For those who like to fly with real maps...

[kaa 0]

The France National Geographic Institute has released for public access on its website some of its map library, free to download and use . If we could get before on other sites actual and today's maps or sat views of the regions for which we have an interest , they released the "cartes de l 'état-major", a set of maps, 1:40000, covering the whole french territory purposely done for the Military . This huge work was done during the 2nd half of the 19th century and give the reader a very nice view of the land, towns, roads , railways that I find totally compatible with our OFF terrain. During WW1, these maps were no longer up to date for military use and other more recent maps were used with different scales by the different services of the protagonists. The Air Services maps were around 1:30000 IIRC generally.

 

The IGN did something great in thet they merged all the maps to make a whole France , superposable with sat views or road map.

 

The site is not very user-friendly (for a French, what about a non-French speaking) and lacks intuitivity and explanantions on how to have the best benefit of its huge features and I am of the lazy kind ,so I 'm stuck at watching the maps and zooming in and out, so I will try to use them on a mobile phone or a pad (don't have one...yet) while "flying " my OFF missions.

 

For instance, the link to the map of the Arras region, but from it you can scroll the whole territory

 

http://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/donnee/56/carte-de-l-etat-major-en-couleur?c=2.7594067997943945,50.29197441499255&z=0.00033503704418998587&l=GEOGRAPHICALGRIDSYSTEMS.ETATMAJOR40$GEOPORTAIL:OGC:WMTS(1)&permalink=yes

 

Hope that can give you some more realism and comfort too in the OFF experience. If I can be of any help , don't hesitate to ask.

 

Cheers.

Edited January 4, 2013 by kaa

[rjw 48]

Kaa;

 

Very useful report!

 

ince we don't knoiw yet, the extent of changes going into WOFF, it is hard to say whether or not you will need those maps when WOFF is released, but it would do no harm investigate using them in P3.

 

Maybe Polovski will be able to comment on the state of maps in WOFF.

 

Thank you for posting. I will be checking those maps out for sure.

 

Best Regards;

Edited January 4, 2013 by rjw

[HumanDrone 4]

The man makes a good point, though, that no matter how good WOFF maps will be, by using them on a separate device such as a tablet or laptop, we could save screen real estate and switching back and forth (valuable for us single monitor guys). For me, it's either an approach such as this or paper maps. And while paper maps (maybe even mounted on scrolls!) would be most authentic, they also tend to clutter the place up, so yeah, I'm interested.

[rjw 48]

The man makes a good point, though, that no matter how good WOFF maps will be, by using them on a separate device such as a tablet or laptop, we could save screen real estate and switching back and forth (valuable for us single monitor guys). For me, it's either an approach such as this or paper maps. And while paper maps (maybe even mounted on scrolls!) would be most authentic, they also tend to clutter the place up, so yeah, I'm interested.

 

I hear you Human Drone, but if the maps in WOFF are much better, we may have the ability to print or download or as you have said, for those with dual monitors the option may be there to have the map up and available during flight.

 

Best Regards;

[Olham 164]

Great find, Kaa, thanks a lot for sharing!

 

This example of Boistrancourt / Estourmel makes clear, why the maps were not usable in WW1.

The (sugar?) factory at Boistrancourt, where Jasta 5 resided, was not yet there in the first map.

 

But the old map may be of some good use for finding some of the yet unclear airfields at farms.

So I found for example the "La Folie Fme" north of Arras, near La Targette.

 

 

[rjw 48]

Great find, Kaa, thanks a lot for sharing!

 

This example of Boistrancourt / Estourmel makes clear, why the maps were not usable in WW1.

The (sugar?) factory at Boistrancourt, where Jasta 5 resided, was not yet there in the first map.

 

But the old map may be of some good use for finding some of the yet unclear airfields at farms.

So I found for example the "La Folie Fme" north of Arras, near La Targette.

 

 

 

Olham;

 

This old map? Is it available online and how much of the WWI front does it cover?

 

Also worth note that if you add the "Topographic" layer to the New Map online, it appears to show a building where the Factory/Jasta would have been located.

Edited January 5, 2013 by rjw

[Olham 164]

Robert, my source was one of the many WW1 field maps from the archives

of the McMaster University, Canada. They have scanned all these maps

and made them available for everyone - you can zoom in until 100 %, and

there is a lot to find! Here is the link - click on maps:

 

http://library.mcmas...ps/ww1/home.htm

Edited January 9, 2013 by Olham

[rjw 48]

Robert, my source was one of the many WW1 field maps from the archives

of the McMaster University, California. They have scanned all these maps

and made them available for everyone - you can zoom in until 100 %, and

there is a lot to find! Here is the link - click on maps:

 

http://library.mcmas...ps/ww1/home.htm

 

Olham;

 

Thanks for that link it is also excellent. I edited my last post with some further info for you.

[HumanDrone 4]

Bookmarked! Thanks, Olham!

[Olham 164]

Robert, the building complex is also in the WW1 map - with "Factory" written under it.

I think it was a sugar factory, which were very common in those days.

 

Jasta 5 hangars were just below/south of the wall that enclosed the factory grounds.

