• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

CVXExtractor - Exporting vector data.

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154
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ca-quebec
It certainly is nice to see a developer update their application in a timely fashion! If only certain payware developer's were even half as dedicated as you, Patrick! Thank you very much.
Thanks ! :)
I have a reputation to maintain and I hate to see my applications not doing what they are expected to do. :cool:
 
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7,450
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us-illinois
Many thanks, Patrick... this now makes vector development work more of a well BaLaNced (and less of a BaNaL) ...existence ! :)

GaryGB
 

rhumbaflappy

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Hi Patrick.

A suggestion if you'd want to spend the time and do the math:

-q l,u,v

QMID cell level, hotizontal, vertical ex: -q 11,389,269 equals -latMax 42.71484375 -latMin 42.5390625 -longMax -88.59375 -longMin -88.828125

For some extracts. setting the bounds to an exact QMID level would be needed. for example, when the -ADDTOCELLS flag is not set in shp2vec, the entire QMID 11 cell needs to be replaced. InSBuilderX, when the QMID gridlines are active, the status bar show the QMID cell. Just a shortcut to manually figuring out the bounds.

Dick
 
Messages
154
Country
ca-quebec
Hi Patrick.

A suggestion if you'd want to spend the time and do the math:

-q l,u,v

QMID cell level, hotizontal, vertical ex: -q 11,389,269 equals -latMax 42.71484375 -latMin 42.5390625 -longMax -88.59375 -longMin -88.828125

For some extracts. setting the bounds to an exact QMID level would be needed. for example, when the -ADDTOCELLS flag is not set in shp2vec, the entire QMID 11 cell needs to be replaced. InSBuilderX, when the QMID gridlines are active, the status bar show the QMID cell. Just a shortcut to manually figuring out the bounds.

Dick

Hi Dick.

The math and algorithm already exist. I use them in my BglViewer tool

upload_2015-2-8_12-45-34.png
 

rhumbaflappy

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us-wisconsin
Hi Patrick.

Your extractor works great.

I used it today to rewrite an FSX-derived QMID11 cell for Flight. stonelance has created a converter process for the world scenery of FSX for Flight.

We can use new FSX terrain data in Microsoft's Flight, but the vector BGLs must be compiled without -ADDTOCELLS. This means any vector addons exclude all vector data within the affected QMID11 cells. I can extract the FSX QMID11 data as ESRI shapefiles, and then import them to SBuilderX. I make any changes in SBuilderX, and compile, making sure my SBuilder.ini sets AddToCells=False ( required by Flight ).

I then construct a .flightAddon fileset, add to Flight with AddonBuilder, and it's good to go.

Without your tool, the work would be very difficult and... with your tool, it becomes creative fun changing and adding the polys and lines..

Many thanks.

Test1.png


FSX Conversion error:

Test2.png


Correction:

Test3.png



Dick
 
Messages
154
Country
ca-quebec
Hi Patrick.

Your extractor works great.

I used it today to rewrite an FSX-derived QMID11 cell for Flight. stonelance has created a converter process for the world scenery of FSX for Flight.

We can use new FSX terrain data in Microsoft's Flight, but the vector BGLs must be compiled without -ADDTOCELLS. This means any vector addons exclude all vector data within the affected QMID11 cells. I can extract the FSX QMID11 data as ESRI shapefiles, and then import them to SBuilderX. I make any changes in SBuilderX, and compile, making sure my SBuilder.ini sets AddToCells=False ( required by Flight ).

I then construct a .flightAddon fileset, add to Flight with AddonBuilder, and it's good to go.

Without your tool, the work would be very difficult and... with your tool, it becomes creative fun changing and adding the polys and lines..

Many thanks.

Dick

Cool work Dick ! I'm glad that the tool can change the process from painful to fun !
 
Messages
154
Country
ca-quebec
Hi Patrick.

A suggestion if you'd want to spend the time and do the math:

-q l,u,v

QMID cell level, hotizontal, vertical ex: -q 11,389,269 equals -latMax 42.71484375 -latMin 42.5390625 -longMax -88.59375 -longMin -88.828125

For some extracts. setting the bounds to an exact QMID level would be needed. for example, when the -ADDTOCELLS flag is not set in shp2vec, the entire QMID 11 cell needs to be replaced. InSBuilderX, when the QMID gridlines are active, the status bar show the QMID cell. Just a shortcut to manually figuring out the bounds.

Dick

public BoundBox GetBoundingCoordinates()
{
var pw2 = Math.Pow(2.0, Level);
var deltaLong = 480.0 / pw2;
var deltaLat = 360.0 / pw2;
var longitude = -180.0 + U * deltaLong;
var latitude = 90.0 - V * deltaLat;

return new BoundBox
{
LeftLongitude = longitude,
UpperLatitude = latitude,
RightLongitude = longitude + deltaLong,
LowerLatitude = latitude - deltaLat
};
}
 
Messages
173
Country
unitedstates
- Processes Flight CVX file for QMID Level 11 only

Two thoughts. First, Thank You to Patrick. This utility will be a useful tool when trying to address problems with the default FSX/P3D world and addons that must live within that horrible world.

Second to Dick, might there be a way to update TCalcX to now show the LOD 11 cell, along with Folder/File? Makes it easier when trying to figure out where the renegade water lies within the larger LOD file.
 
Messages
258
Country
us-california
Patrick, this is a fantastic tool, thank you!

I found that to use the SHP files in an app such as QGIS, it's helpful to generate the prj file.
The following works:

ogr2ogr -a_srs EPSG:4326 output.shp input.shp

Where input.shp is the SHP file output from cvsextractor. Then output.shp can
be loaded into QGIS, ArcGis Explorer etc.
 
Messages
7,450
Country
us-illinois
Hi Patrick:

Possibly it might be of incidental interest to your work with CvxExtractor ...to access ground surface elevation data as rendered at run time in FS and then "extract" it to a log file for further processing and use in MSFS scenery development via various output data file formats as in "CvxE". :idea:

FYI: Such data can be captured in FS flight sessions at the known and calculable Geographic coordinates for vertices in the FS Quad Matrix Grid.

Such a logging process requires complex programming (and with use of very high precision floating point numbers used achieve higher resolution in the QMID grid vertex Geographic coordinate positioning of the SimObject used to log higher resolution LODs when flying the grid).

But it can be done (there are proprietary applications which have been in existence for years < and not yet released to the public as stand-alone utilities >, created as a "Proof-of-Concept" ...which are already able to do this). ;)


One practical use for such "extracted" elevation data in MSFS scenery development is discussed in this thread:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/th...n-from-bgl-file-into-blender-tutorial.433345/


...which links to another thread discussing the basic concepts involved in the "extraction" process:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/340961-reverse-engineer-mesh-into-3d-format/



PS: Perhaps this caveat might merit mentioning yet again, to pro-actively dissuade would-be posters of EULA / copyright objection "nonsense":

"...one must note that terrain surface elevations logged by such a process would only be as interpreted and rendered by FS at run time, and subject to interactions of multiple terrain mesh, water, or land surface flatten files etc., and should not be construed as capable of precisely reproducing original source data used to create terrain mesh files."
Nerd.gif


Hope this helps ! :)

GaryGB
 
Last edited:
Messages
154
Country
ca-quebec
Thanks Gary for this info.
I'm currently working on extracting data from Terrain sections (Photo,Altitude, etc) . All terrain sections are using the same pattern to store values, be it a ARGB value for photos or a real value for altitude.
I just started on it but I'm not out of the woods yet !
 
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