[Huge/Impossible] Google Earth to MC conversion

Discussion in 'Archived: Plugin Requests' started by Gcity306, Aug 7, 2012.

?

This idea...

  1. I like this

    85.0%
  2. I hate this

    15.0%
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  1. Offline

    Gcity306

    This a idea I had in mind a few months ago, but is nearly impossible due to complexity and limits. THIS IS JUST AN IDEA! I AM NO PLUGIN DEVELOPER AND I KNOW THIS IS JUST IMPOSSIBLE!
    The Idea:
    If you can download the 3D maps from Google Earth/Maps, why not convert this into a playable 1:1 scale minecraft level. This could be done, but I think it will require a lot of things and programming work :) Also the way that biomes are stored in Z and X coordinates could make this even look more as our blue planet. It would be even cooler if it made roads and such automatic!

    tl;dr = 1:1 Earth as minecraft world generator

    Do you like this idea? Leave a comment :p
     
    hawkfalcon likes this.
  2. Offline

    fredghostkyle1

    ok, not a plugin thats for shure. this is a SUPER advanced MOD.
     
  3. Offline

    JWhy

    Actually you would only need to plot points from that map and define materials based on expressions

    Edit: That image frustrates me :D
    [​IMG]

    Lol i'm sure it's a tool...
    Before you play you use that tool to create the map

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 27, 2016
  4. Offline

    WarmakerT

    *cough* WorldGenerator *cough*
     
  5. Offline

    JWhy

    Yep, got to that point now :D
    Actually you can get kinda heightmap from SketchUp, now this would still need to be plotted
     
  6. Offline

    np98765

    If you are so sure this is impossible, why would you post it?
     
    WarmakerT likes this.
  7. Offline

    -_Husky_-

    The common sense is strong with this one.
     
    dsouzamatt and Jonchun like this.
  8. Offline

    JWhy

    He sure thinks there's a little chance that it's only a huge, but not completely impossible project :D
     
  9. Offline

    1cec0ld

    Can we stop bashing on his word choice and actually pay attention to the task at hand...
    I like the idea, and I bet it would get plenty of use.
     
    WarmakerT likes this.
  10. Offline

    np98765

    The title of this:

    ... I understand the huge, but if someone is so sure it's impossible, why waste their time?

    Anyways, I was just saying. :p
     
  11. Offline

    evilmidget38

    This project is completely possible, it's possible to even import the models into minecraft. It's definitely no easy matter, but earlier today I was actually talking with someone I know(Software engineer at google) about this exact project today. He's considering doing this, but I don't know how likely it is, as he's a busy person, and the project itself is very difficult.
     
  12. Offline

    JWhy

    Do you have any idea, how to use the heightmap data for the worldgenerator? If you have e.g. a mountain in google, what would the mountain be filled with? It would be easy, if it was like superflat (One layer bedrock) and just grass, stone, sand and water on the surface

    How can we obtain the needed data?

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 27, 2016
  13. Offline

    1cec0ld

    Sadly I'm no developer, and I've only ever read TerrainGenerator's webpage when it comes to any WorldGen exposure. But I'd be willing to learn generators if I had to, in order to use this!
     
  14. Offline

    evilmidget38

    One of the large issues with this project is exactly this. 3d models are only made up of planes, so as such, you'd have to guess/estimate based upon what's on the surface. This wouldn't operate very well, especially in cities. Of course, if you brought in the models from Google Earth that'd help a bit with the cities.
     
  15. Offline

    JWhy

  16. Offline

    codename_B

    I could do this - I've done terrain from a heightmap generated from an image before anyway :p
     
  17. Offline

    JWhy

    Lol i expected you, not kidding ;D
     
  18. Offline

    hawkfalcon

    Do eet
     
  19. Offline

    1cec0ld

    I'm following this thread now :D
     
  20. Offline

    JWhy

    Published yet?
    Exspect spam ;)
     
  21. Offline

    codename_B

    Someone did a heightmap with a super-high-res b/w photo of earth back when I originally wrote that plugin... I'll look it out at some point but source is on github :p
     
  22. Offline

    JWhy

    OMG you didn't release this? What other hoards does your HDD yield?
     
