Hi all,

a new update of the simple cylindrical Titan map from Ciclops was due for quite a while. Most recently, on Feb 26, 2009, it has finally been released. Well it was rated only 4.67/10 points... I know why ...

http://ciclops.org/view/5492/Map_of_Titan_February_2009

Doing a smooth 4k high-quality texture for Celestia from it, is a LOT of work! Just have a look at a zoomed part from the map:



Well tonight, I had a first go at it. Let's see what we can expect ...



There is still a long way to go and I am just warming up for Celestia.Sci.

Fridger

Fantastic!
I'm really curious to see how you treat the differences of shade/tone between zones...

Wow...

I'm glad you are giving us Brain-Dead types a look at this process.
I'm certain that many people have absolutely no idea what it takes
to create some of your spectacular textures.

Many thanks Good Doctor.

Yeah...thanks Bob. Of course, my job would be much easier, if the patches were made available in form of individual layers! Blending these layers together without loosing any valuable information is a much easier task. Moreover, updating with new imaging mosaics would be much less work since only individual layers had to be replaced rather than the full texture!

Cheers,
Fridger

Hi all,

after several hours of tedious smoothing work, part2 of my new Titan_2009 texture is more or less finished. ALL these horrible mosaic boundaries are gone as much as I can tell

Here are a couple of part views in simple cylindrical projection, for you to judge the progress.


Enjoy,
Fridger

Do you mean you hand edit the file?

yes, of course, with a special tool. But only the narrow borders are affected. The art is to get rid of the mosaic borders without visible modification of the terrain...

Fridger

_________________

I guess I could do that toying with PS but I'm curious to know more about the tool you are using. With the classical tools available on soft as PS or Gimp it would be a tedious job because modifying such features would for sure modify the terrain data in some way...

Chris,

I largely use the strongly improved 'smudge' tool of the latest GIMP (2.6.3), with a high rate ~ 75, and a special brush setting. The scale must be varied from 1-3 depending on the specific task. Unlike the same tool of earlier versions, it now works very well. It even works without brushing! Just choose the scale appropriately and place the tool on the border line. Then it will egalize the border quite cleverly.

Still it's VERY tedious, since the mosaic borders are EXTREME in this release. On critical inspection, I am by far not content yet. Perhaps I'll never be. Then we'll have to wait for a forthcoming release.

It would all so much easier (and better) if the mosaics were available as individual layers!

Of course, before smoothing one has to select the individual mosaics with a magic (scissors) tool and egalize the brightness & contrast wrto the neighboring patches. Otherwise there is no chance to end up with a smooth patch transition!

In between, I apply also some wavelet denoising on patches, since the guy who did the image tried to squeeze the last bit of detail out of the fog...this results in a bad mistreat of the pixel structure...

The texture looks good if one does not look too closely. But since people tend to magnify textures enormously...

Fridger

Wha! So you are indeed doing what I was thinking... Long and tedious work...
Perhaps we should do a test with a piece of the map; you post a raw, people who are interested try the retouch, we compare. If the results are OK we could divide the work to let you with more time for more important stuff... (coding etc...)

Sounds good, in principle . Yet, I am afraid this sort of job requires A LOT of experience with image manipulation techniques and thus in our community, only VERY few (apart from yourself) would be qualified for such a job.

Moreover, since overall brightness/contrast matching is most important before smoothing the boundary lines, smaller pieces of the texture can hardly be used for real work.

Right now I am pretty much frustrated. I wrote a PM to the shatters user volcanopele who according to some digging in the net is the student who did the last Titan map (Feb 26) from Ciclops. Perhaps that leads to a less painful procedure...

Fridger

Here are a few more detail shots corresponding to the natural size of the 4k texture.
I could not spot any dramatic artefacts at this point of the work...

Enjoy,
Fridger

Your last pict do show a few last artifacts but nothing dramatic...
This map is becoming fantastic!

Well, friends....

after three days of hard graphics work... halleluja...I am done with Titan 2009!

This texture, my recent Enceladus texture

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=300

and many other highest quality textures in preparation will be part of Celestia.Sci, which I am working on with great pleasure...

Celestia.Sci will also feature a new scientific-level data base with online ftp upgrading and supporting code, like an instantaneous catalog loader/unloader...
and many other features.

Once sufficient new material has accumulated, I'll of course explain in detail
what Celestia.Sci is meant to be...

Back to Titan...
------------------
While I was a bit pessimistic during the extremely tedious image processing work, I now think in full modesty that my Titan texture has turned out pretty well...

Here is the final show... take your seats :

Before flashing some nice screenshots, let me mention that I have also been in contact with 'volcanopele@shatters.net' who actually did the Ciclops Titan map of Feb 26 2009.

After some discussion about why his map exhibited such poor tone matching between adjacent mosaic boundaries...I might get from him a "work in progress map" with considerably improved the tone matching...

While waiting, here we go...

Enjoy,
Fridger
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The first three images display 1/3 each of my final simple cylindrical Titan map, reduced by a factor of TWO. Ordering is from left to right:







The next three images are Celestia screenshots from various angles. Atmosphere and the orange haze have been turned off.



Check for the fine detail!

Fridger,

If you feel that these textures are ready, can we incorporate them into the 1.6.0 release of Celestia?

--Chris