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Hole polys problem

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france
Hello

I'm still working on Madagascar coastlines and islands.
Work is almost done (about 95%), but it remains problems with some areas.

After excluding default water poly, creating new, I set island polys as hole, but sometimes it doesn't work for some polys.

If I try again: outer, then hole again , it works sometimes.
I tested an other way: delete the island poly, redraw, set as hole: it generally works, but curiously, it's now an other island that doesn't work.
Sometimes, it works but inverted: water is "land" and island is "blue".

It seems that there is a problem with poly number order? How do poly order buttons excatly work?
So far, order of creation of new water poly and exclude water didn't seem to be important; does it?

In an other way, maybe SBX encounters problems because of too complex projects? Is there a limitation of number of polys, points,... ?
I tried to split my concerned projects in smaller areas, but it doesn't solve my problem in all case.

Thanks for help. Is a SBX update planned?

Pierrot - FMEP
 
Hello
Thanks for answer; unfortunately, I had allready read those not encouraging posts!

I basically work with QMID11 extending areas; I noticed that in complex areas (many bays, ...) in TMF Viewer, that water poly is often split to QMID12, up to 14 subpolys.
Problems seem to come when island cuts several such polys;
maybe a solution if creating islands with 2 joining parts?

Other point: is this problem specific to SBuilderX? Did anybody tried with FSX KML and got same problems? About 90% of SBX bgl files works correctly, but I may end with an other tool. About 5 project files remain with problems, but with many small islands...
I'll test with one project: how to export all lines and polys to KML?

Thanks for help.
Pierrot - FMEP
 
Hi,

You are right: those post are not very encouraging... I use SBuilderX very much and enjoy the program, but it is still in development and has its shortcomings. And I feel certain that the problems are related to SBuilder.

The example I mentioned earlier related to a small island (off the Faroe main island of Stremoy) that is completely within a QMID 12 area. I do not think the 2 poly solution is the way forward.

FSX KML can do it, but I have nor used that program for long. At some stage of development, however, the hole problem was discussed. Look here. The discussion also shows how to make an island more or less by hand.

If you migrate to FSX KML you should be able to export from SBuilder as shape files (lines and polys separately of course), convert to KML using the utility Shp2Kml (Google it, I do not remember where I got it).

Peter
 
Thanks!
I think your problems are similar with mine, and you have very complex coastline and many small islands.

Presently, I succeeded to fix 3 files by testing : delete island poly, redraw it, set as hole, untill it works!!!
It remains 1 file, the most complex with about 20 islands.
I think I will make it again, starting with a blank project.
As an other part, half of those islands are placed in river mouths; if it doesn't work, I'll draw the "outer" ocean shoreline, and create river legs with hydropolys to make islands. I prefer to continue whole project with SBX.
So, it will end shoreline and islands work; now, I begin with slopy waterpolys for main streams!

Pierrot - FMEP
 
Hi guys,

I've had those issues too; I call them "cascading failures" as it just gets worse once it started and you're trying to fix it.

One approach is to just draw the shorelines of the islands and leave the poly creation and hole setting for last.

However, some of my projects are very complex (hundreds of islands per poly) and I ended up looking for a solution outside of SBuilderX. Now I'm exporting the polys into Manifold GIS and run a "normalize topology" routine, which re-indexes the polys and holes. Takes only a few minutes and subsequent repairs are easy to do. Manifold costs a couple hundred Dollars so it depends how much you value your time or how involved your projects are. Obviously, it's also useful for a whole bunch of other data processing tasks (like bulk renaming of vectors or polys, creating two-directional road traffic, etc.) so it's a good investment IMO. There may be freeware GIS that do the same -- maybe fGIS or GRASS? -- but I haven't looked into those.

Cheers, Holger
 
Thanks for answer

I read your infos about GIS, fGis and Grass. Quite Ok for your "cascading" word to qualify problems!
Presently, I don't intent to make investment for GIS, just for an amateur project.

I download fGis to test. I have still one project to make again. All other work, but I'm still anxious to modifiy, add some features, and wait if it still works!
I think I will split the water poly - islands project, and all other items in separate files.

Thanks!
Pierrot - FMEP
 
Hello,

Just to inform that I just added this thread to my Favorites so that I look to these problems now that I am revising SBuilderX,

Kind Regards,

Luis
 
Ok! Great thanks.

So far, I succeeded in fixing most of cases, especially many island in mouths of rivers.
I found an easier way to draw shoreline including all islands, then add water polys for parts of river between islands.

In some places, problem is fixed by drawing island with 2 parts in 2 adjacent QMID boxes.

Hope that new version will manage polys more confortably!

Suggestion: I noticed that many rivers, roads , shorelines, are similar in FS9 and FSX. So far, FSX bgl can't be decompiled; it would be interesting that SBX could open / append FS9 rivers, road,... bgl files to edit more easily.

Pierrot - FMEP
 
Ok! Great thanks.

Suggestion: I noticed that many rivers, roads , shorelines, are similar in FS9 and FSX. So far, FSX bgl can't be decompiled; it would be interesting that SBX could open / append FS9 rivers, road,... bgl files to edit more easily.

Pierrot - FMEP

Thanks,

You can open the files with SB206 and export them as TXT files. Then you go to SB310 and import those TXT files.

Regards,

Luis
 
I also would be very happy if some of the "hole" coding can be worked on in SBX. I have also fixed holes by going through the exported sbx file. But I have seen cases where I have looked at the shp file created by SBX in a GIS tool, and all looks well (the GIS properly tells islands from poly) and still FSX has problems. Even one instance where TMFViewer shows one thing and FSX another. My current GIS tool (GM v7) doesn't export polys with altitude which is a limitation. The latest version (v10) does but is kind of an expensive upgrade.

scott s.
.
 
Hello
Thanks for idea to use txt format.
>>> I think you mean BLN format???? It's ok! I didn't see TXT format.

Now, I will test it to correct roads, rivers directly by moving nodes!
So far, I used a printscreen of TMFviewer as background!

Pierrot - FMEP
 
Last edited:
Hi Pierrot,

Sorry for this late answer. I meant export as a SBX file and import again in version 310. SBX files are TXT files and can be read.

I would be very grateful if someone could send me a project (the smaller the best) that illustrates the problem that many of you refer to. I could not completely understand the problem. I am starting the revision of the "Order" function for polygons in cases where there are polygon childs.

Kind Regards,

Luis
 
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