Hi, It is quite easy to create a web page that shows a cave survey overlay on top of Google / Virtual Earth maps. For an example go to http://www.bdcc.co.uk/mendip.html?Latitude=51.2988&Longitude=-2.7104&Zoom=18 &MapType=Aerial and then select Caves in the overlays drop down (best in Firefox). You will find overlays for Upper Flood (exciting new extensions), Swildons Hole, Manor Farm and Longwood August. I use the Microsoft MapCruncher to generate the tile sets (256x256 pixel PNGs) for Google Maps from a single PDF or .png image. As this is quite a nice way of presenting cave surveys, perhaps a Google tile generator would be a good add on for Therion. The advantage of building the renderer into Therion would be that the overlay could be drawn separately for each Google Zoom level to achieve a good line width and text size. I am well informed in the areas of coordinate systems and map projections and able to program in C++. With some guidance I might be able to help with the coding of such an extension. Regards, Bill Chadwick
On 27.1.2007, at 22:09, Bill Chadwick wrote:
It is quite easy to create a web page that shows a cave survey overlay on top of Google / Virtual Earth maps.
Good work! There is only one problem - google doesn't calculate with underground in 3D - so you may not see the vertical dependencies, the caves are always on surface. Martin
Martin Sluka wrote:
On 27.1.2007, at 22:09, Bill Chadwick wrote:
It is quite easy to create a web page that shows a cave survey overlay on top of Google / Virtual Earth maps.
Good work!
There is only one problem - google doesn't calculate with underground in 3D - so you may not see the vertical dependencies, the caves are always on surface.
Martin
It looks like simultaneous invention all round. I'm doing something on this too. I think it should work for any paper survey that you can scan and upload, not just computerized ones output from therion or tunnel. I have a server which can do tile cutting of a large bitmap of a cave survey. It's going to be important to create a mask of transparencies so you can see it overlayed without all the whitespace outside of the cave passage. Julian T.
For Upper Flood I have been starting from a PDF with UKOS 100m grid ex Therion, converting it to a two colour White/Transparent and Magenta png and then using the free MS Mapcruncher (see my bit on the www.mapki.com on how to load Mapcruncher tiles into Google Maps). For Swildons etc, I simply scanned pages from Mendip Underground (I have asked Tony Jarratt!). Mapcruncher does a fair job at anti-aliased resizing. You can edit Mapcruncher's XML project file by hand to use known survey - WGS84 Lat/Lon correspondences. Ideally, for raster layers, the cave would be re-rendered with a decent line width and text size at different zoom levels, hence my suggestion for including the raster rendering into Therion. Also when showing a large map area with a raster cave overlay, some way of merging cave data from multiple source surveys onto a single Google overlay tile is needed. A server based solution would be nifty. Surveyors could simply post their georefed survey (GeoTif/PDF/KML) and it would appear on a Google Maps or MS Virtual Earth website. It should not be too much trouble to generate the web page code automatically. Google Maps and MS VE use the same simple spherical Mercator projection. Google Maps can display a KML file as an overlay (2Mbyte limit I think). I guess rendering cave overlays from KML might solve some the linewidth scaling and the survey merging problem of the raster solution. Does anyone have an online example ? Landowner / access controller sensitivities must be respected on any public website. For my Mendips page, I worked with the UK CSCC. We have a 'no location without access information' rule. Bill Chadwick -----Original Message----- From: Julian Todd [mailto:julian@goatchurch.org.uk] Sent: 28 January 2007 18:45 To: therion@speleo.sk Subject: Re: [Therion] Cave Overlays on Google Maps Web Sites Martin Sluka wrote:
On 27.1.2007, at 22:09, Bill Chadwick wrote:
It is quite easy to create a web page that shows a cave survey overlay on top of Google / Virtual Earth maps.
Good work!
There is only one problem - google doesn't calculate with underground in 3D - so you may not see the vertical dependencies, the caves are always on surface.
Martin
It looks like simultaneous invention all round. I'm doing something on this too. I think it should work for any paper survey that you can scan and upload, not just computerized ones output from therion or tunnel. I have a server which can do tile cutting of a large bitmap of a cave survey. It's going to be important to create a mask of transparencies so you can see it overlayed without all the whitespace outside of the cave passage. Julian T.
Google Maps can display a KML file as an overlay (2Mbyte limit I think). I guess rendering cave overlays from KML might solve some the linewidth scaling and the survey merging problem of the raster solution. Does anyone have an online example ?