  23. Offline

    codename_B

    I did actually, not many folks used it haha.
     
  24. Offline

    JWhy

    Oh i mean like a built jar.
    For me it's some work to 'compile' it, as the biome names changed
     
  25. Offline

    s15c

    http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/224048-creation-the-earth-updated-final/

    That's at least a start/taking a stab at what you're going for. It's not 1:1, but it's the best you're going to get. A complete 1:1 would give you a map file with such a gigantic size that you'd need thousands of hard drives just to hold it, much less upload and transfer it to a server.

    As for "I want to generate a map starting at these coordinates on google earth and have it continue to render as explored," that might actually be pretty epic. Though being able to read from google, transfer it into a height map and look at the color of the land for surface materials, then on top of that generate it into a Minecraft chunk, render lighting, and populate it... even if you did develop it, world generation would be freakishly slow and could crash the server if four or five people were generating land at once. Plus, cities would look really, really, really stupid.

    However, should my doubts be inaccurate (which is very possible, I don't know anything about coding, I just understand a fuzzy boundary between what is and isn't possible), I'd love to see the final product. It's a cool idea.
     
  26. Offline

    JWhy

    I thought more about a map excerpt, not the whole world
     
  27. Offline

    Gcity306

  28. Offline

    TheBeast808

    I don't think it's impossible.
    I'd let server owners define maximum height/radius of the map to see how the map should be scaled. Then, you need to find out how to convert the x,z locations of a chunk to long/lat. After that, take a few elevation measurements of the area to find out what the average y for the chunk should be. You'd need to figure out how to factor in a bit of randomness in generation for each chunk, so the map doesn't look super blocky up close.

    I think the hardest part would be setting the biome. Obviously, the ocean needs to have water, deserts need sand/gravel/dirt, and jungles need trees. No clue how you would pull that data from Google earth. I suppose you could try getting pixel data and taking a guess at what the material should be (blue=water, green=grass/trees, yellowish=sand, etc), but then you'd need something other than a bukkit plugin to do that. If you could find some database out there that stores climates, you might be able to do that.

    But, you run into other issues. Map distortion is the biggest problem I can think of. The Earth is clearly a sphere, which means that trying to project a perfectly scaled version of it onto a flat surface is impossible. Depending on which distortion you decided to settle with and code into the generator, some areas would be 1:1 while others were smaller 1:1 and others were larger than 1:1. Figuring out how to fact this into a generation would be very hard.

    By the way, a 1:1 or near 1:1 of Earth in terms of surface area would be super boring if you're using 256 as your maximum build height. Earth is 510072000000000m^2, or 22584774 x 22584774 in Minecraft terms. This is enormous. Now if we look at height, we see that the highest point on Earth is 8848m and the lowest point is -10971m. This means we have a 19819m height difference that needs to be expressed in 256m for our map, resulting in a 1:77 ratio. What does this mean? Your map is going to super flat. There has to be a 77m elevation difference in real life to result in a 1 block difference in game, and due to the massive size of the map, that 1 block difference might not even be within your viewing range.
    TL;DR: Just use a flat map. Using the max vanilla constraints, it will look relatively the same to the player.
     
  29. check the plugin dynmap :p
     
  30. Offline

    1cec0ld

    Unless there is a 3d map of the entire Planet that he intends to download, take the above tl;dr elsewhere. No average user is going to copy from the Mariana Trench to Mt Everest just to enjoy a flat map.
    Practical applications here please.
    In fact, my first thought when I read this was related to taking a chunk of my home city and importing it, not the entire state of Alaska.

    Dynmap will not generate a map, especially not with google as a reference. Someone didn't read the original post well.
     
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