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GeoTIFF display for ADE?

I have been lucky in that the airports that have interested me so far have not been so far off that I actually considered moving the entire airport. My interest in background images is to line the image up with the runways/ARP and work off of that (not moving stock runways).
 
Hi

Jim thanks for your very usefull post on "unseen effects" but on Fxplanner forum seem that people are going to move airports "easily" this mean that shortly we will have many "afcad" file over the net that probably contains errors

I agree with James to have the background image only as reference without moving the runway.


Ugo
 
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ugo1 said:
Hi

Jim thanks for your very usefull post on "unseen effects" but on Fxplanner forum seem that people are going to move airports "easily" this mean that shortly we will have many "afcad" file over the net that probably contains errors
Click to expand...

That is one of the main reasons why ADE does not allow that kind of thing at the moment :)
 
ugo1 said:
Hi

Jim thanks for your very usefull post on "unseen effects" but on Fxplanner forum seem that people are going to move airports "easily" this mean that shortly we will have many "afcad" file over the net that probably contains errors

I agree with James to have the background image only as reference without moving the runway.


Ugo
Click to expand...

I think an application should allow its users to have as many options as possible, and not limit them just because they might make a mistake. It is up to the user to understand how everything works, though. At the moment users have a choice in which application they prefer, with FSX Planner and ADE, and I think that is a good thing, with each one offering different ways of working.

-Russell
 
moving an airport

Hi, Russell

I think there is enough discussion in this forum about the consequences on "moving an stock airport".

Your very smart tool, FSX Planner, offers the option to "Move an airport" and that can induce people to think it's possible to simple "drag" an stock airport to a new location and everything on that airport will go together.

You and more experient people know this doesn't work this way.

I ask you, please, to clearly advice that this function should be used only on user's airport, during its development time, but never on stock airports, or advice, also, about the consequences on doing that on stock airports, to avoid misunderstanding and bad comparisons about pros and cons of similar tools.

Kind regards,

José
 
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José said:
I ask you, please, to clearly advice that this function should be used only on user's airport, during its development time, but never on stock airports, or advice, also, about the consequences on doing that on stock airports, to avoid misunderstanding and bad comparisons about pros and cons of similar tools.
Click to expand...

Will do.

-Russell
 
my normal approach in SceneGenX is to use background images such as from Goggle. I find many times the runways are OK but taxiways and aprons are off a bit. SGX allows for all airport move and rotate and it is very helpful, and also rubber band select which helps in moving a group of taxisigns for example.

In SGX and I assume in ADE, the scenery layout is in meters. So unless ADE is going to project the background image, it should be already projected before using in ADE. What I do in SGX is first project the background to UTM so it is in meters, scale it so the scale is the same in the northing and easting directions, then rotate it by the UTM grid declination to get back to north up. Then you load in SGX and all you have to do is scale it and position it. Works very well.

Most airports I am interested in are in the US and must fit into accurate UTX USA roads and rivers, so I prefer to accurately place them, even though that means tweaking the airport boundary, which is now so easy in SBX it's almost trivial (at least compared to FS9!)

scott s.
.
 
Jim thanks for your very usefull post on "unseen effects" but on Fxplanner forum seem that people are going to move airports "easily" this mean that shortly we will have many "afcad" file over the net that probably contains errors
Click to expand...


Ugo

We don't have to wait for Airports to be uploaded to web sites with errors because it is happening right now.

The testing that I have done shows 80 percent of all airports that have been uploaded in most cases destroyed a perfectly working FSX default airport.

This is not do to the Utility used but carelessness and lack of knowledge on the designers part. However, a Utiltity that exposes many parts of a Airport then what is needed by less then a knowledgable designer allows for a greater margin of error.

The following list of errors comes from all the AFX Airports that I have downloaded and studied.