I have tried, but only centerline map is displayed correctly http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.speleo.sk/test.kml If you try outline map http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.speleo.sk/test2.kml then you see, that google maps is not able to render passages at this resolution. In Google Earth, this file is displayed correctly. S.
Stacho Mudrak napsal(a):
Google Maps can display a KML file as an overlay (2Mbyte limit I think). I guess rendering cave overlays from KML might solve some the linewidth scaling and the survey merging problem of the raster solution. Does anyone have an online example ?
I have tried, but only centerline map is displayed correctly
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.speleo.sk/test.kml
If you try outline map
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.speleo.sk/test2.kml
then you see, that google maps is not able to render passages at this resolution. In Google Earth, this file is displayed correctly.
But when you click on Search Maps button it works!!! L.
S.
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-- Ladislav Blazek
But... Parts of http://www.speleo.sk/test2.... could not be displayed because it contains errors. Show errorsHide errors Line 18: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 262: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 296: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 320: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 447: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 507: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 769: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 1090: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 1309: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 1330: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 1359: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 1508: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 1554: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 2565: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 2627: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 2652: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 2830: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 2953: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3075: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3333: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3490: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3605: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3637: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3755: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3787: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 3910: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 4232: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 4240: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 4250: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 4434: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 4587: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 4661: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 5142: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 5497: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 5508: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 5835: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 6220: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 6777: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Line 7249: <coordinates> contains syntax errors Ladislav Blazek napsal(a):
Stacho Mudrak napsal(a):
Google Maps can display a KML file as an overlay (2Mbyte limit I think). I guess rendering cave overlays from KML might solve some the linewidth scaling and the survey merging problem of the raster solution. Does anyone have an online example ?
I have tried, but only centerline map is displayed correctly
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.speleo.sk/test.kml
If you try outline map
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.speleo.sk/test2.kml
then you see, that google maps is not able to render passages at this resolution. In Google Earth, this file is displayed correctly.
But when you click on Search Maps button it works!!! L.
S.
_______________________________________________ Therion mailing list Therion@speleo.sk http://www.speleo.sk/mailman/listinfo/therion
-- Ladislav Blazek
_______________________________________________ Therion mailing list Therion@speleo.sk http://www.speleo.sk/mailman/listinfo/therion
-- Ladislav Blazek
Stacho Mudrak wrote:
I have tried, but only centerline map is displayed correctly
This file has Z-coordinates. In googleearth it's still treated as flat. I was hoping that I'd get something rendered in 3D but underneath the terrain, which I could see above the flat terrain if I turned the 3D terrain off. This doesn't happen. Has this been investigated? Getting our 3D surveys rendered into the googleearth seamlessly (so we can throw away all our current viewers with their funny controls and ridiculous content-starved binary 3D formats) is something worth aspiring to. However, the land will tend to obscure the caves. If anyone gets a 3D model that behaves as expected, then someone can contact google to see if they've thought of this challenge. Maybe it's an issue waiting on some examples from one of us before they can work with it. BTW, it's lovely work so far. Julian T.
Quoting Julian Todd <julian@goatchurch.org.uk>:
This file has Z-coordinates. In googleearth it's still treated as flat. I was hoping that I'd get something rendered in 3D but underneath the terrain, which I could see above the flat terrain if I turned the 3D terrain off. This doesn't happen. Has this been investigated?
Yes. Google Earth is able to render also absolute Z coordinate (just one flag can be added to the coord spec), but then you are not able to see caves, when terrain is turned on.
Getting our 3D surveys rendered into the googleearth seamlessly (so we can throw away all our current viewers with their funny controls and ridiculous content-starved binary 3D formats) is something worth aspiring to. However, the land will tend to obscure the caves.
All we need is "terrain transparency" slider in Google Earth :) S.
Also you can not go under the surface of Google Earth, for obvious usability reasons. On Thursday 01 February 2007 8:24 am, Stacho Mudrak wrote:
Quoting Julian Todd <julian@goatchurch.org.uk>:
This file has Z-coordinates. In googleearth it's still treated as flat. I was hoping that I'd get something rendered in 3D but underneath the terrain, which I could see above the flat terrain if I turned the 3D terrain off. This doesn't happen. Has this been investigated?
Yes. Google Earth is able to render also absolute Z coordinate (just one flag can be added to the coord spec), but then you are not able to see caves, when terrain is turned on.
Getting our 3D surveys rendered into the googleearth seamlessly (so we can throw away all our current viewers with their funny controls and ridiculous content-starved binary 3D formats) is something worth aspiring to. However, the land will tend to obscure the caves.
