SBuilder is for FS9, SBuilderX is for FSX. Generally I would suspect that changing airport altitudes is easier than creating sloping meshes for the average simmer. ATAPs are done that way using one of the Airport Designers as I understand it. You will need an airport design tool also if you need to move an airport slightly - some of the mesh packages can place stock airports in the sea or other in-appropriate places.

Hi Everyone,Airport elevation is only one of the many reasons why there may be a plateau at an airport. And not the most common reason. Many default airports, especially the smaller, out-of-the way strips, are misplaced, some by a significant amount. Or they may be in correct location, but have the wrong runway orientation. So in most cases, simply changing the airport's elevation will not solve the problem. In many cases, simply moving the airport to it's proper location and orientation will solve many problems, leaving the elevation the same. ADE is great for these operations.Even so, when moved to it's proper location and orientation, there will usually be some remnant of a plateau due to the flat-airport limitation, in which case the terrain surrounding the airport must be altered. This can also be accomplished using sloping flatten polygons, but I've found this method to be not as effective as using a GIS program (I use Manifold 8) to use the airport property polygon to flatten that area of the DEM at the proper elevation, convert the DEM into contours, editing the contours to smooth out the transition, then converting the contours back into a DEM, then compiling to BGL. This provides a lot more control over the end result as well as providing, IMHO, a more natural appearance.In my experience, most international, regional, and county-type airports are spot-on as far as their location and orientation. But in many cases, the airport property polygon, that does the actual flattening, is way too big, so must be adjusted using georeferenced aerial photos as reference. It's the smaller strips and cow pastures that are usually misplaced or at a wrong elevation, due to inaccurate published data. These must be moved and oriented properly, then the terrain surrounding them adjusted.So, simply changing the airport's elevation will not in most cases fix the problem. Lots of other factors that go into creating the plateau must be addressed in solving it.JT\FSG

Hi Everyone,Airport elevation is only one of the many reasons why there may be a plateau at an airport. And not the most common reason. Many default airports, especially the smaller, out-of-the way strips, are misplaced, some by a significant amount. Or they may be in correct location, but have the wrong runway orientation. So in most cases, simply changing the airport's elevation will not solve the problem. In many cases, simply moving the airport to it's proper location and orientation will solve many problems, leaving the elevation the same. ADE is great for these operations.Even so, when moved to it's proper location and orientation, there will usually be some remnant of a plateau due to the flat-airport limitation, in which case the terrain surrounding the airport must be altered. This can also be accomplished using sloping flatten polygons, but I've found this method to be not as effective as using a GIS program (I use Manifold 8) to use the airport property polygon to flatten that area of the DEM at the proper elevation, convert the DEM into contours, editing the contours to smooth out the transition, then converting the contours back into a DEM, then compiling to BGL. This provides a lot more control over the end result as well as providing, IMHO, a more natural appearance.In my experience, most international, regional, and county-type airports are spot-on as far as their location and orientation. But in many cases, the airport property polygon, that does the actual flattening, is way too big, so must be adjusted using georeferenced aerial photos as reference. It's the smaller strips and cow pastures that are usually misplaced or at a wrong elevation, due to inaccurate published data. These must be moved and oriented properly, then the terrain surrounding them adjusted.So, simply changing the airport's elevation will not in most cases fix the problem. Lots of other factors that go into creating the plateau must be addressed in solving it.JT\FSG

Thanks for the clarification on this. Do you think it will be worthwhile to you to work on FS2004 scenery to correct this? I know many of us die-hard FS9 users would be grateful.R/Mike

Hi Mike,Yes, there seems to be a demand for it. The only problem being that it's much more difficult and time-consuming to make these edits for FS2004. Not impossible but there isn't a simple way to exclude flatten polys, they being one of the components that creates the problem. An entire cell would have to be hacked to remove the problem polys, then the whole cell with the polys culled, plus the remaining flatten polys preserved, would have to be compiled to replace the original. Not an impossible task, but much more convoluted than simply excluding them, which is possible in FSX.That said, if I can figure out a process that makes this task simple and quick, there will probably also be FS2004 ATAPs.

There isn't a really simple way, but this is probably the easiest:John

Like John said, there isn't a real simple way. I have not adjusted any airports altitude, so I cannot comment on the ease of that approach.

WOW, easy to use for us fools ?Looking to Sbuilder now..

Johan_Dees, I'm one of those fools... If I can do it, you certainly can. It's not hard. It's like using AFCAD, you make the changes, then start up FS2004 and see the result.If the result is no good, you go back into Sbuilder and tweak it to make it right. (Can be time consuming sometimes).If you wish I can provide you with the general concept.

RJ: According to the website SBuilder is for FSX only?

Sbuilder v2.06 (for FS2004) can found here: http://www.scenery.org/graphical_editors_b.htmHowever, I use two other programs to assist Sbuilder.1. ADE9X found here:http://www.scruffyduck.org.uk/filemanager/...3f3331840a89cbfORAFCAD (afcad221.zip) http://library.avsim.net/search.php?Search...t&Go=SearchNote: ADE9X or AFCAD is used to obtain the lat/long coordinates of the airport to fix. (used to copy and paste the lat/long into LWMViewer).2. LWMViewer found here: http://www.jimkeir.co.uk/FlightSim/LWMViewer.htmlNote: LWMViewer is used to find the default Flatten bgl for the airport in question. Sbuilder then uses that flatten bgl for your project.

SBuilder is for FS9, SBuilderX is for FSX. Generally I would suspect that changing airport altitudes is easier than creating sloping meshes for the average simmer.

Creating sloping flattens is not hard, but can sometimes be tricky to get the "look" just right. Sbuilder is a great tool.Besides fixing the plateau issue at airports, you can add autogen to add missing towns etc.Here I added the town of CYFB using Sbuilder. I added the town for CYFB for one reason. It's more realistic at night to see the lights of the town as you approach the airport.I also added this hill in the middle of CYXY airport to add some detail to the flat airport.And this is how it looks in Sbuilder to add the CYXY plateau fix and hill.RJ

Thanks to everyone! This all finally got me moving in the correct direction. It help finally finish my personal version of KSEA. I used ADE9X and SBuilder and this thread. Thanks again.Mel

Thanks to everyone! This all finally got me moving in the correct direction. It help finally finish my personal version of KSEA. I used ADE9X and SBuilder and this thread. Thanks again.Mel

Looks nice MelRJ