Using TileProxy Tiles

This is the Forum to discuss the use of SBuilderX (version 3.10 and above). For previous versions of SBuilder please use the "SBuilder for Flight Simulator FS2004" forum.
Post Reply
ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:26 pm

Hi,

I've been using TileProxy for some time, downloading tiles as I explore the world. Over time, I have accumulated 100GB+ of tiles up to 60cm/pixel for my favorite areas! Now that I have a complete set of tiles (every LOD) for the whole area, I would like to convert these to permanent textures. Unfortunatly, I am not smart enough to understand how I could use these in SBuilderX. Do I need a special DLL? Is there a procedure I could follow? Something more complex?

Thank you for your time,
~David

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by Luis Sa » Thu Feb 05, 2009 2:54 am

Hello David,

I never used Tile Proxy. However if you can discover from the name of each tile its position in the earth, then it will be quite simple to write a script to rename the files (the tiles) so that they are understood by SBuilderX.

The naming used by SBuilderX is explained here:

http://www.ptsim.com/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=58

Caution: I would suspect that SBuilderX will become (will it?) slow when it tries to search for the existence of a file in a folder where 100GB+ of tiles exist! When I revise SBuilderX I will change the way it caches tiles - tiles will be placed in selective folders so that the search is much faster.

Why don you show us typical names of tiles together with their locations?

Regards,

Luis

ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Thu Feb 05, 2009 8:39 pm

Luis,

Thank you for your time.

The folder structure that TileProxy creates is pretty straightforward in the cache folder are folders numbered 000 through 999. Each folder contains 256x256 24-bit JPGs. Here are some sample names:

tile_l14_x2997_y9989.jpg
tile_l16_x10171_y42813.jpg
tile_l18_x43410_y161572.jpg

I think a combination of TileProxy and SBuilderX is very logical; TP allows real-time loading for exploration of new areas and SBX allows you to consolidate all the textures you already have.

ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Thu Feb 05, 2009 8:43 pm

More info.

These tiles are from MS VE; I don't know if that is their native file naming scheme or not. I really don't know that much about these things.

As far as system performance, here are my specs:

Windows XP x64
Intel i7 @ 4Ghz
12GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 295GTX
OS is on Intel X25-E 32GB
FSX and associated apps on Intel X25-M 160GB

If SBX can handle all that RAM, I might be OK ;)

ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:14 am

Performance may be an issue unless I can break it down somehow; even a high performance SSD doesn't like having 6 million+ files.

Thanks again for your time.

~David
Attachments
6 million files.png
6 million files.png (47.12 KiB) Viewed 26310 times

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by Luis Sa » Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:00 pm

Hello,

As I have said the main problem is that SBuilderX caches all tiles in a single folder! :oops:

I am available to make a revision so that the tiles are placed in a structured folder scheme. In that case when SBuilderX needs a particular tile, depending on the location it goes directly to a particular folder where a reduced number of tiles may exist.

I will think about this this weekend.

Regards,

Luis

ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:29 pm

Thanks again for your time, Luis. One of the utilities that TP includes is a way to graphically browse the tiles you have downloaded and selectively clear them. I could use this tool to create subsets of tiles that would be more manageable. What is the largest area that you would recommend? Of course, the larger they are, the easier it would be to process. I assume the whole thing couldn't be converted to a single scenery tile anyway...

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by Luis Sa » Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:43 pm

Hi,

At this precise moment I am copying the source SBuilderX files to my laptop so that I can look to them during the weekend. What I plan is to create a version which caches the tiles in a structured manner. I hope I have the time to achieve this.

On the other side a batch file needs to be built to rename the TP tiles and copy thyem to that folder structure that I will try to define.

Can you give me the lat/lon of the 3 tiles that you refer in a previous post? and send me those 3 tiles for me?

Regards,

Luis

ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:43 pm

I can give you whatever you want. This is very promising and I am immensely grateful for your time. It may take me some time to find some tiles I recognize and then get their exact positions, I will start right now.

ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Sun Feb 08, 2009 2:30 am

More input from TPs author:
Each jpg file has an x and y coordinate specific to the zoom level.

Coordinates go from 0 to (2^level)-1 I think. coordinates represent 180 West to 180 East Longitude and 90 North to 90 South Latitude (not sure about the North/South Orientation anymore). You do the maths. Projection is equirectangular (Mercator).

Each file sits in a folder numbered (x+y+level)%1000 to take some load off the file system (less files per folder means access to files)

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by Luis Sa » Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:59 am

Hello

Here is what I am working on

Regards,

Luis
tilefolder.gif
tilefolder.gif (68.53 KiB) Viewed 26234 times

ddrueding
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:02 pm

Re: Using TileProxy Tiles

Post by ddrueding » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:07 am

Wow, that looks like a lot of folders ;)

Post Reply