Map making question

Craigs · #1 October 23rd, 2009, 03:02 PM

Guys Im having trouble making and importing a map, I hope you can help me out. Im following Drunkrussians tutorial PDF creating_maps_from_srtm_data.pdf off the Prosimco site.
Everything seems to go well until I get to the Choose area dialog in the Power toolkit where instead of seeing a greyscale heightmap I see horizontal bands of black, grey, and white.
I think Im messing up when the tutorial is talking about selecting the map size in VTbuilder:

To select an area, select Area Tool/Numeric Values. I recommend entering the southwest corner in
the first parentheses at the bottom, and (1.0, 1.0) for the second. Any way you do it, ensure that this
area is 1 degree by 1 degree (since that is the only size ATF will accept).

I cant figure out what its saying to do.

Patrick Proctor · #2 October 23rd, 2009, 04:18 PM

I won't lie to you. I am not sure what it is saying, either. When I need map data, I get it here:

http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.htm

or here:

http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.htm

I download a 1 deg. x 1 deg. block in DTED or ARCGIS and then I convert it into a USGS DEM. This file format can be read by the ATF Power Toolkit.

Craigs · #3 October 23rd, 2009, 09:21 PM

OK thanks for the tip Patrick. Ive had some success and can actually get the greyscale heightmap in the choose area dialog without distortion.
But now the progress bar keeps cycling through saying "Drawing Maps contour bitmap". The progress bar slowly moves across then starts all over again. Is this normal? Its a new laptop with 3GB of RAM.

Craigs · #4 October 24th, 2009, 11:46 AM

Think I found the problem there. B default it was set to make a map 50km by 50km.
Changing the size to five by five km works.
Now if I could just stop over writing my bmps I might have something.

Craigs · #5 October 24th, 2009, 08:05 PM

Woo hoo! I finally got a map to "compile"; color, contour, elevation map, and AI help map. The idea I had was to make a map and a couple scenarios centered around the mountain passes in the Sinai. Some hypothetical ideas like an Israeli defense, Israeli counterattack, helo insertion of Egyptian commandos and sagger teams.

One question I cant figure out is when I download a map from seamless.usgs I select for it to include city names, but that doesnt seem to work. Reason I ask is Ive had a Soviet topo map of Kabul and Kandahar for years and would love to overlay the soviet map but I cant tell exactly where the cities are.