I have often wondered what is the difference between an AFCAD and scenery. What is the deciding factor/element? I have downloaded and installed Scenery with buildings, objects, gates, terminals and all sort of airport information. I have also downloaded and installed AFCAD's with simular items. When I install AFCAD's, they are placed in a scenery folder that is read by FSX when FSX starts and when I install scenery, I have to install it in my scenery folder while in FSX. What is the deciding factor since they seem to be able to do the same thing but only installed differently?

I have often wondered what is the difference between an AFCAD and scenery. What is the deciding factor/element? I have downloaded and installed Scenery with buildings, objects, gates, terminals and all sort of airport information. I have also downloaded and installed AFCAD's with simular items. When I install AFCAD's, they are placed in a scenery folder that is read by FSX when FSX starts and when I install scenery, I have to install it in my scenery folder while in FSX. What is the deciding factor since they seem to be able to do the same thing but only installed differently?

Not a "technical" answer but perhaps this will help:Prior to the advent of several fairly new "afcad type" programs such as ADE9X - which can add objects (buildings etc.) to an "afcad" as well as the runways and taxiways, we were pretty much restricted to using Lee Swordy's AFCAD utility.It allowed one to add/create runways and taxiways and parking areas etc. but we had to use other scenery design programs to actually dress up the airport with buildings, vehicles and other airport related objects.You will now find down-loadable packages which are afcads only (the runways, taxiways and parking) as well as more complex "afcads" which include eye candy for the airport in question. There are also downloads which are eye candy only.The bottom line is that it really depends upon which tools the author has used.Hope that makes sense.

I have often wondered what is the difference between an AFCAD and scenery. What is the deciding factor/element? I have downloaded and installed Scenery with buildings, objects, gates, terminals and all sort of airport information. I have also downloaded and installed AFCAD's with simular items. When I install AFCAD's, they are placed in a scenery folder that is read by FSX when FSX starts and when I install scenery, I have to install it in my scenery folder while in FSX. What is the deciding factor since they seem to be able to do the same thing but only installed differently?

You have to remember that when the AFCAD program was first released by Lee Swordy, FS had been designed with a separate, older concept of "airport facility data" files, or AFD files. The function of these AFD files was to provide the data that the AI and ATC engines needed, as well as various data that was displayed in the map or used by the aircraft, such as comm frequency, fuel availability, etc. The AFCAD program worked by providing a GUI for editing the default files. This process was entirely separate from creating visual scenery. The AFCAD program also created special text files called "AFCAD" files which could be shared by users. These AFCAD files were not scenery BGLs, but more like scripts that could be used in the AFCAD program itself or installed directly into the default files using a special installer.For FS9, MS modified the AFD files so that they could also contain airport scenery as well as the original AFD info. In some cases such as taxiways, the AI functioning was combined with the visual scenery making things a bit easier. MS also provided an exclusion mechanism, so direct editing of AFD files was no longer necessary. Lee updated AFCAD for FS9, but it still was designed for editing the same type of AFD data as before. Because of the new exclusion feature, AFCAD2 creates a new AFD BGL file and the default action of AFCAD is to create files with a prefix of AF2_ which are placed in the "Addon scenery" folder (this folder is created and made active as part of a default installation, so unless a user modifies his system, saving the AFD BGL files there should always work). This made it easy to distribute the files without having to have users do much more than unzip the file download.Since AFCAD2 was widely used as an AFD editor, the AF2_ files became known as "AFCAD" files, and for the most part, any "AFCAD" for an airport can be used as a replacement for any other "AFCAD" so the name stuck. Of course, AFCAD2 can't do everything needed to fully improve an airport, so it was common to provide the "AFCAD" file along with other bgl files (and texture files if needed) to provide a more complete solution. In this case it isn't a simple one-for-one swap if you want to try different scenery, so typically one does not simply place all the files into "Addon scenery", instead creating a new scenery area.Even during FS9, there were design programs such as SceneGenX which could place scenery within the same file as the AFD, but didn't have a great deal of popularity (part of the logic of SGX was to allow pre-FS9 scenery to be used so it was somewhat backward-looking in that regard). At any rate for FSX AFCAD wasn't updated (though I guess the code base was obtained and worked into the commercial AFX product). Meanwhile two freeware tools, FSX_Planner and ADEX were developed with the intent of handling all airport scenery development in a single program. Given the wide acceptance of these new programs, using the term "AFCAD file" is still done, but it is pretty much an anachronism IMHO.scott s..