Problem in LandscapeEditor

[tomrob999]

Hello,

I am followinh JitiBrozek's Condor Landscape Guide for Condor V2.

I am not seeing a proper landscape in LandscapeEditor after running RawToTrn on my bil file.

It seems that my trn file is not exported in the correct order.

In RawToTrn I use from the hdr file generated by QGIS with corrct tile size 13 tiles wide by 14 tiles high
NROWS 10752 for Height
NCOLS 9984 for Width
Flip vertical
Resolution 30m

Capture01.jpg shows RawToTrn and seem to be correct.

Capute02.jpg shows the Save parameters using UTM Zone, northing and easting from UTMTools
No crop as the size was correct in QGIS.

Capture03.jpg shows what I see in LandscapeEditor. This does not look like what i recall seeing in V1when I first did the scenery.

Any help would be appreciated

[wrinkledm]

I'm just getting started with creating a landscape as well and have run into the same issue. I spent a bit of time today running through the Condor 2 Scenery guide and I keep ending up with this same issue. All three times the same thing happens. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the UTMTools output when dealing with terrain over two UTM zones??? This is only a guess. My hopes are to rerun through the procedures tomorrow utilizing the same terrain but making a smaller footprint and placed to a single UTM zone. (Unfortunately my home field borders two UTM zones. )

I've included a snap of the QGIS file after It has been (merged, warped & clipped). Looks good. Then when I import into the RAWtoTRN what I See certainly doesn't look right. I've tried the limited options for reading the RAW file but nothing looks correct. Based on the guide and the size of the X&Y it should be good, but the results speak for themselves. The last screencap is the results in the Landscape editor.

Any suggestions on where to go from here. I'll post a followup if I get this data to work in a single UTM.

Clipped QGIS Terrain File

QGIS.jpg

Import into RAWto TRN

RAWtoTRN.jpg

Landscape Editor results.

Landscape_Editor.jpg

[wrinkledm]

SOLVED!

Thanks to my insomnia, I found the answer to the problem. After trying a smaller footprint in a single UTM and had no luck whatsoever I decided to download the same version of QGIS that was used in the tutorial (2.18.13). The current version is (3.10.4) for future reference. SO... I ran through the procedures to get a RAW file using the older QGIS version and opened it up in RAWtoTRN and what the heck, it looked just fine. I exported the TRN file and opened that file up in the Landscape Editor and again it is just fine. So there is something different about the NEWER version of the QGIS application.

I would like to know if anyone is using the newest or a newer version of QGIS (at least Version 3.10 or later) and if they are having any luck getting their terrain to work in Condor 2??? My suggestion would be for those having terrain generation issues to start with the older version of QGIS. (2.18.13) I would also hope someone smarter than I could figure out what is different about the newer QGIS and what differences there are in the process to make the terrain export work properly.

Time for some sleep, I'll try the two UTM zone export tomorrow and see what happens. I suspect it will be just fine.

[JeffSmith]

Hi
I am using QGIS 3.10 and the trick is
1. Use whole tile sizes for your BIL file landscape size selection.
2. Make sure you always use data type 'Int16 - Sixteen bit signed' for input and output.
3. When clipping file down to size, remember to add the additional command -tr 30 30 after EHdr.

Download an area in correct UTM Zone, +10% greater than what you require.
Merge the files together into one. (Raster - Miscellaneous - Merge)
Warp to adjust angle for correct UTM zone (Raster - Projections - Warp)
Clip file to exact size remembering to include for the 5km no-fly zone (Raster - Extraction - Clip Raster by Extent)

Always save each file when processing, and close the open previous layers before processing next step.
I always have to vertical invert image for it to show correctly in the height file converter.
Use the full directory names when saving the files.

The layers tool to colour the images is very helpful and before leaving QGIS I create a reference image
using Paint which looks like this.

EastBerg.jpg

Cheers
Jeff

[wrinkledm]

Awsome information @JeffSmith.

I re-accomplished my test output this morning utilizing the newest version of QGIS 3.10.xx and making sure to use int16 as opposed to what QGIS defaults too (float 32, I believe). I was successful with my first run and was able to see the data in both the RAWtoTRN & Landscape editor apps.

ALSO! I noticed something that I missed yesterday and that was what seems to be a couple of ways to add the "-tr 30 30" to the process command line. I HAD been using the "Additional Command Line parameters" box under the advanced settings and manually typing in "-tr 30 30". So just this morning I noticed in the WARPING dialog box that you can set the resolution with a dedicated input: "Output File Resolution in Target georeferenced units". Using this option, QGIS adds the "-tr 30 30" earlier in the command line.

Unfortunately, I did not see this resolution option in the clipping dialog. On my first run today, I left the -tr 30 30 out of the clipping step and the data opened correctly in RAWtoTRN & Landscape Editor. I'll play around a bit more today with the clipping dialog and see what happens. Or am I setting myself up for failure by not including the "-tr 30 30" in the clipping step??? I'm curious how others add the -tr 30 30 in the newer version of QGIS???

Thanks again for the GREAT information, I'm hoping to utilize some of my enforced time at home to get a good head start on a new map.

D

[mfdemeyer]

I'm also running into a problem here. But my question is that I don't have any option to export RAW in QGIS. I can export .bil and have tried converting the file extension to RAW and then loading it into RAWtoTRN. When I do that, using either INT16 or UINT16 numbers, I can see a reasonable image in RAWtoTRN (although they look slightly different) and it seems to create the landscape. But, when I open it in Landscape Editor, the height map is blank and I can't add an airport.

What's the trick?

Michael

[mfdemeyer]

OK.. I did the simple thing for the file type and just typed in the file name instead of using the file type filter in the input dialog (in RAWtoTRN). Duh.

But no idea why the height map shows up in RAWtoTRN (although slightly differently for Int16 and UInt16 number formats - I presume UInt16 is unsigned integer so the slight negative elevations in my map invert to positive values) but doesn't then show when I open the landscape in the Landscape Editor. I'm pretty completely stuck here and don't have a clue how to diagnose this...

Any advice? My terrain is reasonably large (15x17) with some fairly large sections of ocean on the west (it's a coastal area of northern California) but I also tried clipping it and that didn't seem to matter...

[EDB]

Did you copy the HeightMaps folder to your landscape folder?

[mfdemeyer]

Yes. I created it there and set the target for RAWtoTRN to that folder. It appears properly populated with the tiles.

Michael

[mfdemeyer]

Found the mistake. When I did the RAWtoTRN step I didn’t realize you had the explicitly enter the file extension in the save dialog. The dialog suggests it will make a .TRN file, but doesn’t. It makes an untyped file which the Landscape Editor subsequently doesn’t recognize.

Another detail like this... after you create the landscape, the Landscape Editor doesn’t make a .ini file and Condor2 will not recognize the landscape without one. It’s a simple text file with a .ini extension. Look at an existing landscape for an example.