Okay. . . you know that thing they do, in sitcoms, movies, etc., where someone is supposed to be travelling, and they show a map with a red line moving across it to indicate travel? I need a map for such a purpose, hi res enough to be enlarged several times. My character's supposed to be travelling across the world, pretty much (from Texas to Mesopotamia), so I need an entire world map.

I searched, via google, for such things, found a few that'll do the trick, I guess, if I can't find anything else, but I was hoping someone here could point me somewhere I hadn't looked.

Of the ones I found so far, the biggest was 1025 x 540, or something like that. It should probably be 3000 x 3000 or something, so the text on the map is actually readble.

Thanks.

i had a similar problem, but managed to get one from a department of the univeristy i work for. bare in mind though that you might need to clear copyright with the owner of the image you eventually use.

ben

the CIA has some, try their web site

like indiana jones? well, you could use a real-life map.

taken from CIA web site
http://www.giroud2.com/download/worldmap.png

And remember, you don't need the whole world map. You only need the pieces of the map over which the red line passes, and not even all together. They can be stiched together and moved with keyframing.

So think in pieces, not as the whole thing together.

DJ

Yeah, that's true.

The absolute best earth map ever made is available online and free from NASA. Resolutions from 350x175 all the way to 21600x21600!

"This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. These images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. This record includes preview images and links to full resolution versions up to 21,600 pixels across."

Royalty free, your tax dollars at work!

Use it on our travel show all the time.

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?vev1id=11656

thank you john for the resource. =). i bet 3D graphics people probably use that for earth during space scenes =).

Josh,

Not sure if it will meet your particular needs, but give NASA's World Wind free software a try...the entire planet is imaged using several different NASA satellites (visible light, IR, etc) along with the famous Blue Marble image that John linked. You can zoom World Wind to any degree you wish and take screen shots, with realistic or exaggerated 3D elevation relief, or without -- and with or without place names and lat/long lines etc.

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/features.html#2

You can even see my house from space if you're really bored and happen to know where it is! Adding the red line to it is up to you.

;-)

For some reason, I didn't get notifications of all those later responses.

I found a political map on the CIA site, a PDF file, that you can zoom in so far it's insane.

Now, when I open that PDF in photoshop, I get much less resolution than when I open it in Adobe Acrobat reader. I can only zoom in, with photoshop, about 200% before it starts to get all pixellated. Why is this? The resolution is there originally--where does it go? Is there any way to maintain it like it is when you view it in acrobat reader, and import it into Vegas that way?

resolution is correct. think again....

Now, when I open that PDF in photoshop, I get much less resolution than when I open it in Adobe Acrobat reader. I can only zoom in, with photoshop, about 200% before it starts to get all pixellated. Why is this? The resolution is there originally--where does it go? Is there any way to maintain it like it is when you view it in acrobat reader, and import it into Vegas that way?

its vector, when you open it up in photoshop you rasterize it, try opening it up in illustrator or freehand

Uh. . .say what?

Uh. . .say what?
When you open a pdf in Photoshop, it should bring up an option screen that's titled "Rasterize Generic PDF Format" with width, height, resolution and mode options.
The default resolution is 72 pixels/inch and the default mode is CMYK. Change the mode to RGB and set the resolution to any value you want. You'll see the width and height values change accordingly. For example, a pdf file I have here comes up as 368 x 484 pixels and CMYK. I change it to TGB and change the resolution to 600. The image is now 3064 x 4030 which means I can now zoom, pan & scan to my heart's content :-)
After you make the changes, save it in whatever format you want and bring that into Vegas.

Thanks for that tip. It totally worked.

Now, I'm having a weird issue. Seems like whatever I do in photoshop doesn't translate to Vegas.

Let's say I make a huge jpeg/gif/whatever, around 15000 pixels by same. I'm able to look at my Map real closely, let's say on the map, the state of Texas fills the viewing window in photoshop with no problem, looks clear, sharp, etc. Now, I take this file into Vegas, and for some reason, when I try to fill the frame the same way by enlarging my jpeg/gif/whatever, it gets all blocky.

I'm doing bad math somewhere, but I don't know where. Seems like if I have a 720 x 480 viewing window (Vegas), and an image that's 15000x15000, I should be able to enlarge that bastard quite a bit before it starts to block up, but it don't seem to be so.

Where's my error?

Use Pan/Crop instead of Track Motion. Track Motion zooms in on the Video Frame. Pan/Crop zooms in on the full resolution of the original image.

Ah. I'll try it. I actually didn't use either, I was using PluginPaC LE. I guess it must do the same thing as track motion.

Thanks.

Chris: I'm not getting all notifications of the responses to these threads via email, like I normally do. Is it me?

Yes, I believe the PlugInPac uses the video frame. Definitely use Pan/Crop instead.

Sweet. I'll get all up in it later.