Targetware: Terrain Development

MapMaker User's Guide

Features

• Generates terrains for just about any spot on Earth.
• Terrains can be as large as you wish and in whatever scale you wish.
• Ability to save your configuration and reload later. Or send the configuration to others who may be collaborating with you.
• Employs a unique distortion-reducing algorithm to minimize the distance errors inherent in most map projections*. Or choose from 3 other common equidistant GIS map projections.
• Employs public domain 30-arc-second global elevation data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This data ensures that each vertex in your terrain will be accurate in elevation to within 10 meters of its real-life location.
• Employs public domain 30-arc-second ground cover (land usage) data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This data allows each polygon in your terrain to have the actual land type found at that real-life location. Therefore, forest textures can go where forests actually are in real-life, cities are placed where cities really exist, etc. Approximately 100 unique terrain types can be distinguished in this manner and included in your terrains.
• Ability to import real-life road and railway networks and overlay them onto your Targetware terrain
• Ability to import real-life river and coast-line networks, and have them added to your terrain.
• Point data (such as airfields) can be read, then automatically added to your terrain files.
• For some data types, an object file can be created. This file contains a list of special objects (such as factories, dams, etc) and the location of those objects in terrain coordinates. This can greatly similify the placement of 3D objects in your terrain. The extent of this feature depends on the level of data available.
• Ability to analyze (interactively) elevation and ground cover data from within the tool, as well as make distance measurements.
• Includes filter routines to remove terrain anomalies that commonly occur when Digital Elevation, Land Cover, and other data are integrated.
• For terrains of surface resolution greater than 1000 meters, geo-correct spline routines and noise filters are applied to your elevation data to give your terrain a more natural appearance.
• Ability to create Tactical Pilotage Charts (TPC) of your terrain. These charts are similar in appearance (MIL-T-89101) to those created by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency for visual navigation by military pilots/navigators. Included in these charts are elevation contours, topography, land use, roads, rails, etc. These charts can be imported into Targetware products for use as inflight maps. An option to create a printed map on multiple pages also exists.
• Includes a configuration file generator to greatly simplify the process of creating this required Targetware terrain input file.

* Since most 2D maps and elevation/cover data sets use spatial projections that are designed to be pleasing to the eye rather than accurate in ground scale, the resulting layouts tend to be at odds with the player's desire to possess a historically and physically accurate playing field. In many commonly sought geographical regions these errors are quite significant. To overcome this problem, this particular software feature takes your region of interest and transforms it so that true distances are better preserved in the final product. While it is impossible to achieve true distances because we are using a flat area to map what is really a spherical surface (the Earth), this routine will bring the final result very close to real-life at the expense of perhaps looking a little distorted.