Ps 30000 px limitation

[Opteryx]

Hi, I'm trying to create a terrain at a size of 40960 x 40960 meters, that would mean if I'd like the terrain to have 1 px = 1 m my settings/data would be:

heightmap = 2048 x 2048 px
cell size = 20 m
Sat/mask = 40960 x 40960 px

However there's a limitation in Photoshop that hiders me from saving common formats such as png above 30000 px.
Of course I could resize my sat/mask to 20480 x 20480 px and use that, but from previous experience I've learned that 1 px = 2 meter doesn't look very pretty.

What I've tried is to use a 30000 x 30000 px sat/mask, on previously mentioned settings, ie.:

heightmap = 2048 x 2048 px
cell size = 20 m
Sat/mask = 30000 x 30000 px

This did not however work as Visitor does not seem to accept this (some warning about texels yadda yadda..)

I was under the impression that the satmap size does not matter, but apparently it does.. or have I missed something fundamental here??

So, is there anyway for me to get around this? Any plugins for PS or or any other image editors that can import PSB format and export as png above the 30000 px limit in PS?

[Nicholas Bell]

Quote[/b] ] was under the impression that the satmap size does not matter, but apparently it does.. or have I missed something fundamental here??

When importing the satellite image it gets chopped up into tiles sized according to your Terrain Grid Size, as set in Parameters. In your very helpful tutorial you used 512 x 512. The sat image needs to be in multiples of this size. So maybe sizing it to 29,696 would work (?).

Sorry I can't help you with the PNG size limitation. Just thinking out loud, I thought you mentioned you were using Photoshop elements. Maybe the full blown version would allow this?

[Opteryx]

Oh Doh, didn't think of that the segments needs to add up with the sat height/width.

Will investigate further...

-edit-

Yup, did some calc and ended up with the same number as you, it works. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

However I'd still like a 1 px = 1m though. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

[surpher]

Could you save it as a TIFF then convert it to a PNG outside of Photoshop?

[Opteryx]

Could you save it as a TIFF then convert it to a PNG outside of Photoshop?
Can't check right now cause I'm opening a 4.5 gb psb which takes about 20 min....

..but as far as I remember I still could save as PSB and TIFF when exceeding the 30000 limit.

Was there any particular software for conversion you had in mind?

[surpher]

Was there any particular software for conversion you had in mind?
Not really, you should be able to find a free TIFF>PNG convert somewhere on the net.

Anyway I think TIFF's have a limit of 4Gb http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif

[Opteryx]

Anyway I think TIFF's have a limit of 4Gb http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif
Yep..... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

-edit-

I guess we can't always have our cake and eat it too, but with a 29696 px sat res, a px will be 1.379 m which isn't really that bad I guess so I guess I'll just have to go for that now.

If anyone else still has an idea how to get png's bigger than 30000 px I'd still like to hear it though.

[fasad]

The cause of the limit may be as simple as by the 32-bit O/S maximum file size of 4gb? Does anybody use Vista or some other 64 bit OS with a 64 bit version of Photoshop (assuming such a thing exists)? I use photoshop 6 which has a limit of 26754x26754 (maybe its older than NTFS and has 2gb filesize limit?). I'll have to buy a new version while i'm still a student.

As for overcoming it, I'm not sure... I thought of using dummy terrains and manually joining their sat/layer masks together, but since (I assume) the pew/wrp's rvmat references are created during the import process, it won't work...

~30000x30000 is big enough to keep us busy for a year or so anyway, not to mention a 1gb+ distribution file size.

[Opteryx]

Well, after successfully getting the map ingame there wasn't much more to yell success about..

Terrain is extremely laggy on low/normal texture settings (works on high/very high), takes a long time to load and is way to unstable to be deemed playable.

Seems like my only option now is a 20480 sat stretched out over a 40 km terrain...

[Snake Man]

fasad is absolutely correct, have you even estimated how big the rarred up terrain pbo package would be for download in that satellite layer size?

[Opteryx]

fasad is absolutely correct, have you even estimated how big the rarred up terrain pbo package would be for download in that satellite layer size?
Oh I wasn't really planning on releasing it, was just testing something.

