First Look At BlueMarble Next Generation Textures!

[LoneHiker]

I finaly got to playing with the sample textures some more. I have found a few glitches that i hope won't make it into the realease versions. What i found is that there is a dark outline of the continental sheves all around the contenents. They are several shades darker than the outer oceans. nothing that can't be fixed but a glitch none the less.

It's a known problem and is there in the full resolution data. It's been documented at least as far back as earlier this year. Apparently no solution was found (they didn't want to manually edit each set).

The problem is the MODIS data they used doesn't include most of the oceans. So they were given a uniform color.

Another problem is with snow. If you look closely some areas have noticably artificial blockiness. Many areas also have light blue cloud shadows. Snow is sometimes very hard to distinguish and isolate from clouds so they're both in there to some extent.

It was also mentioned that seasonal ocean variations will not be a part of the data (at least at this time). That means no sea ice.

Lone

[Buzz]

Hi Don,

In the pdf with technical specifications (http://www.iac.ethz.ch/staff/stockli/bmng/bmng.pdf), Stockli says something about the deep oceans: he gave them an arbitrary colour because the deep ocean was not covered by the MODIS satellite.

Something else: yesterday I wrote about the need for time-dependent textures. Later I remembered an add-on with continental drift that used a script. I still have that one, so I am sure a changing seasonal Earth texture is possible! I'll have to have a look at it.

And finally: it seems to me that virtual textures are inevitable for these textures sizes. I would be willing to help you with the creation of virtual textures, if I had not already discovered that 32k textures are pushing my old PC to the limit, and I expect file sizes to be huge, and then there are 12 of them! I will probably still do experiments... Who knows.

Bye,
Buzz

[Don. Edwards]

Hey Buzz,
Well it looks like there will 13 textures if you count the bumpmap, 14 if you count on the bumpmaps conversion to normalmap.
I think I have a workable plan for attacking the dark continental shelves. I will be trying this to see how it works. Now as for the seasonal sea ice. I have rough seasonal data that I can use to get close to what we want. I used this data when I created the four seasons textures. So basically it will involve a little more work.

Jdou,
Yes I am sure. NASA has always reserved the high resolution data sheets on a hidden server to keep traffic and load under control. It could take them as much as week to give me the address for the downloads. The present textures being at 21000x10800 will scale to 16384x8192 for Celestia without a hitch. But they are in the .JPG format so there may be some artifacts. But I will need to examine the textures closely before resizing. Resizing can sometimes clear up some of the noise in a JPG image.

LoneHiker,

I wouldn't worry too much about those cloud shadow remnants. We were plagued with all sorts of glitches in the old texture. So I wouldn't expect total clarity here either. Those blue shadows you speak of will in all likelihood be covered by clouds anyway. They will only be an issue when zooming in tight.

Hopefully I can have the first texture ready to go soon. I still have to plug a few holes in the HD 28185 add-on. I also need to get the new Mars texture uploaded. I am going to try and do it from home again, but I won't hold my breath. I am sure I will need to take another 25 mile drive. We plan on changing over to cable modem as soon as possible. We here in the house are all fed up with this DSL service. They have increased our download pipe to 384 from 256 but the upload remains the bottleneck and the main problem. I will keep everyone posted as things progress, texture wise that is.

Don. Edwards

[fsgregs]

Don:

Holy Crap! As soon as I think Earth can't get any better, you come along and do just that. What beautiful work. I love the blending of your ocean colors with Blue Marble. It feels perfect.

I see relief in the images. Did you create a Normal map or is that the bump map that came along with Blue Marble?

Also, can I assume you will release your new textures in not only 16K but 8K and 4K?

Frank

[Don. Edwards]

The normalmap is my older 16k that I never did get uploaded. Although BlueMarble has a new one so I will be making a new all over again.

As for the textures I hoping to have something to show by now but I had to work the last 2 days and I am starting to get somewhat of a social life again. I lost some weight over the summer and I am feeling better and have allot more energy. P

Of course this also means that I have been sitting at my computer less often and I have been getting a bit board with staring at it. But I should still be able to do a texture a month once I get the ball rolling.

Don.

[cartrite]

These files are a bear to work with. I managed to lighten the coastal waters.
Don't know if I like the ocean color. This is from part of the 10/2004 b1 world file superimposed on the old blue marble vt. level 3 and level6.



[/img]

cartrite

[Don. Edwards]

Hey thats a good start. My plan of blending my ocean layer with the new textures will lighten the the water just a little. I will have to be carefull not to let it get too bright of blue. Keep at it, it does look good.

Don.

[PlutonianEmpire]

Nice texture

And besides, the current ocean colors are too green anyway, IMO.