No standard bgl naming scheme
Duplicate Taxiway signs because of no exclusion
Duplicate Approach data in the GPS receiver based on False statements and copied into the User XML
Duplicate Scenery Library GUIDS nesting above the Airport header. Some uploads have more then 140 GUIDS
Duplicate audible markers sitting on top of each other
Duplicate Jetways do to False statements and then Jetways copied into the user XML
Jetways that lost there Parking assignment and now travel to the wrong Parking Spot
Parking spot and Jetways added to Terminals with no Aprons added so the Planes taxi on grass
Many Parking spots at the Main Terminal with Radius values set for GA Planes rather then B737/B757/B767/Airbus type planes
No Airline Codes in the parking spot
Parking Spots not connected to taxiway/Apron Links. One Airport uploaded this week has 22 out of 29 spots not connected.
AI Planes timing out and disappearing on pushback
Taxiways closed which is not honored by ATC
Boundary Fences that pass through Main Terminals and Airport Buildings
Boundary Fences that cross over each other do to vertex scramble that the compiler does not see as a error
Taxiway signs for Runway entrance (white letters over red background) used for other then runways
Apron Lighting no longer matching the deleted or resized Aprons
Animated Vehicle roads not attached to many Parking Path Links
Vehicle roads passing back and forth through Boundary Fences
Vehicle roads that are missing segments causing animated vehicles to default to main taxiways and runways
Taxiway segmentation destroyed
Many Blue Nodes not connected to anything
Taxi/Apron paths passing through default static ground vehicles
Hold Short nodes to far from the edge of the runway
Taxiways with Hold Short nodes entering the Blast Pad or Overrun causing AI Planes to time out.
Airline Terminal Parking spots coded as RAMP instead of GATE causing no animated Ground Support
Multiple Fuel Trucks parking side by side which FSX sees as a error and only one will be dispatched
Teeoff's missing completely including a line ending "T"
Parking Path center line missing so no oil stains are drawn on the aprons

There are 2 sides to every coin. Expose only what is needed (AFCAD concept) to enhance a FSX airport or expose everything in the form of XML. It ends up being a designers choice based on many factors that I don't want to go into at the present time.

Many new Users have found away to design FSX airports and run to upload their work to web sites regardless of any testing or proper knowledge. When e-mails are sent (as per their request) these same designers become very defensive and dismiss problems that other Users are experiencing with the enhanced non working airport.
 
In SGX and I assume in ADE, the scenery layout is in meters.
Click to expand...

ADE holds meters (corrected for latitude) and coordinates
 
jvile said:
There are 2 sides to every coin. Expose only what is needed (AFCAD concept) to enhance a FSX airport or expose everything in the form of XML. It ends up being a designers choice based on many factors that I don't want to go into at the present time.

Many new Users have found away to design FSX airports and run to upload their work to web sites regardless of any testing or proper knowledge. When e-mails are sent (as per their request) these same designers become very defensive and dismiss problems that other Users are experiencing with the enhanced non working airport.
Click to expand...

I am one of the ignorant - but hopefully know enough to have some idea of what can be messed up. Moreover, the editing of Stock airports and distribution, or indeed modification of professional add-on scenery raises significant IP issues - not the scope of this forum.

Thus far my modification of stock airports has been to "fix" things that are wrong and annoy me about existing airports - and is confined to my own computer. Although small GA airfields (not in FSX) I have created - with some limited distribution.

The compilation and replacement of STOCK apx files by amateurs (like myself) should be discouraged. An Addon Scenery file at a higher scenery level in this instance is much easier to remove - and should be the encouraged method for compulsive "dabblers" like me.

At the end of the day - I could remove the addon libraries, and FSX would be ostensibly unchanged.

I am grateful to Jon for SDE and tools like it for the abiliy to correct annoyances in the stock scenery (usually not runway position!). GeoTiff images would be a useful addition.

Hope your finger recovers well, Jon.
 
In reply to the posts about GeoTIFFs projected into meters.... The main problem is that this requires the use of a UTM projection, or some version of a TM projection (e.g. National Grids, like the OSGB National Grid here in the UK. Don't even get me started on State Planes and the like!). These work pretty well if your airfield happens to be in the middle of a UTM zone, or close to it's origin. The further you get from the origin the less accurate it becomes... until you cross into another UTM zone, where it gets worse. There are so many UTM zones...

http://www.dmap.co.uk/utmworld.gif

... and so many airfields...

http://www.homepages.mcb.net/bones/06airfields/icao.htm

... that inevitably some airfields will cross UTM zones. The worst case is when an airfield sits right on the equator.

That is why the FSX SDK uses WGS84, and why its probably best for ADE. (Ultimately WGS84 isn't the final solution either, especially outside North America, but that is a whole other story for another forum!)

The good news is that with the correct equations in hand its relatively easy calculate the distance in metres between two Lat/Long points. Given that features in ADE are made up of points, lines and polygons this seems like the way to go.... IMHO.
 
I've found that just rotating UTM images works pretty good, at least in SGX. All that's needed is to scale the image. I suppose at the scale of an airport, an unprojected image could just be scaled both in x and y using the midpoint location to convert degrees to meters. I'm assuming that is what FSXPlanner is doing?

scott s.
.
 
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