Does any software like this exist (google maps)

[TripHazard]

Hey all, so i have this idea for making a map for my game world. I dont know if youve seen "the terrain tutor" on youtube making "The fabled realms" map, but heres a link if not https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zD5ZQ-bVSg.

Anyways how he makes it is in 3D from foam. What im wondering is, if i could do this but do it like google maps. build the entire map from foam. then build more detailed areas of the map, zoomed in versions of each sector so to speak. I realise this would be an absolutely massive job but im up for having a go, i could probably re use a lot of the areas.

so what id do is take a picture of the map, then take pictures of areas zoomed in further, with more detail down to cities, houses etc. the same way google stitches satellite images together. is there a software available that could stitch images together this way?

Thanks, Brett.

[johnvanvliet]

so a analog physical sculpted map and camera photos needing near infinite detail

pull out your chisels and carving knives and go "old school"

as in those old "3d'ish" images of the moon ( pre Apollo ) were made in plaster and then photographed in the studio

[Redrobes]

Taking the photos has some issues but maybe with enough effort is not too hard since you could make a jig to position the camera above each point you need photos of. You also need to correct for camera perspective to make it ortho view and correct for vignetting and other lighting issues. Then you could stitch up all the photos into a single ortho shot and then use that as a layer in a zoom map.

But when you say absolutely massive job I dont think you must be appreciating just how massive that job would be. When you zoom in it will double the res. Then another zoom and it doubles again and then again. How many zoom layers do you want. 5 ? Thats 32 x the size of that one foam map that chap did in each direction. That would be like making a foam map about half the size of a football pitch.

Just to put some perspective on it. When we did MeDem for middle earth we did it as 40x40 tiles and each tile was done digitally and each took about 10 mins to process out. So thats 10 mins x 1600 which is 11 days. So if the tile was even 50cm square and took you half a day to make then your looking at 32x32x0.5 days = 4 years working 5 days a week. It took us 4 years to make MeDem from the multiple itterations of improvement and we had software to help sculpt it for us. To do this in foam is pure folly. You would be better doing it digitally and then sculpting just the buildings and placing them into your digital world.

Anyway - putting the photos together into a zoom map is no problem. Taking the photos is hard and full of issues but its possible with a bit of time, care etc. Making the map in foam - well you would have to prove me wrong.

[TripHazard]

Just main cities/ Areas of interest I should add not the entirety of the world. Just wanted to know if the software exists is all or how you’d go about it

[johnvanvliet]

as for software

a linux based terminal only install on a home made CNC

i think there are rasberry pi builds for making your own cnc machine

i know there is for wood carving


as for stitching photos from a camera

Nip2 is designed for that

one of the uses is for spectroscopic imaging of paintings in art museums
and for use with VERY!!! BIG !!! image data sets from 25 k to 128+ GB images
-- i know it works with a 24 GIG image

it is a bit like a spreadsheet program ( lotus 123 , calc ,excel) combined with Imagemagick or Gmic

uses tie points for stitching photos

[Hai-Etlik]

I'm sorry but you are not describing what you want very well.

If I'm following you correctly, you want a slippy map with certain areas having higher detail maps appearing as overlays as you zoom in? All the stuff about physical models is just how you plan to make the images and really isn't important to the software question? Or are you asking for software to assist you in making the model in some way? Or software that in some way mimics the physical model making virtually?

[Redrobes]

Id like to know that too - but I am guessing that he hand builds a square map out of foam then hand builds a foam city and then hand builds model houses. Then ties it all up with a slippy map where the town is layered in on the images when you zoom in and the house appears when you zoom in again. So if your great at building models but not so great making maps digitally then this is a possible way to do a world.

I checked out Nip2 as well and its interesting and the libvips seems similar to a command line app I have to modify images only this one has a UI to help out. Had a bit of trouble using it so will look at more help files but the process appeals to me. I have not had a really good program yet to rectify photos.

[johnvanvliet]

nip and vips is a bit ODD to use , and there is a bit of a learning curve

even more so for terminal use of vips

however i have been using it for 12+ years now

a good resource for it is the blog
http://libvips.blogspot.com/

[Redrobes]

Nice one thanks !

My app is command line but its more like: Load A TestImage.jpg, Blur A 2.5, Load B AnotherImage.jpg, Add A B C, Mult C 0.5, Save C Result.jpg - That kind of thing. It has loads of operations I can do and basically I can add another one to the list real easy. So if some interesting algorithm pops up like the dither I found recently I can put in a dither command and check it out. But its not really geared up for processing many many images. It has 10 buffers A to J where you can load images into them and mess about. But not really good where you load many images in and stitch them together into one large one. So that area is where I think ill have the most interest with this Nip2 / Vips thing.

I have found apps in the past where you take many photos from one position, rotate a bit and stitch them into a panorama but its harder to find one where you move the camera to the right 1m and take another photo of 1m of stuff to stitch into something ortho. It was cool that the debian repos had it in there by default. So I dont need to build it and an apt update will just keep it fresh. Clearly I have been missing out.

[TripHazard]

yeah no need for software to cut the foam out thought that was clear sorry. software to stitch the photos id tek together. the same way google maps puts satalite images together. id take photos from above using a jig for the camera. make terrain from foam and as for houses in cities, i have a 3d printer id use for that. i know this moght sound weird for whatever reasons, but im not good at drawing im good at cad software and im good and foam modeling this is just playing to my strengths.

so lets clarify.

id sculpt the map from foam, the entire world. like when youre fully zoomed out on google. id take a photo.

id sculp the terrain in slightly higher detail around the cites. id take a photo

id place 3d printed houses and other city furnature, id take a photo

id save the photos to my computer, the first image someone would see is the world map with cities just represented with a tag

theyd click the city, another image would then pop up. they'd see higher detail terrain around the are.

theyd click in again, theyd see the city. the citymight be 10 or so images, because, cities are big. theyd be able to drag the map around and see the city in its enirity.

ya know, like when you use google maps. thats what i want to do anyways. but ill figure it out, cheers