Pseudo-photorealism

[Boyd]

New Jersey has some excellent land use/landcover data available for download (http://www.nj.gov/dep/gis/lulc07cshp.html) , and I used it to make this map about 3 years ago: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/441/

I decided to re-visit this recently with the goal of making simulated aerial imagery that would be compatible with all Garmin devices. The Nuvi 3000 series does a really great job of realtime 3d rendering, so it has been especially tweaked for them (although it works fine in 2d mode on older models). I have been testing on a Nuvi 3550 and Dezl 760 and they have no problem rendering the map at highway speed. The map tiles are actually smaller than my NJ topo.

This is done with extensive use of custom types, and that puts a lot of limits on what can be done since they only support 32x32 bitmaps in two colors (or one color plus transparency). To work around this, I have duplicated some polygons to add a third color with a transparent overlay. I thought that typwiz 3 was going to support additional colors, but it doesn't seem to offer that for polygons.

One of the biggest challenges has been creating simulated buildings for suburban/urban areas, but I'm getting there. Although the Nuvi correctly scales the bitmapped types in perspective, it does not scale them when you zoom in and out. So the map only works well through a limited zoom range (about .2 miles through .5 miles). I could improve on this using multiple bit levels and draw priorities, but I think I will run out of usuable custom types before I get to that.

This is still just an experimental map that covers a small area, but I hope to expand to the whole state and make it available here (someday).














Here's what it looks like in Mapsource.




And on a couple vintage devices (Nuvi 205 and 60csx). The .typ file could be tweaked to make it look better on these.






(Note: you have to scroll the web page to the right to see the full images above)

[Seldom]

Wow, Boyd.  Really nice.  Have you figured a way to add contours?

[Boyd]

Thanks.

No contours for this map, no hydro (except what is part of the LULC data). It will display 3d terrain using the nuvi 3550 North America DEM (gmapdem.img), or when used with the Garmin 24k topo. I have stripped everything out but the landcover, transportation and cities/towns. I just want it to look like an aerial photo without any other clutter.