Jump to content

Virtual Earth


Recommended Posts

Now the problem is that when I paste the url to go to virtual earth after launching it through dx ripper I get a message stating "virtual earth has detected that hardware acceleration is turned off"... huh? I've gone and checked and made sure that it is in fact turned on and when I launch virtual earth manually (not through dx ripper) than I can see all the 3D stuff fine. HELP!!!

 

That's the same error I get. I haven't been able to find a solution for it yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been trying this at work and that's where the problems have been. This evening I'm working from home and I've gotten past that point. I'm right in the middle of capturing the data now! I'm not sure what is different about my setup here vs. work. I'm using XP64 in both cases. Could be the video card? I think maybe that's it. I'll post what I get captured, as well as what video cards I'm using at home vs at work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did it! It took a few tries but I finally got it to work and with textures. Here are a few things I had to fumble through that I didn't see mentioned in any of the tutorials or in lspartz tips:

 

1. the .3dr files are automatically saved to "My Documents\3DReaperDX\Frames

 

2. When capturing from virtual earth keep the camera in fairly tight. I tried to grap too much at once a couple times and it bogged down max completely.

 

3. When the file loads in max there is a strange giant disk. It took me a few minutes to realize that the buildings were there but the disk was so big it was difficult to zoom in on them. What is that disk anyway?

 

4. Use the 32 bit internet explorer. I couldn't get he 64 bit version to launch from ripper.

 

5. follow the ripper quick start guide when is suggests selecting the "recommended values" in the max import dialog. I will need to test, but I believe if you do this than you could capture the models from any angle in virtual earth without the model tilting in max.

 

6. My computer at work wouldn't run virtual earth in 3D when launched from ripper. I suspect it has something to do with the video card which is a quadro 3500 (I think). My home system has a GeForce 8800 GTS and it worked fine.

 

Here are a few screen caps of the captured models. Good luck to everyone!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finally got the thing to work. It may have been me who originally posted about VE and the 3DRipper DX program.

 

It never worked on my XP-64 machine. Always the 'no acceleration' error, but it is on, a Quadro 5600. It's an interesting point about the 32bit IE, however. I didn't try that.

 

I gave up and went to my laptop which is XP-32 with an nForce graphics chip. It wasn't really working, until I read about putting the reference to VE in the command slot under where you put the IE location.

 

You can have the files put anywhere you want, there's a handy 'browse' button.

 

Textures do not work with .obj and since I don't have Max, that's what I'm using. Just the massing, the material file is fine but no maps.

 

The files come in scaled differently in X Y and Z, so there is some work to it. However, the screenshots posted look fine. Did you re-scale or did the file read in correctly?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No scaling. I did rotate the file so it's laying flat on the ground plane and I got rid of that giant disk and the other ground objects which were unusually dense meshes.

 

So that's two strikes using it with a quadro card. When I get to work on monday I'll do more testing with the workstations with quadros we have there and the desktops with geforce cards the cad guys have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Finally getting back to this thread.

 

So, I was having the hardware acceleration error also. I managed to get around this by some of the methods mentioned above. Instead of point the ripper at Internet Explorer, I pointed it at the File Explorer. Then when the file explorer launched, I simply typed maps.live.com into the address bar. You can browse directly to the internet from your file explorer. Doing this allowed Virtual Earth to load fine, without a problem.

 

Now.... I am having a problem with actually getting 3D Ripper to rip any files. I hit the hot key, and nothing happens.

 

I suppose I need to test it with another DirectX applications to see if it is a problem with Virtual Earth/File Explorer, or a problem with 3D Ripper.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • 4 months later...
..still hoping for 64 bit version of this awesome tool!:)

 

I'm running it on 64bit os... it just installs and runs as 32 bit application.

 

Also keep in mind I'm thinking this might not work on windows 7. Windows 7 operates on directX 11, and the ripper's info states....

 

3D Ripper DX supports only DirectX 9.x and 8.x applications. OpenGL, older versions of DirectX and software renderers are not supported.

 

may have to give this a shot with google earth as well, since it says OpenGL.... and google earth now has directX option. This is WAY easier than using the OpenGLExtractor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...