New to Digital Cartography? Software General Information

[Redrobes]

And vector approaches (CC3, Inkscape, Xara etc) have real advantages for the world/regional design maps for the GM. Rasters only compete here by having lots of maps at different scales.

Ahh, well I would have to disagree here of course...

[dormouse]

Ahh, well I would have to disagree here of course...

You're saying ViewingDale is Raster?
Or maybe that it takes much more powerful processing than vector or images at different scales would need? (I can't really imagine a raster map with all the very fine level detail still being quick at zooming in and out to continents; I can imagine raster stamps for fine detail on a vector background that will do areas & continents giving that impression.)

I'll admit to not having tried ViewingDale, though I have looked at it.. I'll download the trial and have a closer look. I was always put off by the fact that it did not seem as self-contained as most progs, with an emphasis on networking etc., and it was never obvious how it worked or precisely what it did and I do like to know that.

[Redrobes]

You're saying ViewingDale is Raster?...

Oops - too busy to notice this one. Sorry.

It is raster - at least I would say it is. For certain, it does not take in any vector formats like SVG or has any line or shape drawing abilities. Everything is done using raster bitmaps. It has its own image format but can import BMP, JPG and PNG files and has a batch converter for PNG files to import those libraries of files that you get like the CUSAC.

Imagine painting this bitmap onto some stretchy rubber sheet. You can put the sheet down, rotate it and stretch it. You can put rubber sheets down onto other rubber sheets and so move the base one and all the others on top move as well. Its a hierarchy of them.

Your graphics card can deal with these textured rubber sheets real fast. Your right in that it takes a lot of processing. What it does not need tho is a lot of CPU processing. ViewingDale can run on old machines - ask icohedron ! - BUT it definitely does need a reasonable graphics card, the sort you would use for games. Tho nowadays thats not so much of an issue as when I first released it. Anything with 32Mb or more on board graphics card RAM like the old nVidia AGP ones through to the ultra modern PCIe2 types. Theres a free test utility you can download from my site to test the graphics system speed and tell you what you have running and where this may or may not be a problem for the app.

So the CPU gathers together all the icons and works out how to place them down then sends that to the graphics card for rendering. Since most apps use 90%+ of the time rendering then you get a big speed increase when using the graphics card to do it. So ViewingDale is a graphics card hardware assisted bitmap compositing engine. It is a lot like DungeonForge as we have mentioned before but the layout is held in discreet icons instead of one big map file and that the images for it are held on HDD instead of in the file like DF was claimed to do. Which as we have said previously has some advantages and some disadvantages.

The VTT side of things in a nutshell is just that the prog will also transfer and update those images and icons when logged in as a server or as a client to one. Somebody moves their character is just the same as moving any icon in the hierarchy. Those changes are transmitted and all clients refresh the screen and show the move. Since the app is fast, it can update that refresh in real time in exactly the same process as if you had zoomed or panned or edited it yourself.

So since the app has no base bitmap and everything is on stretchy rubber then there are no virtually no borders and no limits to the extents or zoom factor. The res of all icons shown is still limited to that of the images making up the icons tho so you might need a world, some regions, a town and a floor plan maps all done to zoom between outer space and crack in the floor. The apps job is to take care of the scaling of the images and blending between them to pick the right one at the right time and deliver the seamless experience.

[dormouse]

BUT it definitely does need a reasonable graphics card, the sort you would use for games. Tho nowadays thats not so much of an issue as when I first released it. Anything with 32Mb or more on board graphics card RAM like the old nVidia AGP ones through to the ultra modern PCIe2 types. Theres a free test utility you can download from my site to test the graphics system speed and tell you what you have running and where this may or may not be a problem for the app.

Hmmm, I replied to Icosahedron before seeing this

I just tried the test utility and it says my system is too slow
That explains the problems I had, though I would have expected my graphics card to be good enough though it was chosen for resolution not gaming.
Radeon 3650 with 768MB RAM, now that I have checked. But I do run lots of progs and 2 monitors (one 24" and one 22").

It is raster - at least I would say it is. For certain, it does not take in any vector formats like SVG or has any line or shape drawing abilities. Everything is done using raster bitmaps.
...

So since the app has no base bitmap and everything is on stretchy rubber then there are no virtually no borders and no limits to the extents or zoom factor. The res of all icons shown is still limited to that of the images making up the icons tho so you might need a world, some regions, a town and a floor plan maps all done to zoom between outer space and crack in the floor. The apps job is to take care of the scaling of the images and blending between them to pick the right one at the right time and deliver the seamless experience.

Yes, this is what I thought. The zoom feature is very good (at least on systems that can handle it), but will be limited by the detail available on the image whereas vectors just have descriptions that zoom at all scales precisely - but there's a limit to the complexity of an image that this can be done with.

It sounds like a very good way of doing what it does, though I don't see it as being like DF - or indeed any of the other progs out there. I'm not convinced that FM8 or CC3 are good for fast, good battlemaps - though I'll investigate more - I think that DF and DJ can do this - and I suspect that VD does too. And VD adds the option to zoom regionally etc which would be good in lots of situations, especially if using it like a VTT.

[Redrobes]

I just tried the test utility and it says my system is too slow
That explains the problems I had, though I would have expected my graphics card to be good enough though it was chosen for resolution not gaming.
Radeon 3650 with 768MB RAM, now that I have checked. But I do run lots of progs and 2 monitors (one 24" and one 22").

That card would be waaaay in excess of the minimum standard required for the app. When you ran the test app did it say anything other than it was too slow. Did it say that it was running using the software renderer or it was not in true color or some other message like that ?

I run two monitors too and this is what I get with a less powerful card than you have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKYU2gcsaoQ

Well, let me know if you want me to investigate.