Is there a better way...

[ethan]

Suppose we want to align a map image with a geotiff. Except in this case the map has to be a very high resolution image ( Matte painting ) of just a portion of the geotiff so using the whole geotiff is not an option since that covers kilometers and the details we want to depict are only inches across.

Is there a way to exactly align images to landscape surfaces without a headache?

Two methods I can think of - neither fun - are:

1. Go back into USGS seamless and extract a detail area as a geotiff. Then georeff this into the TG scene so it positions in the right location. After that carefully use the measure tool to grab the dimensions of the geotiff detail section and plug those into an image map or camera to project onto the same area.

2. Convert lat long coordinates to x z distances to size the image map and then find the offset for the south west corner to start the texture from...?

Any easier, more intuitive methods would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to anyone who takes a stab at this.

-Ethan

[Tangled-Universe]

I would measure the size of the geoTIFF terrain with the measure tool and then add a "heightfield resize" operator between the heightfield load and heightfield shader.

Since you're measuring the terrain size not entirely accurate for certain, you still have a nice approximation though.
Then with the heightfield resize you can resize your terrain to a fixed size as close as much to the measured size.

After that you know exactly how large your imagemap shader needs to be set.
Texturing a smaller square area of the entire terrain is then just basic maths.

Cheers,
Martin

[Volker Harun]

Also, it might be helpful to look at the posts of bigben (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?action=profile;u=1247) ... here is an example: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=2519.0

He did a lot of mapping and texturing in the past. But has not been online for months.

Regards,
Volker

[ethan]

Thanks for the ideas. Bigbens work on multiple masks is really cool.

-ethan

[JimB]

Assuming your matte painting is to be used as a texture projected in the Y....

If you know a matching coordinate (Lat/Long) between your matte painting and the GeoTIFF file, you can go to the planet node's [Lat/Long at Apex] fields and enter the GeoTIFF's coordinates. Load in the GeoTIFF file and it will automatically centre at the planet's apex. After that, it's just a question of scaling the texture to fit precisely, making sure that the texture Image node is centred (not Bottom Left). If the MP/texture doesn't precisely match the GeoTIFF input, then calculating any offsets should be straightforward or nudge-able. I've made half of an entire US state using GeoTIFFs of various resolutions and multiple Y-projected textures by doing the above.