[fasad]

I asked about this topic on the Adobe photoshop forums. Amongst all the helpful "photoshop 6 is old!" and "50000x50000 is too big to print" replies, someone suggested that "Photoshop CS" (i think that's 8+) can create 300,000 by 300,000 pixel images in PSB format.

btw Opteryx, the satmask does not need to be a simple multiple of the terrain-size in meters. The main restriction is that each satmask segment can be cleanly divided into 12 texture segments. Enter the largest multiple of your terrain grid that you can make, choose a enter roughly the segment size you want. Look at the "proposed segment overlap", and manipulate the segment size and overlap until both the proposed and calculated terrain grid are equal, and suit you. I haven't thoroughly tested the performance impacts of lots of small segments vs large ones, but it seems loading time is the biggest factor in what testing I have done so far. The benefit of smaller segments is a reduction in the restrictiveness of the 4 surfaces per segment rule. The layers folder also ends up with ~60,000 files in it http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[Opteryx]

Yeah PSB can handle huge images, but most common formats aren't supported above 30 000 px.

It's seems like satmaps that aren't using a Power of Two size are very unstable, at least that's my experience.

Also bigger segments seems to give better performance, when I made Sakakah, I initially used 512x512 segments, after changing them to 1024 I seemed to have a major boost in frame-rate.

[Nicholas Bell]

"Note: You can open created PNG size up to 40960x40960px in Photoshop CS and higher."

Stumbled on this on the Biki:
Making Satellite Texture and Mask (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Making_Satellite_Texture_and_Mask)

[Opteryx]

"Note: You can open created PNG size up to 40960x40960px in Photoshop CS and higher."

Stumbled on this on the Biki:
Making Satellite Texture and Mask (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Making_Satellite_Texture_and_Mask)
Gee I wish that was true though. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/confused_o.gif

In any case, I used a 20480px and the result was surprisingly quite good, also performance is terrific!

PICTURE (http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee219/Opteryx_album/arma2007-12-1307-04-07-87.png?t=1197666855)

[Nicholas Bell]

Excellent, realistic mountains. Very nice indeed.

[.kju [PvPscene]]

One question mate.
Why do you not split your sources into various smaller islands?

[fasad]

For what it's worth, the PNG format supports images with dimensions up to 2^31 -1 (= 2,147,483,647) pixels in each axis. Source (http://dl.ambiweb.de/mirrors/www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/toc.html).

[Opteryx]

One question mate.
Why do you not split your sources into various smaller islands?
Cause I like huge terrains. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif


Quote[/b] ]For what it's worth, the PNG format supports images with dimensions up to 2^31 -1 (= 2,147,483,647) pixels in each axis. Source (http://dl.ambiweb.de/mirrors/www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/toc.html).]

I don't doubt that for one second, but PS doesn't allow me to export above 30 000.

[.kju [PvPscene]]

Same here Opteryx. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

No stuff or little less huge islands. Isn't the choice simple?


Boundaries are to be broken people say.
People are not always wise in their reasoning.

[Linker Split]

dunno m8, try this one:

Pixel Dragons Ltd Releases New Update For Image Genius Professional™ V 3.1.0 (http://www.prlog.org/10008266-pixel-dragons-ltd-releases-new-update-for-image-genius-professional-3-1-0.html)

[[APS]Gnat]

Lovely look it has Opteryx http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/thumbs-up.gif

Have u considered a tool that stiches smaller sections togther to make your larger file?
I'd love one that would stitch multiple OFP terrain tiles together .....

[fasad]

I haven't tested it thoroughly yet, but I've found a set of command line based tools called ImageMajick (http://www.imagemagick.org/) that can join multiple images into one. It's just successfully combined 4x512x512 pngs -> 1x1024x1024 png. I'll push it a little harder...
- 4x6400^2 -> 1x12800^2 works (~5 mins process time)
- 4x12800^2 -> 1x25600^2 works (~50 mins process time) (this is the size I want and my photoshop can't save png's this size)

The merging doesn't use much CPU, but a lot of HDD activity. I'm not going to test anything larger now, maybe overnight...

[Opteryx]

I haven't tested it thoroughly yet, but I've found a set of command line based tools called ImageMajick (http://www.imagemagick.org/) that can join multiple images into one. It's just successfully combined 4x512x512 pngs -> 1x1024x1024 png. I'll push it a little harder...
Ohh sounds intriguing. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

[[APS]Gnat]

Its a nice tool, finally found something to make (convert) 16bit grayscale PNGs with.
..... but I don't see the commands to stitch together images ..... wheres that fasad ?

