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[bburns]

Hello all, I've started playing Adventures in Middle Earth and was interested in making some landscapes to make exploring the world more interesting - then I wondered if someone else had made a DEM for Middle Earth, and found the incredible work that you guys (monks) did. So I got the 10k DEM file [1] and the Shapefiles [2] and put them into QGIS and with some coloring and hillshading have this so far -

https://imgur.com/M8f83o3

What took the most time was aligning the DEM and the vectors - the georeferencing plugin didn't seem to work very well, so I tried editing a world file for the DEM directly and importing it - that worked a bit better, though took many tries to get everything lined up, and it's still not perfect. The current world file has -

200.1
0
0
-200.1
-900
2001100

Some things to do -

- add linear mountain ranges for labelling (just did a few so far)
- add regions for labelling
- try some different color and labelling schemes

I'll post updates here if I make more/better renders - I'm still experimenting with colors and styles.

Thanks for all the great work you guys have done - I hope this project keeps going!

[1] http://worlds.outercraft.com/forum/index.php/topic,27.60.htm
[2] https://github.com/jvangeld/ME-GIS

Brian
https://brianburns.org

[monks]

Hi, cheers for that. Looks great!

 Maybe I should release the data. I no longer work on it or have to time to work on it. I do still have it--- I'd have to dig it all out. It would require that someone using the data have Global Mapper- the project is in a very old version of Global Mapper...and I'd prob have to point it to all of the files again as it has all been split up and moved from the original directories. Wouldn't be straight forward task but I certainly have all of the shp files and the dems. I couldn't do it just at the moment though either as I'm busy in the middle of something else. I wouldn't want to get sucked back into being 'support' for a project either...

monks

[Redrobes]

Hi Brian, I think Monks had the final data but I think I still have the files we used to create the data but it wont be any good to you. Between us I think we could recreate the data set that we got to the final state.

Personally I think it might be a good idea to release the data in whatever form we had it in as were both no longer working on it now. But I agree with Monks in that to use it outside of the weird system we had you really need to use Global Mapper.

In a sense we released the data for Outerra because it was a proper 3D realtime engine that made it possible for people to see it without having to faff about with the data set much to get it into a form that someone could use. Outerra was an app that fitted perfectly in with our data as at the time we had no real time system to display it properly.

Red,

P.S. Hey Monks, long time no speaky ! Will have to catch up

[monks]

I sent you a text the other day Robes...to your moby...prob no longer your number though. Yeh, sent you an email ages ago but your emails have always been iffy so never knew whether you received it or not...
 I think the aim should be to get it into Outerra again...clearly...but with a single project in Global Mapper. So it demands that someone in the project has Global Mapper. So they'll have to put their money where their mouth is if they want it to happen...

monks

[bburns]

Hi monks and Redrobes - I didn't realize you had written - I thought I was subscribed to this topic!

My main purpose was to make some detailed maps to play AIME with - like down to the 1 meter level. That would involve procedural generation, which I'm not very familiar with. But I figured I could feed it your 10k DEM (200m/px) as a starting point and have it fill in the blanks.

Then I got interested in making a nicely labelled map, and played around a bit with the shapefiles - adding region and mountain layers with curved labels and fontsize in km. I put that all on Github here https://github.com/bburns/arda, minus the 10k DEM - it's still a little preliminary.

Anyway, I'll be switching now to the procedural generation, but could post a map to reddit r/tolkienfans to see if anyone was interested in helping maintain the project. And I haven't written to jvangeld yet - will do that also.

Thanks again for the awesome maps!

[jvangeld]

That is a really nice render. Between you and Hellricer the GIS files are really improving.

Just to get this ME-DEM reunion really cooking, I sent SeerBlue an e-mail.

