how to create a good 'track map' image/graphic ??

[ed_jza80]

heya peeps, a few questions over the past few days, sorry!

anyway, how do you make a crisp, good looking 'tack map' of your circuit? ive tried to take a big, zoomed-out overhead screen grab from BTB but even manipulating that in photoshop yeilds very average results.

if i had adobe illustrator, that would probably work the goods, but i dont, and doubt many people would also have that laying around? well they dont in my circles anyway!

so yeah, what ways would folks suggest to make a nice crisp looking track map?

cheers
ed

 

[Emery]

Did you turn off the terrain and objects before screen grabbing from overhead view? I'd do that and then process to a solid line via high contrast in graphics editor of choice...

Mumbasa, the guy who started rfactorcentral.com, had a script he ran against the MDB file that generated those clean maps that the older tracks show on rfactorcentral.com. In the back of my mind, there is a utility that does something similar...

 

[Emery]

... Found it!!! rFactor Track Mapper v1.60 http://rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=rFactorTrackMapper

 

[ed_jza80]

that . is. brilliant.

thanks again emery
im going to owe you (and a few others) a beer at the end of all of this

cheers
ed

 

[ed_jza80]

link doesnt exist on RFC anymore...


found it here though:

http://rfactortrackmapper.software.informer.com/1.6/

 

[Emery]

Sigh, RFC is becoming plauged with little problems like that as the owners seem to concentrate more on simraceway.com...
Anyhow, the creator's home site is http://www.rfactorwebview.dyndns.org/ and there's a downloads section where it's listed at the bottom.

 

[ed_jza80]

cheers

ed

 

[svenieshoarma]

Wow. That picture looks great!!!

Is it a track for rFactor?

Keep up the great work!

 

[ed_jza80]

Wow. That picture looks great!!!

Is it a track for rFactor?

Keep up the great work!

cheers,
yes, its for rfactor, based on a real street circuit from the 1950s in Parramatta Sydney. it still exists as a road today, was GPS logged and built from scratch in BTB... enjoy...

cheers
ed

 

[Alex Kyriak]

that . is. brilliant.

thanks again emery
im going to owe you (and a few others) a beer at the end of all of this

cheers
ed

.....I know I owe Emery a few beers! He's a fountain of knowledge.

And in answer to the original post, I turn off all walls and landscape, zoom in a bit on the track in the top view (press '1'), take a screenshot using PrintScrn button, then paste it into a file in pshop. Then pan over to the next area of track, PrintScrn, paste it into pshop, and repeat until you have a series of tiles that, once aligned, show all of the track.

This will give you a 'high resolution' image of the the track. This will then allow you to create a smooth selection set in pshop, or, if inported into something that can vectorise the raster information (like Illustrator), can be used to create a smooth vector.

 

[ed_jza80]

yup, i tired a 'tiled' screen grab as well (much like i did for the original background texture off google earth!) but it was still a bit 'meh', i should probably go and find a copy of illustrator.

anyway, the above mentioned little program works a treat in this instance, and can recommend it for mapping the track. nice and quick and easy

cheers
ed

 

[Alex Kyriak]

gonna have to give it a go then - sounds good!

 

[Paul Minnaar]

Not bad replies. Best is to use a single vector line with an outline setting on it, in a vector programme like corel, AI etc. If you do not have a vector drawing programme, try the open source Inkscape. Ta

 

[R Soul]

It's quite easy using Gimp:
In BTB turn off the 2d grid, remove terrain and delete any tracks that get in the way, then take a screenshot.

Paste it into Gimp, and use the Fill tool to change the background colour (to any other colour). The gaps inside the track triangles will still have the old background colour, so click on one of those gaps using the Select By Colour tool. Set the foreground colour to the same colour as the track, and change the properties of the Fill tool to 'Fill Whole Selection' and click in one of the gaps. The track will then be a solid colour, and you can fill the track with an orange colour (change Fill whole selection to Fill similar colours).

Use Select By Colour on the track, and go to the Select menu and choose Float. Go to the Layers dialogue and right click on 'Floated Selection', and choose New Layer. With the new layer active, go to Filters > Light and Shadow > Drop Shadow. Set the X and Y offsets to 0, Colour to Black and Opacity to 100. The shadow will be quite weak, so press Ctrl-F to repeat the effect until the shadow is bold enough.

Each shadow gets written to a new layer with transparency, so you can quickly change the background image.

If the track itself is too sharp, select its layer, right click and select Layer to Image Size, then go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. A radius of 2 or 3 should be okay.