Putting together custom elevation data and terrain textures

Want your installation of Tacview to look more like this? This level of resolution is possible over very small areas, while lower levels of resolution can be sustained over larger areas.

Step 1: Elevation Data
By default, Tacview displays ETOPO1 terrain over the entire spherical earth. Here are the Alps: Tacview can also display SRTM30, SRTM3 and SRTM1 terrain. Your first step should be to download SRTM3 terrain for the area you are interested in. Just click on the area of the world you are interested in in order to launch the download. After extracting, your files should look like this: Copy all those files to %PROGRAMDATA%\Tacview\Data\Terrain\SRTM3\ and re-launch Tacview. Make sure you have selected Options -> Terrain -> Real Terrain. You may download as many SRTM3 tiles as you wish without significantly impacting performance.

Step 2: Satellite Textures
Next, download some satellite texture tiles using the add-on Terrain Downloader - access the add-on through the Options menu: To mimic the screenshot at the top of this page, choose Satellite maps, not translucent.

The add-on will prompt you for a MapQuest API key which you can obtain by simply creating a free account at https://developer.mapquest.com/.

The add-on will download an area of 5 degrees of longitude and latitude around the camera center. So, to download more tiles, move the camera center and use the add-on again. If you have telemetry loaded, the add-on will download enough tiles to cover all the objects.

After downloading the tiles, re-launch Tacview. Make sure you have selected Options -> Terrain Display Mode -> Custom Textures You may download as many texture tiles through this add-on as you wish without significantly impacting performance.

Step 3: Very High Resolution Satellite Textures over Smaller Areas
To get higher resolution over a smaller area, use SAS Planet

Draw a rectangle around the area you are interested in - not too big (1 degree by 1 degree maximum for zoom level 15 - smaller for higher zoom levels).

Choose Map/Overlay layer: Bing Maps - satellite and Zoom: 15 Click Start to launch the download. When it's done, go to the Stitch tab (if the window closed, re-open it by pressing CTRL+B ) Click Start.
 * Save to %ProgramData%\Tacview\Data\Terrain\Textures\alps-15.jpg
 * Map: Bing Maps - satellite
 * Overlay layer: No
 * Projection: Geographic (Latitude/Longitude) / WGS84 / EPSG:4326
 * Zoom: 15
 * Quality: 95%

Copy paste the file %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Tacview\Data\Terrain\Textures\CustomTextureList.xml to %ProgramData%\Tacview\Data\Terrain\Textures\

Manipulating the CustomTextureList.xml file now found inside %ProgramData%\Tacview\Data\Terrain\Textures\, follow the instructions in the file to add a new entry.

To get the coordinates of your rectangle, go to By Coordinates : Re-launch Tacview: To get the resolution shown in the screenshot at the very top of this page, repeat the steps above over very small area using Zoom 18.

New in Tacview 1.8.8 beta 1
In Tacview 1.8.8 beta 1 (not yet released at the time of this writing), in addition to all of the above, you may download, say, a "large" (1 degree by 1 degree max) area of Zoom 15 satellite resolution and within that area display a smaller area of Zoom 18 satellite resolution.

Make sure the smaller, higher-resolution tile is listed in CustomTextureList.xml after the larger, lower-resolution one - the textures are loaded in the order they appear in the file.