All we need is "terrain transparency" slider in Google Earth :)
S.
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On 2007-02-01 13:08 +0000, Julian Todd wrote:
Stacho Mudrak wrote:
I have tried, but only centerline map is displayed correctly
This file has Z-coordinates. In googleearth it's still treated as flat. I was hoping that I'd get something rendered in 3D but underneath the terrain, which I could see above the flat terrain if I turned the 3D terrain off. This doesn't happen. Has this been investigated?
Getting our 3D surveys rendered into the googleearth seamlessly (so we can throw away all our current viewers with their funny controls and ridiculous content-starved binary 3D formats) is something worth aspiring to. However, the land will tend to obscure the caves.
It may be cool, but it's not much of an aspiration whilst google earth remains proprietary software. I'm sticking to Free viewers we have some control over. Similar problem with the map data. It's not ours, we can't do what we want with it (like publish the results in a journal). We can't use it offline, and so on (correct me if I am wrong on any of this). So it's (very) nice, but also highly limited.
If anyone gets a 3D model that behaves as expected, then someone can contact google to see if they've thought of this challenge. Maybe it's an issue waiting on some examples from one of us before they can work with it.
BTW, it's lovely work so far.
Indeed - it is extremely fine, but we do need to be careful not to make ourselves beholden to other people's data and software. Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://wookware.org/
Wookey wrote:
It may be cool, but it's not much of an aspiration whilst google earth remains proprietary software. I'm sticking to Free viewers we have some control over.
One option is to target NASA whirlwind instead of/in addition to GoogleEarth. WW is open source and uses free NASA data. The current 1.3.x versions use .net & DirectX, so are windows only. The upcoming 1.5 release is a reimplementation in java and JOGL which will be cross platform. It has currently entered a limited distribution alpha test; a public beta is due in the next few weeks.
Similar problem with the map data. It's not ours, we can't do what we want with it (like publish the results in a journal). We can't use it offline, and so on (correct me if I am wrong on any of this). So it's (very) nice, but also highly limited.
There are some sources of free map data (at least in the UK). www.openstreetmap.org has increasing coverage, and scans of the out of copyright 1940s/50s New Popular edition OS maps are available at www.npemap.org.uk under a Creative Commons non-commercial license. In fact npemap.org.uk are using the maps to create an unencumbered geolocated DB of UK postcodes. Which is a good thing generally, so I recommend going along browsing to a place you know the postcode for and adding a bit more data. See http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1936557,00.html John
Hi, some countries have nice online maps and airophotos, the only problem is that they are always in different coordinate systems, so that you usually need coordinate transformation. I have the web addresses for some servers in Germany (topo maps, airophoto with 2m resolution), partially Austria, GB, Italia, US, Canada. Greetings Wolfgang John Pybus schrieb:
Wookey wrote:
It may be cool, but it's not much of an aspiration whilst google earth remains proprietary software. I'm sticking to Free viewers we have some control over.
One option is to target NASA whirlwind instead of/in addition to GoogleEarth. WW is open source and uses free NASA data. The current 1.3.x versions use .net & DirectX, so are windows only. The upcoming 1.5 release is a reimplementation in java and JOGL which will be cross platform. It has currently entered a limited distribution alpha test; a public beta is due in the next few weeks.
Similar problem with the map data. It's not ours, we can't do what we want with it (like publish the results in a journal). We can't use it offline, and so on (correct me if I am wrong on any of this). So it's (very) nice, but also highly limited.
There are some sources of free map data (at least in the UK). www.openstreetmap.org has increasing coverage, and scans of the out of copyright 1940s/50s New Popular edition OS maps are available at www.npemap.org.uk under a Creative Commons non-commercial license.
In fact npemap.org.uk are using the maps to create an unencumbered geolocated DB of UK postcodes. Which is a good thing generally, so I recommend going along browsing to a place you know the postcode for and adding a bit more data. See http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1936557,00.html
John _______________________________________________ Therion mailing list Therion@speleo.sk http://www.speleo.sk/mailman/listinfo/therion
Quoting Bill Chadwick <W.CHADWICK@sky.com>:
As this is quite a nice way of presenting cave surveys, perhaps a Google tile generator would be a good add on for Therion. The advantage of building the renderer into Therion would be that the overlay could be drawn separately for each Google Zoom level to achieve a good line width and text size.
Hmmm. Just one problem. Therion it self does not have any build-in bitmap generator. All maps are generated as vector PDF. And generation of bitmaps from PDF is very tricky (currently only Acrobat reader is able to render these PDF files 100% correct).
