Introduction: Scenery Tech’s South America Landclass replaces the default terrain classification data for the South American continent. As with ST’s products for North America, Europe and Asia, the purpose of the landclass replacement for South America is to increase the accuracy and the level of detail in the coverage area. The product claims to effectively reduce the omnipresent desert-like textures where detail was neglected in Flight Simulator’s default scenery database. The flight simulator scenery engine uses the Olson Global Ecosystem Legend to map terrain types to the world map. This data is compiled the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS). The maximum level of detail is provided in Flight Simulator for a terrain type is 1.2 square kilometers or less than ½ square mile. There are 255 possible terrain classes, and some of these types are shown in the table below:
The side by side visual comparison of the default landclass versus Scenery Tech’s shows some differences, notably around the edge of population areas, in mountainous terrain, and even in vast expanses of rainforest. Unlike the Asia product I reviewed earlier this year, the South America product includes data for the entire continent, not just certain population centers. Clearly, it seems Scenery Tech has much better source data for this continent than for some of the more remote parts of Asia. Installation and Documentation: Each product comes as an 11Mb download – rather small as scenery products go. The e-commerce solution is provided by Flight 1. Installation requires an internet connection and upon credit card payment, the main setup program is unlocked and automatically started. This e-commerce method remains one of the easiest to use on the market, and also supports re-installs and updates. Speaking of which, Scenery Tech provides free updates to existing customers. The South America product we discuss here is release 1.0. The install is completely automatic and a simple affair.
Scenery Tech provides some replacement textures for slopes and rocks, which can help the overall effect. ST does not recommend installing those if you have a texture replacement add-on as it may cause artifacts or conflicts. I didn’t notice any such impact on my other scenery add-ons, although none are specific to the area covered by this Scenery Tech product. My texture add-on does have instructions on how to deal with landclass products, in particular, the order in which the landclass data appears in the scenery library. Impact should be minimal, and the feature can be turned off in case a problem occurs. Backups of the specific files are made on setup if you decide to install them, so it is always possible to copy the modified data back. Overall, the entire data set occupies approximately 10Mb on disk. The documentation for the South America landclass comes in the form of a 5 page RTF format document. The document looks identical to that for all other Scenery Tech Landclass products, the only difference being the reference the modified coverage area. The document includes a map of the coverage area, basic installation instructions, and a useful list of files impacted by the texture replacement feature and how to undo it. Since the product really has no options outside of being enabled in the scenery library (or not), the documentation is actually quite complete. Visuals: We’ll use the Terrain Mesh File (TMF) tool in the Flight Simulator SDK to compare landclass data “before” and “after”, some satellite view snapshots followed by in flight images using the same view point to illustrate the differences. Landclass data comparison
Observations: Scenery Tech South America radically alters the terrain in two ways. Firstly, it adds what visually looks to be at least 4 times the data points to the default scenery. Second, it provides smoother transitions between terrain types, making the resulting scenery much more realistic, even if we are far from photo-real. The effect can be drastic in poor coverage areas, and more subtle in places where FSX already includes some good data.
Performance:
I did not notice any impact on frame rates with this product. Conclusion:Scenery Tech brings some detailed landclass data to the South American continent, in a set that appears very complete, more so than Scenery Tech’s Asia product. Within the limits of the supported terrain types in FSX, the end result is well worth it. The effect is immediately apparent - even drastic in some areas. The product shines noticeably in reducing the vast expanses of bland scenery in areas neglected by FSX while adding good variety where possible. In the end, the product adds pleasing visuals which directly translates to a new level of immersion for flights in that part of the world. |
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