Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

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M Pompian
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Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

Post by M Pompian » Tue May 12, 2020 10:53 pm

Greetings,

I am continuing to refine a Condor1 map that I recently released which is being used by a club for training purposes.

I have output a thermal map, and getting no errors, I see that the .tdm exists and is of a non-zero size. I have found no further documentation on this matter, but in the Landscape Editor, I see a solid grey rectangle prior to output even though there are two substantially large bodies of water.

Do I need to be concerned that the thermal map has not been generated correctly, and if so, is there anything that I can do to correct the issue?
Is there a method for validating it's functionality?

Thanks for any help with this! :?

Sincerely,

M. Pompian
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EDB
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Re: Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

Post by EDB » Tue May 12, 2020 11:25 pm

If you draw a bad area and you see no difference when flying in that ares... Then there is something wrong.

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M Pompian
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Re: Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

Post by M Pompian » Sun May 17, 2020 7:40 pm

Thanks, I will do further research and keep to the Condor1 threads for this!
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Andy1248
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Re: Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

Post by Andy1248 » Sun May 17, 2020 7:55 pm

The Landscape editor will not automatically create an accurate thermal map.

What is required is that you create bmp file same dimensions as the flight planner bmp.

Then from whatever sources are best for you (i.e. from openstreet) create a image that portrays the scenery area.

Convert this image into a 'grey scale' image. The areas that will not be good thermal generating one are coloured dark or even black for water.

For each area that is better for thermals is a lighter grey, until the very best thermal areas marked up as the lightest shade of grey.

Then place this file named ThermalMap.bmp in the Working folder.

Then open Landscape Editor. Your thermal map can be viewed when selected.

To create the Condor scenery .tdm file use the export 'Thermal map' option.

The method described in the Condor Scenery Guide by Jbr using open street map layers works very well and is probably your best method to start with.

https://www.condorsoaring.com/downloads-2/

EDIT - Ooops did not realise that you are working on Condor 1, but should be a similar process.
Condor CN = E20

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M Pompian
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Re: Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

Post by M Pompian » Mon May 18, 2020 1:58 am

Thanks so much Andy1248!

A little further digging turned up the documentation, though it was designed with the Terragen DeciduousMap as a working element.

I will substitute my TextureMap, and work toward a good overall greyscale range.

However, you might be able to answer a few new questions:

I have not been able to find any examples of reasonable greyscale/terrain imagery, and from my first attempt it looks like ravines are very dark, perhaps as dark as open water. Is it correct that ravines, even broad ones, are very poor thermal generators? I should probably make sure that they are somewhat brighter than open water or rivers.

Also, the tutorial used a light source from the direct south ( the Sun, obviously,) which resulted, (in my attempt,) with small white speckles on what I'm guessing are the steeper inclines. Does this sound correct? Perhaps there should not be any "white" spots at all, I will adjust a bit for that.

If you happen to know of a reference image anywhere for this step it might help me dial this in. At any rate, thanks so much for your input!

The next patch of my map should finally have it working acceptably in all categories.

M. Pompian
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EDB
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Re: Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

Post by EDB » Mon May 18, 2020 2:09 am

Don't make a shadowmap (light from the sun). With the last updates Condor v1 already did sun on hills dynamicly.

You need to define good (rock, sand, builded ares) and bad (water, snow, swamps) areas in a b/w image.

But why Condor v1 which isn't supported anymore..?

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M Pompian
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Re: Legacy Question: Thermal map creation in Condor1

Post by M Pompian » Mon May 18, 2020 2:13 pm

It was a map that I made four years ago, then put away because it seemed like it would be a very large download by the time I finished. I didn't fully understand the performance characteristics and efficiencies built into Condor and wasn't willing to risk significantly more time to end up with something unusable. Also, I had done it primarily to assist in the development of Tom Berry's map making tutorial.

Now, a 9Gb download doesn't seem so large, so I uploaded it for posterity. It's a map of New England (USA,) and a club here is still running Condor1 and wants to use for their training program. I have actually had a surprising number of downloads, possibly because I included the fourteen operational fields in 2016, so I I'm guessing that many New Englanders have wanted to fly their own region.

With that, I'm trying to make it as correct as possible until the Condor2 version (which is in development) comes online.

Thanks for the help. I did this so long ago with so much life-stuff in between it's something of a forensic exercise.
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