Accurate map for DCS:Syria theatre

[Flappie]

As promised, I'm starting my new accurate map project: Syria!

The result will be usable in Tacview, CombatFlite, DCS Web Editor, as a kneeboard mod, as a webmap or as a simple GeoTIFF file.

I'll try to detail the process all along the project, step by step.

 

If you dont know about my previous project, check it here.

Edited January 19, 2024 by Flappie

[Flappie]

First step: the making of a giant screenshot of the Syria map.

 

I'll use AutoHotKey to automate the take of many many screenshots.

First, I need to select the right zoom level. It seems the vegetation layer is bugged in DCS:Syria: when the zoom level is too important, the vegetation layer gets more polygons and many of them should not appear (areas painted in green with no trees).

Once the zoom level is chosen, I need to find a way to automate the screenshots trimming, because I don't want to see UI elements on my screenshots. I'm using an old free version of Photo Filtre 7 to achieve that:

Once the trimmed screenshot size is determined, I need to calculate how many screenshots I'll need to complete my giant screenshot. Only then I can achieve my AutoHotKey script. Once it will be ready, all I'll have to do is press a button and AutoHotKey will take all needed screenshots.

Then I'll feed my Photo Filtre automation script with these screenshots, and it will do the trimming.

Then I'll... well I haven't found a way to automate this part so... I'll make a giant jigsaw puzzle on GIMP. Fortunately, it has a magnetic grid, which helps avoiding positioning errors.

 

I still have a lot of work to do! See you soon.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Flappie
grammar

[Flappie]

The AutoHotKey script is already done and the jigsaw puzzle is ready. Music helps making this task a little bit less tedious.

[okopanja]

Hi Flappie,

This is very interesting, I was wondering what are your data source here?

I gather it's: Topograhical map + town.lua + ...?

Are you doing this manually?

 

[Wing]

Thankyou for "taking one for the team" with this one. It will be greatly appreciated!

[Flappie]

32 minutes ago, okopanja said:

Hi Flappie,

This is very interesting, I was wondering what are your data source here?

I gather it's: Topograhical map + town.lua + ...?

Are you doing this manually?

Hi, I'll use ASTERDEM as the topographic source, but many things are to be done manually or semi-automatically, yes.

Lines especially, such as rivers (very tedious) and powerlines (very simple) are to be drawn by hand.

When it comes to surfaces, I use one of these huge screenshot to isolate what I'm after, so I can convert the shape into a polyline shape. The first huge screenshot will be used to draw rivers and powerlines, but it will also serve as a control reference for other data. Then I'll make another huge screenshot where I'll mask a lot of things in the ME to keep only vegetation areas (green), urban areas (orange) and waterbeds (sea, lakes, and very large rivers).

Roads and railroads will be made semi-automatically using a script from @Hardcard (I'll place vehicles on roads and ask them to go here and there, then I'll transform poisiton points into lines). Then the position of the bridges will be deducted using SQL scripting (if a road or a railroad crosses a river/railroad/another road, there must be a bridge). Bridges azimuth will be calculated by the same SQL script.

I will have to find the location of tunnels on my own. Of course, help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm pretty sure users did a list of available helipads with coordinates. I'll use it.

Radio beacons and town names will be retrieved from the game files.

Don't worry, you'll know almost everything for I want to detail the whole process in this thread.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Flappie

[Flappie]

I found a way to spare myself the jigsaw puzzle chore: Image Magick!

I had been using this software "crop" feature within a PHP script to create tiles for my Caucasus kneeboard mod. And it just occured to me that this program also has an "append" feature!

This will help me speed up the process and do more interesting things than stichting pictures together.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Flappie

[Hardcard]

@Flappie

Hi there!

I'll be busy for the remainder of spring and probably well into summer, but if the script gives you trouble or you'd like it to have extra features, I can make some time and take a look. 

If your previous Caucasus map is any indication, this will be an awesome map too! 

[Flappie]

Hi @Hardcard !

Thanks for chiming in. I was planning to ask for your help anyway.

[Flappie]

Step 2 : georeferencing giant screenshots

 

I lost some precious time on step 1. My initial giant screenshot was way too big and the GIMP simply couldn't process it. After many failed tries, I had to make a smaller one to get it working on the GIMP (44660x25840).

