedded in the original .tif's then I think I can correct it pretty easily on my end by filling in empty water.

sorry could not find it. Can you describe it's location a little better.

Bye Fridger

[wcomer]

Specifically,

Code: Select all

level2 - tx_1_2.dds
level3 - tx_2_5.dds, tx_3_5.dds
level4 - tx_5_10.dds, tx_6_10.dds
level5 - tx_11_21.dds, tx_12_21.dds, tx_13_21.dds


Just a question of where the error was introduced. It is easy to correct.