merging pictures

7/29/2019 Merging Pictures

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Mer g in g Pict u r es

I can be contacted at E-m ail address:- w eb@g3t vu .co .uk

TheMerge p i ctu r e f unc t i on enab les you t o ove r l ay da ta on to an open p i ctu r e f r om a num berex te rna l sou rces, o r ano the r p i c tu re . I f t h i s i s per fo rm ed ove r a m ap , t he resu l t i ng p i c tu re w i l l r e tat h e e l e v at i o n m a t r i x a t t r i b u t e s.

A cl i ck on t he too lba r I con

Or by opening ' Ed i t / M erge Pi c tu res ' will produce th is pane:

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If however you see the pane in this form without the other external merge sources:



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The file'Map_L ink . t x t ' hasn't been accessed and m odified as per th e warning not e on m y 'Quick Sta

page. This note is repeated here for inform ation:

To act i va t e the 'Me rge ' i n te rne t dow n load l inks f r om MapPo in t , V i r tua l Ea r th ,MapQuest and Goog leMap, th e f i l e 'Map_L ink . tx t ' h as to be v iew ed. Th is f i l e con t a ins l i nks to t he l egal requ i rem en t fo r access to , and use o f , th e da ta f rom these se rve rs . Iyou ag ree to t he cond i t i ons , you can m od i f y and save the f i l e as per t he con ta ined i ns t ruc t i ons w h i ch w i l l p rov ide access. The f i l e res ides i n th e roo t o f m y Rad io Mob i l efo l de r .

The 'Merge Picture' function, p rovides the facility to m erge a source over t he active pictur e in four m odes.

Copy: produces a unprocessed version of the downloaded data,

Add: this logically adds the source data to t he active picture,

Mul t i p l y : is a logical multiplication of the active picture w ith t he source data,

Bi tw i se : is a logical 'AND' function of th e source data with t he active picture.



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The merge source can be selected from another open picture, or one of th e data sources listed. I t should bnoted t hat t he files will be saved from t he internet , and t he location folders have been selected in 'Opt ions / I n t e r n e t ' with the' Dow n load and save a l oca l copy ' action by t he installation file.

Copy:

As an example, t he above' copy ' settings were used to download a Road map, from MapPoint Europe, for Base Network as below, w hich was' k e p t i n n e w p i ct u r e ' : -



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An alternative Road map source isMapQuest, which produces the picture below: -

To useVi r t ua l Ear t h for down loads and save the files locally, it is necessary t o have a pat h t o th e VirtuaEarth folder located in the root of t heRM directory. This can be checked by opening ' Op t i on s / I n t e r n et ' andclicking on t heVi r tua l Ear th button t o obtain:



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where the Local file path can be seen, and 'Dow n load and save ' selected as above.

(A similar procedure is used forGoog le Map, Toporam a, Ter r aserver and Landsat data).

Opening t he 'Me rge p i c tu res ove r ' pane, and selecting 'Vi r t ua l Ear t h ' will then pr oduce:



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where t he Roads option can be selected. The zoom level is automatically adjusted t o optim ise the downloafile resolution, and m inimise the download size for the area to be covered. (Maximum detail will be obtained azoom level of 20).

The resulting road m ap fromVi r tu a l Ear t h is shown here:-



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WithVi r t ua l Ear t h there is the opt ion to select Roads, an aerial photograph, or a hybr id view ( being an

aerial photograph with roads merged over it).

Each of these maps are useful when kept as a' N ew p i ct u r e ', ( which can then be closed if not r equired

without saving), to locate the position of the elevation map. They are all scaled to fit t he base map over w hicthey ar e merged, with m ore detail being available as required as the m ap area is reduced. I t should also be nthat the m erge function work s on zoomed areas which is particularly useful when placing waypoints accuratel

Routes .