Now, before I start producing different screenshots for each layer (waterbeds, vegetation, urban areas), I need to make sure the size of my first screenshot is compatible with Quantum GIS. Let's try and georeference the waterbeds screenshot.

Once Quantum GIS is opened, I call the Georeferencing tool and feed it with my giant .PNG.

The goal here is to add more reference points to the picture, and to assign them the right coordinates. Before I took the giant screenshot, I drew red circles on the ME map to outline a set of coordinates. Now all I need to do is superimpose my reference points on these red circles. Let's do it:

This step is a bit tricky: if I mistype one of the coordinates, the georeferencing will fail miserably.

After some time, the table is filled with reference points:

Now, it's time to execute the georeferencing process:

And... that's a bingo! The purple coastline is a vector layer from the Natural Earth project. It allows me to check that my DCS Syria screenshot was georeferenced correctly.

Now, the good news: since all my giant screenshots will be automatically taken by my AutoHotKey script, they will share the same size and will depict the exact same location, which means I will be able to re-use all these reference points I've just made. That's all for tonight.

[buur]

@Flappiehow did make the .tif.dds files from the huge geo-referenced map? At the moment I try something similar with the Mariannas-map and stuck with proceeding the files.

[Flappie]

First, you need to find the right projection (the one used by the sim).

Then you export the file as a giant PNG. Of course, you need to find the correct coordinates of your export frame.

Then you need to cut the giant PNG into tiles and convert them to the DDS format. I used ImageMagick to do these two operations.

Send me a PM and I'll help once I get back home.

[Flappie]

 

Step 3 : creating vector data

 

I realise my previous giant screenshot was not precise enough to extract waterbeds. I'll make a more detailed one later. In the meantime, let's start drawing lines... power lines. All I need to do is draw lines over my georeferenced screenshot. This should not take too long.

10 minutes later, a surprise: the ME power lines layer of Syria terrain is sometimes wrong. Here's an example:

As you can see, the line above the other one is not part of the terrain. I won't draw it.

30 minutes later: another surprise. Some power lines are absent from the ME layer... Well, it happens in real life too, doesn't it?

Edited June 24, 2023 by Flappie

[Flappie]

A big thank to @okopanja who offered me a special version of his excellent tool, SharkPlanner, in order to trace missing powerlines with high precision and ease.

I might re-use it later on, to draw some other vector layers...

[Flappie]

Done! All powerlines are vectors on my map, now. And their position is very precise, thanks to the use of SharkPlanner.

Next step: railways. I'll use Hardcard's "Google trains".

Edited July 18, 2023 by Flappie

[Flappie]

Friday evening. I needed to do something very simple. Beacons are done! I simply reformatted DCS Syria "beacons.lua" file.

Oops! It just occured to me that I forgot to do powerlines in Cyprus... Back to work.

[Flappie]

Railways are done!

Again, many thanks to @okopanja and his worthy tool, SharkPlanner.

[Flappie]

Work on airbases has started. Once again, I make use of a modified version of SharkPlanner. It saves me a lot of time compared to what I used to do to draw Caucasus airbases.

Edited January 22, 2024 by Flappie
typo

[Roman_455vAEW]

Absolutely amazing! 

[winghunter]

Looking forward to integrate this

[Flappie]

I have put this project on hold for the moment. Both my testing and parenthood activities take all of my free time. And my job does not help either.

I recently asked devs to allow custom raster charts from the Saved Games folder. If they made it happen, it would probably motivate me enough to resume work on this map.

[Flappie]

Back in business.

[Flappie]

That one took me some time.

[Flappie]

All 64 airbases are done!

You can't see them well at this scale but rest assured they were all made with as much love as the one above.

[Flappie]

After a long pause, I'm back at it again. I'm resuming my work on vegetation, urban and water layers. As I was struggling to select only forest areas in GIMP, because the transparent green layer mixes with different soil colours, I remembered an old trick: these layers can be hidden by editing the "hiddensemantics" of the .\DCS World OpenBeta\Config\terrain\terrainoptions41.lua file.

Here's what I get:

This is now much easier to work with the forest layer.