Hi All. Perhaps someone can help me un-riddle this scenery error. I'm running FS9 with VOZ 1.8 (a must-have if you fly in Australia with FS2004) and at some stage added other scenery for Perth International, YPPH. Unfortunately I can't now find or identify this add-on, but need to remove it. The airport - taxi-ways, apron etc. look good from the cockpit, but if I change to top-down external view, an odd thing happens. At reasonable viewing height / zoom things look fine with the AFCAD defined runways, etc. all perfectly clear. Zooming in and down, however, for accurate taxi-ing in Top-Down view, the AFCAD features (I think) - i.e. runways, taxi-ways, airport fixtures etc. suddenly vanish below one particular closer zoom step, leaving only an extremely fuzzy ground image - presumably a very low-res photo-real background. Also, there's a pretty serious discrepancy between a genuine charted final approach and the runway (e.g. 03). In other words, I have to alter the final approach path because the genuine track coordinates are too far east of the runway alignment in the scenery.Clearly I've messed things up here. Can anyone suggest where to look for possible causes, or how to return FS9 / VOZ1.8 to their initial state for Perth, without re-installing? No YPPH files or folders show up in 'Addon Scenery / Scenery', or anywhere else that I can see, with the exception of the VOZ AF2 .bgl file in the VOZ folder within Add-on Scenery. But somewhere else there must be inappropriate or corrupt files relating to YPPH. I'm not blaming the scenery itself for this, but my incorrect use of it. So, any clues?Thanks for reading. Cheers - Ian (Imac) at YMUR, near YBCG, Australia.

Hi Ian,It isn't uncommon, especially in older sceneries, to lose the airport in top-down view at closer zoom levels. I'm no expert on scenery design but it must relate to a specific way sceneries are built, perhaps when using older software to make them. I don't think there is a solution a such.As to the runway alignment compared with reality - that's really down to the designer.Regarding the fuzzy textures, try removing the file oz day.bgl which I found caused a drain on memory, often causing FS crashes at the end of a flight. I believe this is only for an occasional fireworks show. It may have nothing to do with your problem, but its worth a try.John

If you want to run a diagnostic try this free utility from Pete Dowson (FSUIPC developer) that creates a log of what is does when it extracts afd type data from FS for RC and other applications.Download the makerwys utility from here:http://forum.simflight.com/topic/66136-useful-additional-programs/and extract the makerwys.exe from the zip into your FS folder.Now you can execute it and let it run until completion. In your FS folder it will create a log of its actions called Runways.txt. It is a large file so open it in word or wordpad.Airport extraction data is ordered according to scenery.cfg including data extracted from the default scenery in your AP filers.Search for YPPH. You'll come across a section with the path to the default scenery file. The next section will be another airport in that area. Cursor down to the next section and repeat the search.Now each add-on will have two sections in a pair. First will be a deletion section followed by the addition of runways, etc., in another section. Note the path listed for each of those sections. Cursor down past the second section and search again for another pair or just a deletion. Again note any paths. Keep doing this until the search fails.The last section or section pair is the dominant scenery. Note its path. There should be a deletion section for previous scenery entries and then what is added on in the second section. If you have a deletion section only you'll get generic terrain on the underlying mesh.See if any entries exist for other than the VOZ scenery that would preempt it and get their paths.Look for any add-ons containing sets of airports in collections.Once you have this information you can find your way to the suspicious file or folder and rename the .bgl extension to .bgh. The run FS to rebuild its scenery index (and scenery.cfg) and see what happens. If the offending file is in a folder dedicated to that questionable scenery move that scenery folder elsewhere not included in your scenery.cfg. FS will complain it could not find it and rebuild its scenery index. If there is a problem you could move it back. An alternative is just to deactivate that scenery (if a separate item folder) in your FS scenery library to test things out. The more priority or dominant a scenery is the closer to the top (position 1) in the scenery settings it will be.Some add-ons will modify an AP default file used for stock airports. In this case it might goof up the base for other add-ons in that tile.Another issue is the altitude rounding in FS of mesh and scenery elements. Some add-ons are very close to the default mesh with the altitude of the aprons, taxiways, and runways. If an airport background flatten polygon altitude is very close to the mesh polygon altitude you may see intermittent disappearance of the airport elements due to the rounding of the FS scenery engine. It shows in the closer top-down views. If that background polygon is missing then the next lowest terrain data will show between airport elements or may even supersede them in altitude if very close.

Additional info on the above . . .The scenery for YPPH appears to have a low resolution satellite image for the top-down view. It would be correct for this to show when looking down but not from the cockpit view. Several other sceneries (including some FS default ones) work on this principle, which doesn't look so bad when the image is clear and sharp.John

JOHN & RONZIE - Thanks very much to both of you for your very helpful and thoughtful assistance. As you might guess, I'm pretty hazy about how scenery works, but you've both given helpful clues.Firstly, JOHN: I do appreciate your thoughts on this problem. I didn't know that this effect is not uncommon, and I will have fun now experimenting with other airports - just to increase my awareness of what's going on. It probably is true, looking at the YPPH I'm seeing, that a low-res satellite image has been used - though this one's probably not by the VOZ team. Anyway, it's SO low that (in Top-down view) you couldn't taxi anywhere with any certainty. Right I will try the 'oz-day.bgl' suggestion and see what I learn. I've never noticed that it is normal enough for photo-real layers to be visible in Top-Down, but not in Cockpit View. Well, this is probably all child's play to people who design scenery, but the way it all works still astonishes me. And it gets better just about day by day!And to RONZIE: I really appreciate the effort and time you took to explain about Pete Dowson's utility, 'makerwys'. Your detailed description of its application to my YPPH problem should 'learn' me plenty - for instance, it sounds as though I can check out John's clues as to the YPPH data, and so much else. What an amazing tool this sounds; I've long been aware of Pete Dowson's FSUIPC, and its importance in FS generally, so I've no doubt 'makerwys' will do as you say, IF I can figure it out. I hope to have time over the coming weekend to check it all out. If I can't make it work, it certainly won't be caused by a lack of clear guidance. Exemplary work, Ron!I'll let you know if I learn anything useful. Once again, thanks to you both for your kind and thoughtful responses.Best wishes, Ian (Imac) - at Murwillumbah, a nice little field (in both VOZ and FTX) near YBCG.