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Taking th eVi r tua l Ear t h plot above, a m arquee box can select an ar ea with a 'l e f t c l i ck and d rag 'function to produce this view:-

And a' r i gh t c l ic k ' in the m arquee box produces a low resolution, zoomed screen version, of t he selected a



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Once again, selectingM er g e/ co p y fromVi r tu a l Ear t h , and'keep i n the p i c tu re ' , produces this

higher resolution picture of t he selected area:-



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Where the added detail can be seen. This picture can then be forced to greyscale using 'Edit/Force greyscaproduce a pictur e suitable for Cartesian coverage plots, or m erging with another active picture: -



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Showing Networ ks, and mov ing the HH unit on screen to t he cursor position( F il e/ Un i t P r o p er t i e s/ con Un i t - p lace Un i t a t Cur sor Posi t ion ) then produces this picture:-



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This picture can be used forCartes ian( n o t p o l ar ! ) plots if required, or a merge/copy with an aerial phocan be performed to produce this view:-



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The zoom and merge fu nctions enable Units to be placed at exact positions on the m ain map w hen th eir

coordinates are only known approxim ately. Any of th e pictur es can be saved for fur ther use under your own nusing 'Fi le / Save Pic tu r e as ', or by clicking the appropriat e toolbar icon.

Add , Mu l t i p l y , B itw i se:



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Taking Picture 3 above, the coloured road m ap fromVi r tua l Ear t h , and forcing greyscale using ' Ed i t / f ogreysca le ' produces a black and w hite version of t he road m ap which can be'k e p t i n n e w p i ct u r e ' : -

This picture will be merged wit h m y Base elevation m ap below, to show the effect of the t hreepicture m erge options. I have used the basic elevation map, without contours or distance scale, asthese mask t he effects.



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Fi rs t Add :



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This function isn't suitable for t he pair of pictures chosen for t his merge, alth ough m odification of t he

Brightness and Contr ast sliders m ay produce a picture suitable for purpose with other pictur e sources.

Second Mu l t ip ly :



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This is the function I prefer for m y style of pictures - t he density of t he black/ whit e pictur e can be adjusted

using contrast and brightn ess sliders as before, and the legend refreshed using' Ed i t / Red raw l as t Legend ' produce:-



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Th i rd B itw i se:



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Which again is less suitable for the pictur e above, not showing a clear definition of the black lines

and names.

It is worth while experimenting with the different merge options, and the brightness/contrastsliders, with your own pictures to produce a final pictur e suitable for purpose. Any pictur e can bediscarded wit hout saving during t he process.



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Som e f i na l no tes on Merg ing - if you set the brightness to 2.5 and contrast to 0, and then

perform a merge, you will obt ain a Blank w hite picture. This pictur e can be saved as' B l ank ' , but ithas the elevation att ribut es of the m ap below, enabling it t o be used for signal strengt h plots whichwon't be confused by any oth er detail! The obtained plots can then be merged wit h any oth er activepicture as required. One word of caution - make sure t hat y ou Reset t he brightn ess and Contrastsliders after the above m erge or you will think the servers are down!

As an a l te rna t i ve m e thod of producing the blank w hite screen which contains the elevationdata, open a Map Picture and save it as the name ' B l ank ' . Next open ' P ic t u re p rope r t i es' , and setthem as shown below - select'Grey sca led s lope ' , contrast to 0% and Brightness to 100%. A clickon ' D r a w ' will then produce a whit e screen which can be saved again as' B l ank ' . This procedure isused to avoid overwrit ing th e original source pictur e properties.



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W a r n in g : - For Landcover merges, the file'UMD1km_L . img ' needs to be present on your compute

This can be downloaded from the I ntern et ( as per Roger's elevation data page), fromUMD1km_L.z ip , an

unzipped into myLandcover folder.

Th is z i p f i l e i s 36Mb , bu t w hen ex t r acted t he da ta i s 890Mb!

I f present on your m achine, you can browse to its location using theB r o w s e button before using.

Bu t a l so see th e o the r use fo r Land cover d a ta he re :

Th i s page i s ava i l ab le i n . pd f f o r m a t h e re

http://www.geog.umd.edu/landcover/1km-map/UMD1km_L.ziphttp://www.g3tvu.co.uk/Merging%20Pictures.pdfhttp://www.g3tvu.co.uk/Merging%20Pictures.pdfhttp://www.g3tvu.co.uk/Land_cover.htmhttp://www.geog.umd.edu/landcover/1km-map/UMD1km_L.zip


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