[fasad]

The command tools are just executables that live in the programs installation folder. You have to run them from the command prompt with appropriate options.

It took me a while to figure it out too, the documentation doesn't seem to bother covering such simple things.

edit: oh, the exact command I used was "montage", using the geometry option to prevent any borders being added.

[dmitri]

Anyone running into errors trying to stitch large images using montage? Gives errors with image sizes over 10000 for me.. Works fine for lower sizes.

[Opteryx]

Anyone running into errors trying to stitch large images using montage? Gives errors with image sizes over 10000 for me.. Works fine for lower sizes.
I've tried trial versions of several professional image stitchers and every single one ran out of memory, perhaps the same issue here?

[dmitri]

I found a solution, but ArmA's performance is quite poor at 50000+ pixels. A lot of drive thrashing\stuttering as the textures are loaded.

Playing with segment sizes might cure this, but I haven't been able to investigate further.

[Allie]

How about CS3 ?

I'm d/ling that now.

Coreldraw is able to handle the really big pictures, downthing is, you have it in .cdr format, havent figured out to convert to png yet.

But thinking of using 30.000 x 30.000 pic on a 40960 x 40960 m island, this will give me a resolution of about 1.3 meters a pixel, thats not bad i think.

I will give a shout if i found some else to handle the big ones.

Later,
Allie

Really have a try with that " Google Maps Images Downloader"
You have to buy probably, to get it to work for the high detail, but it does work.
It creates BMP files so again after using this programm you again have to glue these created big bmp's together.
But to create a island of 40Km's its just 16 pics you have to glue together, instead of 40 x 40 pictures = 1600

This is the tool you want, the free version allows you to do all, but not the really high detail.

http://www.aaaasoft.com/gmid/

[dmitri]

I'm using CS3, same 30 000 x 30 000 PNG restriction.

It's easy to circumvent though. Save out as multiple files and stitch separately.

Software that stitches panoramic photographs works great. Specifically, the mosaic, or flat stitching feature (since no lens correction is required).

I've had no luck with Google Maps Images Downloader. It freezes or crashes out after creating the download list.
A solution is to use a browser window spanned across 3 monitors at a very high desktop resolution (I use 5760 x 1200). This way when you print screen or region capture (http://www.codeplex.com/cropper) the areas are large and there's less work stitching in Photoshop.

[RN Malboeuf]

Can't you guess that it's close to impossible to edit such files ? You'll get out of ram too soon http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif I guess sat mask have to be edited in pieces and merged afterwards

[dmitri]

Can't you guess that it's close to impossible to edit such files ? You'll get out of ram too soon http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif I guess sat mask have to be edited in pieces and merged afterwards
That's what swap files are for.

Anything below 30000 is easily manageable with 3gig ram and a 64-bit OS. But yeah, working in sections makes everything go much faster.

[Allie]

For google maps images downloader, we probably have to buy http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

I tryed the trail version and that works ok, tryed the special free version (lol) and indeed it crashes after 3 or 4 pictures, it downloads the list but not all pictures.

I will buy it, its just 29 $, business pays lol.

Will inform u guys about it later.

If it works ok, i'm willing to take some pictures for you guys, dont worry, i like to share and hate copyrights.

Later,
Allie

[Allie]

Bytheway, i found a way of saving a 40.000 pixel coreldraw .cdr file into an EMF file.
I think we have a EMF to PNG converter with visitor.

Haven't tryed it for real, but this might work.

Allie


update: http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif crap shit, forget it, no go !!!!

[Allie]

Oh yea, worth the money.

That Google Maps Images Downloader is great, fck, it created a 750Mb BMP image of a part of 10km by 10km of Bagdad, it took 5000+ pictures for it and combined them in 1 minute.

BMP size = http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif 15360 x 24576 pixels ( thats better then 1 meter resolution) ( i didnt finnish it, this just test, it would have become 24576 x 24576 pixels)

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5098/bagdtestyy3.jpg

Its great, i bought it and then it does work !!!!!

Oh man, allie the sat pic man http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

Later,
Allie http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif



craaaap, they have the google terrain images downloader too, not gonne buy that, seems not high detailed enough.

But this is the only tools you need to make sat based maps for arma.

Later

[Nicholas Bell]

Quote[/b] ]But this is the only tools you need to make sat based maps for arma.

But only if the area you want to make a map for has high res imagery. Many areas in Google Earth are low res, so check first.