Minimum DEM area

[Siggy]

Hi,

A bridge that I made needs some small terrain adjustments on its ends. Is there a way (for FSX) that I can 'bend' the terrain in these two small areas at its ends only ? IOW, is there something like a minimum area of DEM data one has to supply to create a superset of DEM data for an area ?

Cheers,
Siggy

 

[phpdk]

Hi,

Creating a new mesh from (reconstructed) DEM-data is rather tricky. In your case a couple of tilted flattens will probably do the trick.

In SBuilder you can assign different altitudes to every vertex of a polygon. If you use GoogleEarth/FSXKml you will have to hand-edit the kml (not too difficult if you have only a few vertices).

The end result will be (very much) dependent on the mesh resolution you are using in FSX, so if you are distributing, check with different solutions and state in the ReadMe.

Peter

 

[scott967]

I'm guessing that it would have to cover at least the area of the resolution, LOD8 mesh would have to cover a LOD8 area, but like I said, just a guess. Should be easy enough to prove one way or another.

scott s.
.

 

[vlada stoje]

FSX resample can process small data

Hi Siggy,

I tried this extreme setting

NorthLat = 50.002
SouthLat = 50.000
EastLong = 14.502
WestLong = 14.500

and yes, the FSX resample has the ability to process it. TmfViewer shows few pixels in choosen LODs (7-10), but I didn’t test if it is visible in the sim

Cheers

Vlada Stoje

 

[Siggy]

Hi Guys,

Thanks to all who replied. Your answers have encouraged me an I have gone through the pain (.inf file) and tried it myself (see screenshot). I used a 2x2 DEM file, i.e. 4 points of equal elevation, these famous 4.8m apart, and placed the entire thing at my FS-test area at N20 E0. Not sure why FSX renders this as a pyramid, maybe it is my terrain setting in FSX. I would have expected this to be flat at the top.

Does anyone know what exactly the boundaries (lat/long) in the destination section mean ? I tried using 0.1 degrees and 0.01 degrees around N20 E0, and the resampler produced slightly different text output. Perhaps it influences visibility of the DEM data but using 2x0.01 degrees width/height, the pyramid disappeared when about 1' away and 0.01 degrees is more like 0.6'.

I wish the .inf file parameters were a little better documented. It was not entirely clear to me. E.g. the LOD parameter only worked as 'Auto'.

Cheers,
Siggy

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Siggy.

I beleive the Aces designers bury the bridge ends if possible.

You can raise the terrain by making vector flattens ( SBuilderX would be my choice, as you can define the polygons vertex elevations ).

Dick

 

[José]

Mesh resolution

Hi, siggy

Not sure why FSX renders this as a pyramid, maybe it is my terrain setting in FSX. I would have expected this to be flat at the top.

I think you´re right: it´s a problem of mesh resolution (which is the yours - 10, 19, 38m...?)

Try a greater distance between the poly´s points, say the double of your resolution.

It seems the central point has the elevation you gave to poly, so try to get to the desired elevation on steps, to avoid the pyramidal format.

Just suggestions. I never tried this in FSX.

Regards,

José

 

[vlada stoje]

even one point dem works

Hi all,

the FSX resampler accepts even one point dem (2 bytes file), amazing. The shape of the peak depends on the details of the inf file and on the terrain display settings. Only I don’t know for what this use

Cheers

Vlada Stoje

 

[BASys]

Hi Folks

Siggy -
I've ad a similar problem,
which are most noticeable running on hi-res monitors.

I've found LODs for spike, or thin objects,
don't display as nicely as I'd have hoped.
Specifically the higher LODs pop into view very late.

It's part of an issue where
thin/elongated/tall objects are not visible
when viewed perpendicular to their longest/tallest facet.

Have you tried moving closer to the object ?
Could you please try zooming all the way out, (to 0.3),
then move the a/c gradually closer to the object.

You may find one or more detailed LOD(s) pops into view,
and the house may eventually appear supported as you'd expected.

If so this would be a far better example than I'd supplied to MS.

I've attached some screenies
showing the late LOD popping
for an example 600' spiked object.

In this example the terrain is set to 100% and 7cm.

Please ignore the LC sea,
and the dual facets of the island,
I haven't finished the archipelago's coastline.

HTH
ATB
Paul

 

[Siggy]

I had my terrain resolution set to 5m and that's why it looked that way. After reducing that to 2m and removing the house (that was there accidentally) it looked quite different at the top.

[Can you remove the aircraft in top-down view? Sometimes it's disturbing].

Cheers,
Siggy

 

[BASys]

Hi Folks

Siggy -
That was one of my points,
you shouldn't have to go to a higher res to see the terrain correctly.
It should display correctly at that res.

Also if you reinsert the house,
and do the gradual move towards,
you may find as you get closer,
the spike LOD pops and gets higher,
and the house jumps upwards with it.

re: Top down
View is ground attached.
Slew the a/c upwards,
and she'll disappear.

HTH
ATB
Paul

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi all.

I was working with some mesh for CFS2 just last week, and I also had some trouble with mesh "popping"... specifically, some islands of the South Pacific would not show elevation until the viewport was quite close.

I only mention this to illustrate it is a problem that has existed in all the FS series since mesh was introduced. It is not specifically an FSX problem.

Dick

 

[BASys]

Hi Folks

Dick -
Cheers, yep I had been aware the popping existed previously.

It just appears to be far more noticeable now,
as we're now running at much higher mesh res's,
and far higher screen res's.

As such, they now cover a far greater area of screen real-estate.

My particular concern is with tall & thin objects,
these pop into view with heights far lower than the actual object's true height.
i.e. approx 0.25 then 0.5 of the object height.

And do so at very close range, (< 4 miles).

It's a little disconcerting to have a 600' spike suddenly appear in the foreground,
(initially as totally flat, then ~ 100', then ~300'),
when other objects of equal height,
but having a larger 'footprint',
have been clearly visible for much greater distances (> 20 miles).

HTH
ATB
Paul