FSX editing mesh

[robystar]

Right. I was under the impression they were already 'geographic' like 3DEM (when it displayed it the first time) led me to believe.
But I am afraid I am losing you and will have to do some homework before I will be able to fully grasp what you both are suggesting.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I did it in two steps indeed, but as Dick did with one step also works.

If you have multiple files of elevation data, it is probably better to first merge them to one big file, before you use gdalwarp. Else you might get small seams inbetween.

 

[robystar]

Hi,

Embarrassed to inform I have not managed to get anything done with your well meant advice.
Tried everything but the resample.exe will not compile the bgl.
I therefore tried a 5m geotiff (you can find it by googling "man_dem.tif") which looks quite good as well but that one will not compile either (maybe because the coordinates are UTM?).
I am at a loss what I am doing wrong and have not been able to find documentation or tutorials that help me further.
I am not good at command line instructions and prefer a GUI but apparently even with the FWtools EV GUI I get lost.
I spent some time with 3DEM and managed to have both the DEMs and the Geotiffs show up but not the STDS. But I stopped after reading that, according to Arno in another thread, the 3DEM does not provide exporting facilities. Another dead end.
Not for my sake but perhaps for the sake of many dumb dumbs like me (or if you are also one of them, please come out of the closet), it may be a good idea to just have a wiki article or something, based on some freely available tools, that gives you a detailed tutorial of how to do things on the basis of a choice of tools that are the most convenient.
Before I forget, I tried Wilbur as well and can make fly by's which is fun for a couple of minutes but that is not what I am after of course.
Please, at least give me/us some more basic information on the subject.
Thanks,

Roby

PS: no PS

 

[arno]

Hi Roby,

I'll try to get the sample you send me through resample. Then I can show you how I did that.

 

[arno]

Hi Roby,

I had a look at the issue. I found out that GDAL did not recognise the projection correctly, so at first the data was converted to WGS84 wrong (it ended up somewhere else).

So I used this line to convert it in the end:

gdalwarp -s_srs "+proj=UTM +zone=2 +south +datum=WGS84" -t_srs "+proj=latlong +datum=WGS84" 1005CATD.DDF test_wgs84.tif

Then I used this INF file for resample:

[Source]
Type                = GeoTIFF
Layer               = Elevation
SourceDir           = "."
SourceFile          = "test_wgs84.tif"

[Destination]
DestDir             = "."
DestBaseFileName    = "test"
DestFileType        = BGL
LOD                 = Auto

After that I could see a change in FSX at the right island.

 

[robystar]

Thanks Arno,

Will try it tomorrow evening. Too late now to wreck my brain again.

 

[robystar]

Sorry to be daft but where do I put the files that have to be converted so the gdalwarp can find them or do I have to give in a path somewhere?
I have gdal 1.91.

 

[arno]

Hi,

Are you using GDAL from OSGeo4W or from FWTools? Both of them should come with a shortcut that give you a command prompt where all the tools are on the path. So then you can just type the commands directly.

 

[robystar]

Hi Arno,

I tried all three of them but my ddf resides in a temp folder (as is Gdal). Hence I am wondering if I should it put somewhere else or tell gdalwarp where to find it.

 

[arno]

What you would normally do is to "cd" to the folder where you data is. The shell will make sure the GDAL tools can be found. So then you can use the commands as I posted them.

 

[robystar]

cd

Hi,

Thanks, but how do I cd gdalwarp/gdal_translate in the command line to point to where I stored my SDTS files?

 

[arno]

Hi,

Just type cd c:\where\your\files\are. The press return and you should see you are in that folder now.

 

[robystar]

I use the FW tools shell and start gdalwarp and continue to fill in the rest and at the end I point the program to the folder my file is in. Is that correct if I do it once or do I have to do it for the source file and destination file as well?

GrrrRoby

PS: Sorry if I have not tried it myself completely yet but it seems we have more and more thunderstorms here and then I have electricity shortcuts for a while and then the fuses blow for one reason or another and I have to figure out how to get things working again (lights, fridge, microwave, pool pump, satellite and ISP modem, etc.... I just managed to get the computer and the lights working once more and to get online a short while ago.
PS2: If I start the FWtools shell and point straight away to my "C:\temp\experimental geo data OandO" file I get a 'is not recognized as an internal command, program or BAT.

 

[robystar]

Hi all,

I do not manage to get gdalwarp to work on my DDF file.
It must be that it is that simple that it is not explained anywhere.
Example:
I open FWtools shell and the command prompt points to C:\program files\FWTools2.4.7> and that is when I start filling in:
gdalwarp -t_srs "EPSG:4326" -r lanczos -ot INT16 -dstnodata -32768 cd C:\temp\"experimental geo data OandO"\1697332\1005CATD.DDF 1005CATD.tif and I push ENTER and the program comes up with telling me that cd is not a valid command.
Tried the same with Arno's example but with the same result.
Enlighten me please?

Thank you.

Roby

 

[robystar]

Hi,

Pfff, I managed to get it right (by putting all the DDF files inside the FWTools folder).
But, fyi:
Dick's gave me an elongated island, Arno's gave me the right shape but both are off compared to the virtualearth photoreal.
In the meantime I downloaded new mesh from the national map viewer. They said it was geotiff but I end up with a file that has a lot of different file formats in it but no tiff.

 

[robystar]

Confused

Hi all,

Well, I'll be...
The new mesh is indeed much better and fits the default FSX island perfectly. But the photoscenery (from virtual earth using FSEarthTiles) is off!
An earlier geotiff mesh did coincide with the shape of the island but was a 30m one.
Who am I to believe? How can that be?
Would there be a way to move the coords of the photoscenery to coincide with the mesh? Or vice versa?

Roby

PS Show you what I mean:
This is the default mesh that does not coincide with the phototexture:



And next is the less detailed mesh that coincides with the phototexture:

And finally the new more accurate mesh but that does not coincide with the phototexture:

 

[benclark]

Have you checked some coords of the island against sources like Bing Maps, Google Maps, etc.?

How far apart are the mesh and the photoscenery islands?

 

[robystar]

Hi,

Thanks for trying to help out.
Yes, I checked in as far as possible because if I knew how to do this accurately, I could perhaps solve the problem.
The photoreal is off by some 75 meters give or take some 25.

 

[GHD]

The photoreal is off by some 75 meters give or take some 25.

Near enough for pit-work (as they say)

 

[robystar]

Reminds me of my Ceuta scenery, George. And my Ceuta scenery is OK now. I did not upload it because Tejal Bernardo already did it (Still think mine is better though.
But now I did this one correctly, at least that is what I thought, as I used FSEarthTiles to do it for me.