Vegetation Earth map

[Volutar]

polygon globe data is only visual part, and as you said-not the only.
there is also border line data. plus it has country data and zonal data and trajectory data. part of trajectory data is city data. also mission data. making new planet will require alot more work than you thought. i havent even thinking of all data which should be altered for new planet.

[luke83]

I asked about a converter with BombBloke and he has asked for a example CAD file, i  don't know if this is the best direction to be going but to me it sounds reasonable. Please note , i have had no promise that he Will create a solution , he is simply looking into it.

I to am curious what will happen with different size worlds ?

Also my next thought leads to multiply worlds ( Mars or the Moon).

As usual just wanting to know what we can and cant do

[moriarty]

okay, wait.

world.dat :
1) polygons for visual. can be edited by converting world.dat to .obj and back. check.
2) terrain information. no editor yet, but shouldn't be all that hard, should it?
3) zone information. no editor yet, but shouldn't be all that hard, should it? (see https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=ZONAL.DAT - the zones just manage alien attack priorities)

border info : where is that stored and in what format? no editor yet.

country labels were hardcoded in geoscape.exe, so I believe they are hardcoded now, too, right?

trajectory data? what exactly does that do?

[Volutar]

luke83, world.dat with polycount more or less than 666 will be okay. openxcom will load and render them all.
moriarty, border info is hardcoded into XcomResourcePack.cpp. I think SupSuper will externalize it eventually.
country labels and city names are externalized.
trajectory data isn't implemented. I've posted my findings into same topic with my world.dat viewer link.
VEry funny, that some dude from https://ufopaedia.org made same "discovery" after almost 1 year

[SupSuper]

I asked about a converter with BombBloke and he has asked for a example CAD file, i  don't know if this is the best direction to be going but to me it sounds reasonable. Please note , i have had no promise that he Will create a solution , he is simply looking into it.

I to am curious what will happen with different size worlds ?

Also my next thought leads to multiply worlds ( Mars or the Moon).

As usual just wanting to know what we can and cant do

Technically yes you can make your own planet, it's just a matter of putting all the relevant data together in a better externalized / editable format. Planet size is hardcoded but could probably be tweaked.

This is all the info relevant to the Geoscape planet:
- Landmass: The polygons that form the planet you see, defining what counts as "land" (for building bases, landing UFOs, doing missions, etc.) and its respective terrain for crash sites. (currently loaded from WORLD.DAT, to be moved to ruleset)
- Details: Superficial stuff like border lines, country labels, etc. (currently hardcoded and in ruleset)
- Countries: The nations that fund you and what parts of the map affect them (currently loaded from ruleset).
- Regions: The areas of the world that correspond to each region, which affects graph data and alien AI (currently loaded from ruleset).
- Cities: The points in the world that correspond to cities, which are targeted by certain missions (currently loaded from ruleset).
- Trajectories: The paths that UFOs take when performing missions (not implemented yet).

[Volutar]

Distance units defined in nautical miles (nm) should be changed to something else, because by definition, nm is 1' by equator line, and no matter how big globe is - equator length will be 360*60=21600 nm. In this case if your base will be established on 2 times bigger planet, your "nm" values should be scaled.

obj format specs (a sort of): https://www.fileformat.info/format/wavefrontobj/egff.htm
I'm trying to get my world.dat browser export/import this format.

[moriarty]

does anyone else think that large parts of this thread should now be split apart and put into a separate thread "geoscape globe improvements" ? 

things that are emerging from this:

- when Volutar finishes his "world.dat <-> .obj" - converter, we could increase the poly count to make a nicer earth

- if Volutar could add terrain/zone editing capabilities to his extraordinarily cool globe viewer tool, that "nicer earth" would even function properly

- of course, this would also be the first step towards making a TFTD-globe... and even a combination, which would be super-sweet...

- should we change the distance units used in-game? I'm not sure. nautical miles did historically come from 1' at equator line, but were precisely defined as 1,852 metres, so the same unit could be used for larger or smaller planets (or astronomical bodies of any kind). how exactly does the game handle these units? does it measure everything in angles or does it use 3d spatial coordinates?

[Volutar]

I didn't found OBJ editor which can edit groups... They all seems to be ignoring materials and groups.

[luke83]

I have sent Bombloke some example DXF files, maybe they work better

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4Vlb6e97KHSQnZ1OUZBbktlSnc

You should be able to do everything you need in a free CAD package like QCAD for those who don't have a copy of autocad floating around.

[Volutar]

What is this DXF file? Never heard of it. There should be textual graphics format, which includes polygons and groups.

[luke83]

Well honestly i dont know if it the BEST file for the job but it a standard format in CAD package 2D and 3D. I don't pretend its computer game related, but its used in industrial settings. The Link i made has a picture of Australia taken form your program and draw into a DXF format. Bombbloke was going to see IF it sufficient format ( i asked him after you said it was to much work).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoCAD_DXF

IF you look at the pics , one is a Screen shot from your software , other is my auto cad drawing saved into DXF format. Each Triangle has a enclosed Polyline ( starts and ends on it self) creating a separate object. The thought was maybe this would be a possible way to graphically change the map. Rember i am not a computer wizard so if this wont work that is fine

[Volutar]

Well I don't need any pictures - I need specs for reading and writing.
Obj specs are here : https://www.martinreddy.net/gfx/3d/OBJ.spec
Where can I find similar description of dxf? And is it capable of handling mesh groups?
I've updated my world.dat browser and added obj export (though useless, because there's no nice editor, and no importer), surface assignment and coordinate edit abilities (text editing in memo box, hehe - enter applies changes). WORLD.DAT written by "save" button at the top.

[luke83]

Hmm now your dragging me out of what i know , i use the graphical interface

Most of the below means nothing to me

https://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?linkID=10809853&id=12272454&siteID=123112
https://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/acad_dxf0.pdf

[Volutar]

I've looked into specs, and found it too complicated. I refuse to use this format. I need simple text format, like obj. With nice specs and examples.

[luke83]

Well i am out of ideas 

Just found a convertor that loads your .OBJ and converts to my .DXF

"SYCODE Mesh Converter v1 0 DC012011-BEAN
Description   
Disks: 4 x 2,88mb Date: April 9, 2011
OS: Windows Type: Patch

Release Description:

Mesh Converter is a software to convert between various mesh file formats
Mesh Converter also has a batch conversion tool which can be used to
convert multiple mesh files at once

The supported file mesh file formats are:
AutoCAD DWG
AutoCAD DXF
3D Studio 3DS
Rhinoceros 3DM
Stereolithography STL
Wavefront OBJ
Vizualization Toolkit VTK
Google SketchUp SKP"

Most likely NOT WHAT you want