I am well informed in the areas of coordinate systems and map projections and able to program in C++. With some guidance I might be able to help with the coding of such an extension.
I have tried to generate Google Earth's KML files from therion and it seems to work (scrap outlines for maps, centerline for model, try latest developement snapshot). All you need is to have georeferenced cave data (see "Coordinate Systems" in thbook). Then just export model -fmt kml will generate .kml file readable by Google Earth. If somebody will create a good rasterizer script for PDF files generated by therion (using ghostscript or acroread), there is no problem for us to add export of long-lat coordinates together with PDF file to be used by this script. S.
Hi, perhaps one alternative would be to implement shapefile support and to use gdarwarp and/or gdal_translate to create kml. But I don't have any experience with the kml format. But shapefile would be a nice link to the gis world! Greetings Wolfgang Stacho Mudrak schrieb:
Quoting Bill Chadwick <W.CHADWICK@sky.com>:
As this is quite a nice way of presenting cave surveys, perhaps a Google tile generator would be a good add on for Therion. The advantage of building the renderer into Therion would be that the overlay could be drawn separately for each Google Zoom level to achieve a good line width and text size.
Hmmm. Just one problem. Therion it self does not have any build-in bitmap generator. All maps are generated as vector PDF. And generation of bitmaps from PDF is very tricky (currently only Acrobat reader is able to render these PDF files 100% correct).
I am well informed in the areas of coordinate systems and map projections and able to program in C++. With some guidance I might be able to help with the coding of such an extension.
I have tried to generate Google Earth's KML files from therion and it seems to work (scrap outlines for maps, centerline for model, try latest developement snapshot). All you need is to have georeferenced cave data (see "Coordinate Systems" in thbook). Then just
export model -fmt kml
will generate .kml file readable by Google Earth.
If somebody will create a good rasterizer script for PDF files generated by therion (using ghostscript or acroread), there is no problem for us to add export of long-lat coordinates together with PDF file to be used by this script.
S.
_______________________________________________ Therion mailing list Therion@speleo.sk http://www.speleo.sk/mailman/listinfo/therion
Quoting Wolfgang Zillig <wolfgang.zillig@web.de>:
perhaps one alternative would be to implement shapefile support and to use gdarwarp and/or gdal_translate to create kml. But I don't have any experience with the kml format.
I have forgotten, shapefiles are also already implemented in the last developement snapshot (including user defined object attributes) ;) export map|model -fmt esri should create a directory with shapefiles for different shapes. If you have georeferenced data, also associated .prj files are created. Tested on free QGIS and ArcExplorer. I am just not able to display 3D triangle strips. S.
But shapefile would be a nice link to the gis world!
Greetings Wolfgang
Stacho Mudrak schrieb:
Quoting Bill Chadwick <W.CHADWICK@sky.com>:
As this is quite a nice way of presenting cave surveys, perhaps a Google tile generator would be a good add on for Therion. The advantage of building the renderer into Therion would be that the overlay could be drawn separately for each Google Zoom level to achieve a good line width and text size.
Hmmm. Just one problem. Therion it self does not have any build-in bitmap generator. All maps are generated as vector PDF. And generation of bitmaps from PDF is very tricky (currently only Acrobat reader is able to render these PDF files 100% correct).
I am well informed in the areas of coordinate systems and map projections and able to program in C++. With some guidance I might be able to help with the coding of such an extension.
I have tried to generate Google Earth's KML files from therion and it seems to work (scrap outlines for maps, centerline for model, try latest developement snapshot). All you need is to have georeferenced cave data (see "Coordinate Systems" in thbook). Then just
export model -fmt kml
will generate .kml file readable by Google Earth.
If somebody will create a good rasterizer script for PDF files generated by therion (using ghostscript or acroread), there is no problem for us to add export of long-lat coordinates together with PDF file to be used by this script.
S.
_______________________________________________ Therion mailing list Therion@speleo.sk http://www.speleo.sk/mailman/listinfo/therion
On 30.1.2007, at 14:56, Stacho Mudrak wrote:
And generation of bitmaps from PDF is very tricky (currently only Acrobat reader is able to render these PDF files 100% correct).
Adobe Photoshop CS2 too, but for big maps to print quality it is question of several hours on very fast machine m.
participants (9)
-
Bill Chadwick -
John Pybus -
Julian Todd -
Ladislav Blazek -
Martin Sluka -
Philip Schuchardt -
Stacho Mudrak -
Wolfgang Zillig -
Wookey