heightmap import improvement

[viridis]

Hello and thanks for your development effort,

In the past I have been strugling with heightmap import when mapmaking following palaxin's heightmap guide and written some posts in the forum regarding this:

• discussion on heightmap sources and technical data
• Novel method on preparing a heightmap from topographic and bathymetric images using ImageJ.

The persisting problem I have experienced when importing a heighmap is that the image imported appear to be limited to 8-bit grayscale (or 24 bit RGB, but grayscale, which in practice is the same) whereas 0ad an its map editor allows 16-bit different heights. This fact is stated in the response of another post showing an import error. So, if the editor allows 16-bit height, why not allowing 16-bit grayscale images?

I am convinced that mapmakers do not usually have enough technical background to deal with this and the suggestion of modifying the PMP map file by hand in a HEX editor is discouraging. So as I see it there would be two possible ways of improving the heightmap impor:

1. Modify the code that import the image file allowing other options that can contains 16-bit images (such as TIFF or RAW) in order to edit the map in 16-bit already in your favourite editor.
2. Write a plugin for your preferred image editor so that PMP files can be saved directly from image data and publish it. Open source community usually prefer GIMP, I use ImageJ, but any (free) image editor shall be picked.

As I am not a programmer I cannot afford doing this by myself, however I encourage the development team to make a small effort in order to encourage mapmaking enthusiasts.

 

Greetings.

[Stan`]

IIRC @vladislavbelov worked on it some time ago.

[Scallact]

Yes !!! We need that !

16 bits import ability is the only missing link between elevation files and the Atlas. I have a GIMP plugin nearly ready, for the creation of elevation files, but I'm hesitant to publish since the import learning curve is too high.

Your idea of a GIMP plugin for .pmp export is nice too, that would perfectly fill the gap. Before anyone asks, I don't think I would be able to write such a plugin with my current python level. :-) I might still try to look at it in the (not near) future if nothing moves on this front.

[viridis]

Also asked at stackoverflow if easy to write a plugin or script for ImageJ. Should improve my own tutorial on this.

Greetings.

Edited February 3, 2024 by viridis

[Scallact]

A temporary solution I found, useful if you are not confident with copy-pasting into a hex editor, is with a nice little command line utility: Swiss File Knife.

It's multiplatform, and doesn't even require an installation. Just put the executable near your files and run it in a terminal.

The useful command it provides is "partcopy", which allows to copy part of a binary file to another.

An example command, to transfer elevation from a 385x385 uncompressed 16 bits greyscale .tif to a large .pmp :

./sfk partcopy [source_name].tif 8 296450 [map_name].pmp 16 -yes

The number in the middle is the number of bytes. It must be adapted to the map's size:

map size        tif(px) bytes
-----------------------------
normal          257     132098
medium          321     206082
large           385     296450
very large      449     403202
giant           513     526338 

 

Edited February 2, 2024 by Scallact