[monks]

  I'm still in contact with Seer on FB. I have a project that works with Global Mapper 14- which is the GM I have. I have World Machine projects in WM 2.3 Professional 64 bit edition.
 Global Mapper contacted me yaknow two years ago because they were looking for projects that they could showcase using their software. Nothing came of it- probably because the project was in remission.
 To make it happen it needs the following:

 Someone other than me with Global Mapper.
 Someone other than me with World Machine.
 Someone other than me with Outerra.
 HFZ support being reinstated in Global Mapper- speak to Mike over there. If someone gets a recent copy the support for it almost certainly won't be in there anymore. I did get Mike to reinstate it once after he inadvertently forgot to include it- there are like over a 100 formats that it supports.
 It is possible to do it without HFZ support but HFZ is way better than the other option .bt.
 Someone with a powerful PC. The World Machine renders that knit all of the output from GM into a tile set for Outerra take days. World Machine adds all the erosion and blends stuff together.
 
Obviously it would need Brano's support (mapressor) getting it into Outerra. I *think* he would be ok with it given enough interest. Someone also needs to run mapressor- but most people with Outerra could do it.

 I do have the workflow I used in a text file- not that you'd need to follow it exactly...you might get away with not using World Machine...but I can't see any other program out there being the right fit for the job- all round.

 The project would need storage- we used to use Oshyan Greene's ftp...but something else would be necessary now.

 That's just to touch base camp on it.

I think 2013 was the last year we worked on it...possibly into early 2014..I've got the project spread over 6 hard disks...backups...it appears I've probably got it duplicated 2 or 3 times. The last Global Mapper file is dated early 2013, a zipped format .gmp at 3.7 GB.

Me, personally, I think Outerra is the community to pitch this at. It's the only renderer that could do it justice- sheer scale, and geoerffed.

monks

[monks]

I'm going to just cut to the chase and post about this on the Outerra Boards. I'm pretty sure I've got all the data and I know what's needed. I'll probably drop Brano an email too since I think the Outerra community is the best place for this.

monks

[bburns]

I hope you find some maintainers - I posted a map to reddit, and mentioned that you're looking for people - https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/dncyxc/map_of_middle_earth/.

And we moved the curved labels to jvangeld's ME-GIS repo, and I added the 10k DEM to the arda repo, so other people could play around with it - https://github.com/bburns/arda.

I might not have much time for the map for a while, but hope to get back to it eventually!

[monks]

Yeh, don't panic Brian, this release of the data was not aimed at you!  lol You've done some good stuff with the maps. Any interest is great. I've posted a link to your stuff on FB.

 Personally I doubt if anyone will be forthcoming, but it's worth a go. Brano has offered to put the data on their server. He also mentioned a Google Drive. So, I think hosting of the data can be worked out.

monks

[monks]

 Me and Brano will split the project storage over 2 Google Drives around 65 GBs of space.

monks

[hellricer]

Me and Brano will split the project storage over 2 Google Drives around 65 GBs of space.

monks

That is really great news!

Forgive me for being pesky, but I think this nicely illustrates why people should always thrive to keep data of this character in open formats...

Keeping the works in proprietary formats makes you "vendor locked-in" to the software (in this case not exactly cheap one either), which in this case even obsoletes some crucial features in latest versions.  I completely realize that often times there might not be good-enough alternative ­— I'm just making a general remark.  Shapefiles, .bt files, etc. are IMHO step in the right direction.

Anyway, I did manage to get a copy of GM v13 and I could open some example HFZ files from L3DT website just fine.

That being said, I know absolutely nothing about how to use the software yet, or what is actually unfinished or "in-progress" But I would be very interested in learning as much of the workflow as possible!

I can't get Outerra running, but that's something I can live without for now.

[monks]

ok cool...that's one half of what's needed. Storage is there now. Uploading it all will take weeks though.
 Mike at Global Mapper -reinstate hfz- sure he'll do it....ahh yeh hfz fine. cool.


 The other half is World Machine.

The whole idea was to use industry standards and treat the map as if it were 'real'- that is use GIS mapping software. Because, as Tolkien stated, M-E IS Earth but set back in history- an alternate timeline. There was no proprietary format of course for it.

monks

[monks]

I'm uploading the data to my Google Drive. It will take another two weeks at least. There will be a fair amount of data in there that is not necessary to have. I need to organize it once it's on there. I also intend to reconstruct the Global Mapper project file and the World Machine project file. All of the files will be missing from the directories so I'll have to reconstruct a folder with the files in them and point the apps at them. So. we're talking prob 3 weeks on this at least.

monks

[jvangeld]

Respect and appreciation to you, Monks.