Ortho creation issues (Geoconvert extremely slow) [SOLVED]

  • After my other thread about mesh building I open a new thread for the aerial images (for sure I'll open another one for the overlays/objects).

    First I have not yet had the opportunity to do so I congratulate and thank Nick for his Aeroscenery, that's a very nice software ! :thumbup:

    In fact my issues are not really concerning Aeroscenery but Geoconvert which is is so slow on my computer: it takes more than 2 days for building a single tile of level 12 ! My computer is a bit old (Core i5-4590@3.3 GHz) but I guess it is NOT normal, right ?

    And even more annoying: it freezes very often! The CPU stays high and stable, indefinitely. When it occurs at 94% of completion after monopolizing my CPU for 48 hours it does not please at all ||

    Note that I've never seen a such freeze when Geoconvert is building meshes but in that case the process is much shorter.

  • Thanks for the kind words on AeroScenery. 8)

    GeoConvert is a temperamental bit of software. A single level 12 / zoom level 18 tile should build in a few minutes at most.

    As you have noticed GeoConvert will often freeze while still taking up full CPU. Another issue is that it will process the same tile over and over in a loop, indefinitely without telling the user.

    What I've found is that any user input to Windows generally seems to cause this or make it more likely to happen. Particuarly moving the GeoCovnert window, minimising it etc.

    Try starting the AeroScenery / GeoConvert process and not touching your keyboard or mouse and see if finishes in a sensible amount of time.

    Make sure you have the latest SDK (June 2019).

    These issues have been reported to IPACS. I hope they find the time to improve GeoConvert at some point.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Thanks for your advice.

    It sound a bit crazy to have a software being such sensible to user input. This kind of software should not even have a GUI !

    The SDK I've downloaded in June was not the latest one so I've installed it but sadly the result is the same.

    I did not move a finger, I even blocked my breathing, but nothing works, it's always extremely slow :(

  • I'm trying a new build of a single tile of AFS level 12 at zoom level 18: the process has begun 36 hours ago... and it's not finished ! :(

    Am I the only one to suffer from this extreme slowness?

    Other people are using Geoconvert on Windows 7?

  • turman July 16, 2019 at 11:23 AM

    Changed the title of the thread from “Ortho creation issues” to “Ortho creation issues (Geoconvert extremely slow)”.
  • Geoconverting process very much depends on memory usage and despite it is a 64bit app it almost collapses far before 90% RAM usage on my computer.

    However, 1 single Level 12 tile should not take 2 days even on an average computer, there's something wrong.

    I faced similar case by launching Geoconvert on an array of several Level 9 Tiles with lots of masks.

    BTW the same prevails for the 3D objects converter and I had far better performances by spreading my projects into a multitude of small batches launched in turn with a bat file.

    That's where a self-closing Geoconvert tool would be helpful...

    Anyway, here are 2 hints I can provide:

    1) always first geoconvert Level 9 alone (or maybe levels 9 and 11): if the area is not too big, it's a fast process that allows ensuring everything is properly tuned before launching higher levels. This way you don't waste hours (in your case days) waiting for a process that eventually fails.

    2) If Geoconvert hangs up, then make sure you set the "always overwrite" boolean to false. This way, you can resume by launching again and again, without restarting from scratch.

    My 2 cents

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • When I changed the settings for "Shrink TMC grid squares" from 1 degrees to 0.01 degrees, the processing time reduced from 10 hours for one Level 9 tile (ZL 17, AFS Levels 9, 11-14) to 3 hours.

    turman Yes, this is a bug in AeroScenery that affects non English language Windows users. (Fixed in the next release).

    In Settings > GeoConvert > Shrink TMC grid squares try setting it to 0

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • The setting 0.01 works fine. It avoids this strange loading in patches: AeroScenery made scenery loading in patches

    Yep, 0.01 is the optimal setting.

    The issue is that the decimal separator is a comma on some non English language PCs and it was getting converted to 1 for some users, causing issues.

    I just suggested 0 as it will avoid this issue, and turman can test any speed improvement.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Thanks guys for your suggestions.

    I'll try tonight to play with the value of this "Shrink TMC grid squares" option. I'm not sure to understand what that option means but I really hope it is the key to explain my extreme slowness.

    In my case I need a gain much bigger than you had Lucky1960 because ~x3 faster still means ~15 hours for a single level 12 tile (zoom level 18). But I set to 0 (instead of 0.01) I hope the gain will be even bigger..

  • I'll try tonight to play with the value of this "Shrink TMC grid squares" option. I'm not sure to understand what that option means but I really hope it is the key to explain my extreme slowness.

    To be clear :) If your PC uses a dot as a decimal separator (not a comma), and you're seeing 0.01 in the settings, changing to 0 wont improve anything.

    If your PC uses a comma as a decimal separator, and you're seeing 1 in the settings, changing it to 0 might improve things.

    When the next version AeroScenery is out and this bug is fixed, you'll probably want to set it to 0.01 again.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Which resolutions do you create? You need zoom level only for AFS Level 15 (0,5 meter/pixel). Most of us use ZL 16 and max. AFS Level 13 (2 meters) or ZL 17 and max. AFS Level 14 (1 meter).

    ZL 18 produces 4 times more images in the stitch folder than ZL 17 and 16 times more than ZL 16.

  • Yes but as I fly only with helicopters (at very low altitude) I really want ZL18 ;)

    So I need to generate AFS levels from 12 (?) to 15.

    And thanks Nick, it's clearer now. I guess my Windows has the french settings with comma as decimal separator so the 0 value should help me until your next release. Results tonight if I have time...

    But could you please explain a bit what that option means exactly ? Why 0.01 could be the optimal setting ?

  • Good point, of course we can force the decimal settings in Windows without waiting the next release of Aeroscenery ! ;)

    I'm still curious to understand why 0.01 is the best value...

    When Geoconverting high Levels I recommend using 0.001 as the optimal value.

    Rounding up the value doesn't shrink the coverage but prevents Geoconvert from creating extra tiles with masks outside your boundaries. See my reference guide for more details.

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • What this value does (0.01 or 0.001) is shrink the coordinates of the Aerofly tile boundaries slightly.

    If the tile boundaries are exact coordinates, rounding errors can mean that GeoConvert creates extra tiles, adjacent the the one you actually want, that contain almost nothing. This results in what looks like gaps in the scenery.

    I really must write some documentation for AeroScenery. :whistling: Typical developer ... likes coding, hates writing docs. :)

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Thank you, now I've understood the meaning of that option which allows to not build useless nearby tiles.

    Effectively my settings was set to 1. After having changed my Windows regional settings I can now set 0.1 or 0.001 values but... the result is the same, I cannot see any visible gain !

    I've also tried other Geoconvert options ("not write images with mask" and "use geoconvert wrapper") but without any success...

    Geoconvert still continues to generate only ~30 tiles per minutes :(

    Note that the generation is not very smooth: 2 tiles are generated, 4s of delay, 2 tiles are generated, 4s of delay, etc.

    Edited once, last by turman (July 16, 2019 at 8:57 PM).