I am encountering a weird phenomenon. When making a custom "OSM2XP" file for my local town, all the default XP10 autogen buildings disappear, to be replaced with the buildings I add in OSM. So far so good.BUT there is one block of "commercial high-rise" buildings that will stay - I can´t get rid of them! The OSM (openscenery) buildings are right among those, but the default autogen buildings stay! It wouldn´t bother me so much if I wouldn´t live in a small town with only 2-3 story residential houses all around - these buildings really stick out and are out of place...Any ideas?Jan

I saw that too, xplane is not excluding them, i think that's a bug on laminar side or maybe they are not referenced as "OBJ". maybe they are facades?you should make a test with all exclusion options checked in osm2xp.Ben

Ben, that was some good advice - I "excluded" facades, and the unwanted buildings were gone. As a matter of fact the options in osm2xp are pretty versatile. It takes some experimentation, but if you use a small section of the map only, the operation is really fast and you can "edit" scenery to use in X-Plane pretty quick.

 

In a way i am weary about going too far with this route, though. I would like to see Laminar make an offical statement on this - will they eventually use OSM data on buildings to cut the "default" scenery (then making our own efforts to update OSM worthwhile) or will they continue on making towns and villages appear "realistic" by using advanced algorithms to place buildings?

 

I understand that OSM coverage (worldwide) might be really sparse - but then again the algorithm makes some really spectacular mistakes, too (like placing buildings all along a glider-plane runway, because OSM thinks it is a road).

 

Jan

Hi Jan !

 

I understand that OSM coverage (worldwide) might be really sparse - but then again the algorithm makes some really spectacular mistakes, too (like placing buildings all along a glider-plane runway, because OSM thinks it is a road).

 

I'm excluding default X-Plane autogen buildings everywhere I'm using OSM2XP buildings. But you're right, "plausible" default scenery is sometimes strange. You can read more here about future updates if you want a Laminar Research statement on default buildings:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2012/03/when-are-we-going-to-get-high-the-plan-for-cities/

 

And here's an older post about what they are currently using from OpenStreetMap:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/04/osm-what-data-will-the-global-scenery-use/

 

Happy flying ! B)

Just one question:

 

What's the tag in OpenStreetMap for your glider-plane runway ? "aeroway" or "highway" ?

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Aeroways

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway

 

Feel free to report bugs in OpenStreetMap:

http://openstreetbugs.schokokeks.org/

Will check once OSM is back in "editable" mode. The runway in question is the glider facility near Giessen, Germany. It is called "Wieseckaue", it is also contained in X-Plane, but not usable because of the autogen (unless you don´t mind flying through the buildings ;-) )

 

Jan

The road in question was tagged as a "service road" - I guess that qualified it for autogen housing. I have changed it to "track" in OSM, since this is probably more appropriate.

...ran into the next problem:

 

I set a certain height for my residential buildings - like 6 to 10 meters. Usually osm2XP will generate buildings varying in size between these limits. OR it will take the actual height (height: xx meters) as specified. Unfortunately osm2XP will now exclude (not generate) all buildings that exceed the height-limits.

 

How do I generate a big city with many high-rise residential buildings but also a lot of lower residential? Think Manhattan - if I set the limits to be really low/high, I will get too much variation on the buildings without "height" tags. If I set the limit more narrow, osm2XP will not generate all the buildings that fall out of these limits (if so defined by their "height").

 

I would take this up with the developers, but their site is in french, and I can´t even register because I don´t understand what to put where...

 

Jan

I would take this up with the developers, but their site is in french, and I can´t even register because I don´t understand what to put where...

 

I'm reading avsim xplane forums so you can ask your questions here no problem.

 

If i understood, you mean that if you set let's say buildings height limit to min=20 / max=40 , a building that has a building:height=15 won't be generated?

Seems like a bug, i'll look at it.

 

Now if you want my opinion, the best choice to generate a city like in your exemple of Manhattan, would be to set "normal" min/max height values in the building tab, then add the height information in openStreetMap for the taller buildings.

It can take a bit of time but:

 

-you will have a very good generated scenery

-you're helping the open street map community -> the added data will be useable by other apps using osm -> win

 

I'm using this website to find height information for cities : http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/

 

Cheers

 

Ben

Hi Ben,

 

thanks for the reply - yes, that seems to be the problem. I am adding height to all the buildings I enter in OSM... but they won´t be included if they are outside the limits set in osm2XP.

 

I am worried that also "skyscrapers" will not be included, especially since the highest limit I can set in osm2XP is 100 meters. That would mean that all buildings higher than that can´t be included :-(

 

Also found another problem when generating a scenery for a small part of the map - all the surrounding area suffers from "exclusion" - i.e. no buildings are shown, no X-Plane autogen, etc.

In other words - the part of the map I exported from OSM is fine, but the surrounding area is totally empty for miles (as per the exclusion settings in osm2xp).

 

Another problem: Trying to add some trees to my town - there are lots of gardens and trees all over - but when I add (leisure: garden) osm2XP will not generate any trees in that section :-(

 

Anyway, still a GREAT program and I am busy adding buildings to my hometown :-)

 

Jan

I will look at the bug about buildings not generated when outside of osm2xp limits. It shouldn't work that way, i will fix it.

 

About exclusions, osm2xp is adding exclusions on the whole tile (1/1 lat/long deg), so that's why it's removing everything around you.

I could add an option to add the exclusion only around generated scenery in the future (but it will still be a square, just more precise).

 

For trees, did you check the rules in the "forest" tab? there must be a rule matching the tag you are using if you want osm2xp to generate trees.

 

Ben

Roger, thanks!

 

There was a rule for the leisure: garden, but maybe there was not enough space since it was a square "draped" over a few buildings?

 

Jan