Many of you may already know about this, but I thought it might me a good learning experience for newbie's on what can happen when certain files become damaged, or corrupt. I recently had a file get corrupted while working on the tournament edition of Coeur d'Alene. In this case its a 2D object, which turned out to be a tree "TOP" image. Luckily it only got damaged on one specific tree and there were only 10 of them planted in total throughout the course. Here were the problems they caused.
1: In the APCD with 2D objects turn ON, the program would freeze up when trying to view in certain directions. Many times it would crash the program.
2: In Links 2003, the TOP tree images would change as you zoomed up and down.
Here is what you are seeing.
I am in Links, top view,
First you need to know what a "btx" file is,and how it's being used for the APCD. This may not be a perfect explanation, but hopefully you can get my point.
Think of a "btx" as a sort of "ZIP" file that can only be opened with specific software. One of the programs that uses it is the APCD. Each 2D image in the Object Library is made up of multiple images of the item at different resolutions. There are generally 4 or 5 of these images that start out tiny and get bigger as you change images. This group of views is a "btx" file that is used to make up the images in the "Object Library".
Here's an example of how they are made.
Lets say you want to create a simple 2D "NO PARKING" sign. When you are finished making the sign and import the image into your Planting Set, the Object Library will automatically create multiple images of the item from tiny up to large. These various views are then used by the APCD and Links to display the sign when you are at different distances from it. The closer you get to the sign, the better the resolution. This is all done by the "btx" files.
TIP: These multiple sized views can be retrieved with the Links Extender.
Now that you know how a "btx" file works, then you will better understand how top views get better as you come from a high altitude and start zooming down. You will be shown higher resolution files as you get down near the ground.
And this is what you are seeing in my 5 pictures. At highest altitude, the top (encircled in blue) doesn't show the tree top at all.
Next one down is when the square shadow appears. The square shadow is caused by what I suspect it a bit of 3D texture. I have seen 3D trees that look as if they are made up of lines or bars of resolution. A couple of times while I was trying to view this one, I saw those lines. You will also see a pale green treetop in that shadow.
As I go down the, pale green image turns to a partial tree limb that looks yellow.
As I go down further, the yellow changes to a large maple tree top.
As I get to the last view, the treetop then appears to be some other type of tree.
This is a corrupt "btx" file in the APCD. I had edited and imported this tree into my Object Library. Somewhere during some reconstruction, it became corrupted. I was able to delete the defective one and all is back to normal now.
Hopefully this will give some of you a better understanding of what a "btx" file is and how it's used in Links. And what can happen when one becomes corrupted.
Dan
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- tree 2.jpg (400.21 KiB) Viewed 11148 times
- tree 1.jpg (401.72 KiB) Viewed 11148 times