 

 

[rjw 48]

Olham;

 

Very nice photo to go with the map data. Wouldn't it be nice to find photos like this and build in clickable links on the map surface! It's technically feasible but I bet so few great photos exist to make it all encompassing. Nevertheless it would be great!

 

You are a wealth of historical info...

[Olham 164]

Funny coincidence - I just found this website with a great diorama of Jasta 5 at Boistrancourt.

They have built a really good model of the airfield here!

I personally don't believe the mauve on the wings is correct (Arrgh!), and the wall behind the

hangars was much higher, but apart from that I think they have done a great job!

 

http://www.pmcl.de/ausstellung2010_cs1.html

[gaw 5]

Crikey these are pretty maps........any way to incorporate them into the game.......Lothar's map made a HUGEn difference.....love to see this stuff you found Olham put in place...right feel, font, texture.....

[rjw 48]

Crikey these are pretty maps........any way to incorporate them into the game.......Lothar's map made a HUGEn difference.....love to see this stuff you found Olham put in place...right feel, font, texture.....

 

I agree with you Gaw, that's where I was going with my thought as well.

[rjw 48]

Funny coincidence - I just found this website with a great diorama of Jasta 5 at Boistrancourt.

They have built a really good model of the airfield here!

I personally don't believe the mauve on the wings is correct (Arrgh!), and the wall behind the

hangars was much higher, but apart from that I think they have done a great job!

 

http://www.pmcl.de/a...ng2010_cs1.html

 

Yes very nice Diorama and I see your point about the fence. It is clearly too short.

 

Yes I also was a member of PMCI in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for a number of years...specialized in WWII armour (mostly German). Gave me lots of pleasure. Sill have some kits unbuilt which I keep saying I need to tackle. (Someday!!).

 

Best Regards;

[gaw 5]

rjw.......you put it so much more eloquently.........love to see those who know how to do these things do so.....cheers

[kaa 0]

Robert, my source was one of the many WW1 field maps from the archives

of the McMaster University, California. They have scanned all these maps

and made them available for everyone - you can zoom in until 100 %, and

there is a lot to find! Here is the link - click on maps:

 

http://library.mcmas...ps/ww1/home.htm

 

 

Hi,thanks for the useful link Olham.

 

I must be somehow nut, but I still do not understand why we cannot have the actual OFF terrain as a map, I mean, as readable and printable files.

Edited January 6, 2013 by kaa

[Olham 164]

kaa, the original ingame terrain as made by Winder would be an incredibly large Bitmap I guess;

and if you made part-views of that, they would not look like maps really, but more like high-altitude

aerial photography.

As far as I could see in the preview film, there will be new inflight maps in WOFF.

 

And if you want to fly after printed maps, there is a huge collection of various areas, compiled by

OFFers like RAF_Louvert. Among those are the original OFF maps made by OBD Team-member

RABU, which I composed new for easy print-out and glueing together - I have added the airfields

on both sides, if I remember rightly.

 

Here are two excerpts. The first is the RABU map with the airfields added by myself.

If you want to fly after original historical maps, you will also find several by RAF_Louvert

(second picture is an excerpt, lowered in quality as a Jpeg here), by myself and others.

 

You will find all the maps here:

 

http://combatace.com/files/category/353-maps-missions-and-campaigns/

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2013 by Olham

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

I must be somehow nut, but I still do not understand why we cannot have the actual OFF terrain as a map, I mean, as readable and printable files.

Has to do with the size of the bitmap in memory causing texture problems or something--another case where the old code of CFS3 is troublesome. The in-game map is 1876x1844, pretty big for back in 2002 or whenever CFS3 is from.

 

You can try my map mods, which give you a choice of three different higher-quality greater-detail maps based on Google imaging. Same resolution, but still much more useful in air. Here's a 50% reduced-size preview of my 'Google Mix':

 

 

Still some distortion, particularly at the northern corners, but overall much better than the stock maps where things are sometimes score of miles off their correct locations.

[Olham 164]

Are your maps part of OFFbase, Lothar?

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

Are your maps part of OFFbase, Lothar?

 

For now, download them separately. If my map mod is installed, OFFbase will detect it and give you a simple interface to switch between them:

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

There was a preview of an improved WOFF map in a screenshot this summer:

 

 

Looks good to me!

[kaa 0]

Thanks for your dedicated and generous work lothar . Hoping the woff map will give us the mean to do some "real" navigation with liable landmarks , otherwise , we can still stuck at our today's different maps after all (easy, for a few bucks, pounds, euros to buy actual road maps, as a poster wrote , they are still quite useful )

[Olham 164]

You'd be surprised, how the lakes in the landscapes really match the RL maps, kaa.

Especially in Alsace, you can recognise the lakes by their shapes, and find home

with their help.

I have paused many times, and noted the ingame map coordinates. Then I typed them

into Google Maps, and they fitted really well!

[kaa 0]

No doubt about it ! with my Michelin or IGN maps, along the virtual maps we discussed above and with those I still have from Rowan's "Flying Corps" (and I do not speak of those included in Red Baron , the 1st) , for those who remember this great game/sim, I am very a happy virtual flyer over the Arras front locating some places in the footsteps of Victor Yeates in WInged Victory...the ingame map is interesting by its numerous airfields that make navigation easier, although I've found some inacuracies in some of their locations.