Using FSX to Visualize GIS Data

[Guest nicholjm]

In my professional life I work alot with GIS data, georeferenced aerial photographs and so on as I find sites for large facilities. I have been thinking about the idea of taking Images (they can be geotiffs or any other format) and exporting them draped over detailed mesh (USGS DEM or the local more detailed equivalent) to FSX and doing some visual movies. It seems like a good combination of my two interests (I am a long time flightsimmer and R/W instrument rated pilot)and doesnt appear to be too difficult in concept. Are there any existing guides out there for importing aerial photography and mesh into FSX? I have looked a little and there are some related guides but nothing specific.My thought is that I would use my local area (SW Ohio) as a test area and see if high detail in a small area would yeild good visual results. Thoughts would be most welcome.James.

[scott967 62]

Take a look at fsdeveloper.com. Start on the wiki and then the scenery forums.Using GIS data in FSX is very easy. You need the sdk tools installed. If your raster data is exported in GeoTiff with geo projection and WGS-84 datum it is easy to compile for FSX. Vector data as well if you export as shapefile. For water and airport polygons, FSX takes elevation so the ability to export 3d polygon shapefile (polygonZ) helps.I guess Google Earth Pro is another option for easy overlay of GIS data. You could also look at Google Sketchup Pro. Version 8 released today has some improved geolocation features. I think you would need to convert your vectors into dxf or something along those lines to import into GSU.scott s..

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Please see Make photo-real ground textures in Flight Simulator Xavailable right here in the Avsim library, no need to go anywhere elsehttp://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxsd&DLID=140539You can use SBuilderX to add any GeoTIFF and immediately compile it as custom (photo-real) ground textures. Very easy to use, all information needed in the Help file. Get SBuilderX here:http://www.ptsim.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=40&Itemid=18What you want to do is supremely easy and requires very little effort.Best regards.Luis

[meshman 109]

In my professional life I work alot with GIS data, ...My thought is that I would use my local area (SW Ohio) as a test area...

You will find that the State of Ohio has some very good source material available. You'll find it will eat up a lot of HD space in a hurry. You'll find that if you have a good enough computer, the visuals will be rewarding, otherwise the efforts will be wasted.It's just the downloading and processing that's the pits!