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MSFS20 Thoughts on modelling a large non-flat airport

R

RouxAU

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2
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australia
Hello FS Developers!
I am looking for recommendations or thoughts on my current project in MSFS.

I am building a custom addon for a rather large airport. I have got a lot of reference material and commercial aerials so no shortage of detail.

My question is around modelling things like large drains between taxi ways, sunken road ways. I am not having issues with terraforming for general raised or lowered areas where the ground is a mound or depression. I am having issues with the detailed areas like drains that sit between taxiways. Using terraform I get really ugly bumps and ridges because of the lack of geometry in the terrain.
This also creates a puckering effect and messes with the surrounding levels.

It seems even harder using just terraforming to create a sunken roadway that runs beneath 2 taxiways.

Has anyone done exaggerated blocking of the terrain with terraforming polygons and then detailed the areas including taxiway bridges with a mesh object or model? Can a taxiway even be created over a mesh object ?

Not really after a "how to" but curious if anyone has attempted this and what they would recommend.

Thank you

Roux
 
As far as I can figure it out the terraforming tools in their current form are pretty useless for anything but the simplest tasks. I can't even trust the runway height profile. Putting a rectangle next to a runway running along a slight slope with the exact same height profile (for taxiways) doesn't match up at all. There seems to be no way to achieve accurate results.

I have resigned myself to waiting for better tools (i.e. a way to import high resolution mesh data).
 
Hello:

I have not yet had time to test this in MSFS, but since Airport Boundary vector polygons are defined with Lon, Lat, Alt (X,Y,Z) coordinates, we 'should' be able to create airport "sloped flattens" at least as detailed as we currently can ...in versions of FS prior to MSFS-2020. :scratchch

I anticipate that we shall soon see the potentially higher resolutions to be made available in terrain quad grid vertices with a MSFS-2020 SDK update, as the USA scenery / core content update reportedly implemented areas of elevation data at as high as 50 cm between elevation data points:

usupdategraphic_dem-scaled-jpg.65562


www.flightsimulator.com

Release Notes (1.11.6.0) World Update II: U.S. Now Available! - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Release Notes for Version 1.11.6.0 (World Update II: U.S.) are now available. Please launch the Microsoft Store or Steam to download the latest update. In addition to the USA world update…
www.flightsimulator.com www.flightsimulator.com

Note that the default terrain mesh in FSX was reportedly sourced from a maximum of 5 Meters resolution for the Mt. St. Helens area.

Manually setting the terrain mesh resolution within FSX.Cfg allowed use of greater than 1 Meter between elevation data point terrain mesh BGLs.

[EDITED]

To display 7 cm textures (~LOD-20) on CVX vector objects, FSX automatically set terrain resolution at 9.6 Meters to 'force' LOD-12 quad grid Area Points.

If MSFS-2020 utilizes quad tiles like FSX does, to set a quad grid at 7 LOD levels lower than the intended pixels per Meter of draped terrain textures, Area Points for display of (required LOD-20) draped aerial / satellite imagery 'may' compel terrain resolution to be set at the same LOD-12 level as in FSX.

It is interesting to note that the maximum theoretical quad grid level value documented in the FS SDK is LOD-27. :yikes:

[END_EDIT]

A table of the FSX quad grid and terrain tile sizes (comparable to the world model of the MS Virtual Earth / BING 'tile' scheme) ...is here:

www.fsdeveloper.com

FSX - Flattens

THE FSX RENDERING ENGINE WORKS WITH TRIANGLES... NOT RECTANGLES ! That was my initial thought, bit it is not true. It works with polygons. (The slope parameter is not used).
www.fsdeveloper.com www.fsdeveloper.com


Quad 'aliasing' at terrain quad grid level settings in use for MSFS-2020 at EGCN as an example airport is seen at 5:49 in a tutorial video on Terra-forming:



msfs_sdk-tutorial-4-terraforming_egcn_apron_apx_terrain_grid_aliasing-jpg.65604


(IIUC, 4 quad edges seen along a bottom right DHL Service building at EGCN approximate a 19.2 Meter between elevation data point / LOD-11 grid:

ge_ruler_path_length_egcn_apron_apx_terrain_grid_aliasing-jpg.65606


That is the (internally coded) limit of maximum resolution allowed to be displayed in FS2004 with the FS-9.1 update installed.

This configuration allows terrain grid vertices at LOD-21 / QMID-23 levels for resolution of Area Points (aka "mini-quads")

Here, SBuilderX displays MS Virtual Earth / BING imagery tiles for the example location with a superimposed FS quad grid at LOD-21:

sbuilderx_msve-bing_egcn_apron_cvx_terrain_grid_aliasing-jpg.65608


Note: We can open MSFS-2020 CVX vector files containing airport flatten polygons for EGCN in FSX / P3D SDK TmfViewer. ;)

Displaying MSFS-2020 CVX BGLs in TmfViewer with LOD grid overlays reveals vertex intervals used to make Airport Boundary Flatten Polygons.

[MSFS2020_Packages install path]\Official\OneStore\fs-base\scenery\0501\CVX4712.BGL

tmfviewer_cvx4712_bgl_egcn_abps-jpg.65616



FYI: We can also de-compile MSFS-2020 legacy format CVX vector files containing EGCN airport flatten polygons in Patrick Germain's CvxExtractor.

www.fsdeveloper.com

CVXExtractor - Exporting vector data.

Hi folks CVXExtractor is a command-line application that allows you to export the vector data of a CVX BGL file into one of the following formats: - XML (Plain XML) - KML or KMZ - ESRI Shapes - BLN - OSM (Open StreetMap XML) Also note that original lines or polygons may be split if they cross...
www.fsdeveloper.com www.fsdeveloper.com


SBuilderX can 'Append" EGCN CVX vector ABP BGLs de-compiled to *.SHP files for visualization and/or to be edited as "primitives" for use as new objects

sbuilderx_append_shp_cvx4712_bgl_egcn_abps-jpg.65618



BTW: Apparently MSFS-2020 retro-compatibility mode also uses / displays legacy format DEM BGLs loaded from ex: MS-Store folder chain: :pushpin:

[MSFS2020_Packages install path]\Official\OneStore\fs-base\scenery\Base\scenery\dem4km.bgl



IIUC, SDK Terra-Forming "Fall-off Distance" parameter values used will influence 'smoothing' of terrain polygon run time rendering in MSFS-2020.


So, IMHO, with forthcoming SDK updates we may soon find we have even higher control over how terrain sculpting is displayed in MSFS-2020. :)


We 'should' be able to render at run time in MSFS-2020, detailed Airport Boundary sloped flattens using CVX vector BGLs created from *.SHP files:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/blending-airports-into-custom-terrain.448048/post-850510

1552719011018-png.48406


GaryGB
 

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Wow, thanks for all of the info @GaryGB. I'm sure its going to take me at least a month to digest all of it and then try to work out what to do with the info :) I think you just pulled me into the rabbit hole.
 
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