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ADE Grid sizes

T

Tomt478

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I don't know if anyone has ever asked this before, but I am wondering how big are the boxes in the grid on ADE. I'm talking how many miles.feet,etc do each box represent?
Also, how far can you make a road go until it will no longer compile into FSX? I know there is a limit as to how far a road can actually go before it no longer shows in FSX. I used to know from long ago, but I can't remember?
 
Hi Tom:

For this specific question, you may wish to review this thread:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/exclude-autogen-min-size.20632/

The context of the discussion has to do with Autogen Exclusion, but the info on Terrain Quad size is still pertinent.


To be clear, CVX vector roads and all other content except Highway Traffic "clip" at LOD-9 (aka QMID-11) Quad edges.

CVX vector Highway Traffic will "clip" at LOD-13 (aka QMID-15) Quad edges.


That means one must "resume" drawing on the Quad adjacent to the one currently being drawn upon to continue the extent of the road.

The LOD / QMID Quad grid can be superimposed in FS Terrain SDK TMFViewer and in SBuilderX workspace.


I don't recall if ADE has the ability to clip CVX vector content during processing prior to BGL compilation, so that a long CVX vector Road poly-line spanning multiple Quads can be used to derive individual LOD-9 / QMID-11 sized and locally-mapped segments; however, I do know that SBuilderX does have that ability as an interactive feature within its workspace in a project editing session.


BTW: Just as ADE saves all its project data in a "*.ADE" file, SBuilderX can save all its project data in a "*.SBP" file.

If we ever lose our ADE or SBP files, we have de-compilers for nearly all FSX BGLs to access source data from our projects.


FYI: Although I am extraordinarily over-committed IRL right now, and cannot currently participate in an ongoing discussion regarding your project goals recently mentioned in a few thread elsewhere in these forums, I occasionally check in here at FSDev, and saw your threads on creating a fictional island on which to use Ground Vehicles to drive.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/ade-water-polygons-and-how-to-make-them.429316/post-927134

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/adding-artificial-islands.447798/post-927148


While in theory that can be done using ADE, it would be far better to do it within SBuilderX, due to the greater number of special features for working with the FS Terrain SDK that are beyond what IIUC is the original intended scope of ADE.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/modifying-a-shoreline.427993/post-655212


FYI: The scenery process becomes quite complex when attempting to work with a fictional island ex: out in the ocean.

I would strongly recommend making a scenery that can simply be turned on and off in FS' Scenery Library GUI that is based on a real world location on solid land, rather than on water, which does not require editing terrain Hydro quads.

Please be assured that there are answers to your questions, and there is documentation in these forum, as well as downloadable, that explains how to use SBuilderX to work with FS Terrain SDK CVX vector objects to do what AFAIK you are wanting to do.

One must facilitate searches of FSDev forums using Google to find things, but I promise you the info you seek is all here.


All that said, since you stated you wished you had the original ADE file in order to fully recover info on how you implemented the terrain / other "CVX vector" part of a past scenery project, you may be interested to know that we now have a way to de-compile and extract CVX vector data from terrain BGLs output by ADE to recover that part of your terrain source data ...if you still have the scenery package but not the ADE file.

The utility is named "CvxExtractor" by Patrick Germain.

If you are interested in testing this option, feel free to let me know, and I can link you to info that (free) utility. :)

GaryGB
 
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