I wish Austin would make it a priority to add basic landmarks around the globe and find a way to autopopulate airport buildings like in FSX.

 

Basic landmarks ? I agree, this would be nice, but where and how many ? In the top 10 cities of the world ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population

 

Then, you would not even find one single landmark for the USA. Today you can find the Space Needle in Seattle. Of course it's not enough and it will never be enough even if you add hundred landmarks in hundred cities. I don't think this is a priority because add-on developers make it better. Do you recognize this skyline ?

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/381112-anyone-mess-around-with-sky-colors/

 

 

Autopopulate airport buildings like in FS2004/FSX ? Microsoft bought a proprietary database to be able to do this and default FS sceneries are proprietary.

 

X-Plane 10 DSF files from the global scenery are creative commons (CC-BY-SA) and can't become proprietary because they are using open data and OpenStreetMap. You can read more about this here:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/04/osm-is-this-legal/

 

So, the only solutions I see for populating airport buildings are:

- 3rd party development and WED is a great tool for this.

- crowd-sourcing with databases like OpenStreetMap and automatic imports with OSM2XP.

 

It's very easy, I added the buildings here with JOSM:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=48.9804&lon=6.2398&zoom=14&layers=M

 

And here they are, OSM2XP buildings in X-Plane airports:

 

 

I did the same here:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=49.14771&lon=5.93657&zoom=15&layers=M

 

And this is in X-Plane (grass runway behind the tail of the plane):

 

Mdmax-I appreciate your enthusiasm.

 

Why can laminar also not purchase a proprietary database?

 

There is just too much missing-it would take an eternity to populate to the level of default FSX with these methods.

 

Right now my part of the world is missing roads, reasonable landclass, and cities-so much so I have pretty much lost interest in simming.

 

It might be easy if one wants to spend gobs of time doing their small area-but there is a big world out there. Surely there must be an easier more elegant solution-ms got one years ago with fs9...

 

 

I have to say that I also appreciate your enthusiasm. I have it for some things but not for this :)

 

I don't want to be creating content, I want to be flying with it. Flying with content someone else has made and I am happy to pay for it if it covers what I want.

 

I also do not understand why LR cannot just purchase some content as others have done in the past. It's not like they don't have some money floating around. We all know about large donations made, which is a nice thing but it could also have been profit returned in to the business for exactly this kind of thing.

 

Unfortunately my suspicion is that LR is quite happy with the $$ they put back in to the product and they dont see any need to pay more to license content when it could be doing something in Myers bank account.

 

Fair enough too, thats his choice but they could have and decided not to.

+1

 

 

 

Yes, we need a larger team working on the project, and you, everyone can be part of this team !

 

WED is available here:

http://scenery.x-plane.com/tools.php

 

Tutorials are here:

http://wiki.x-plane....irport_Creation

http://wiki.x-plane....t_Customization

And you can make this available for everyone. Just read this page: http://data.x-plane.com/

 

If you want up-to-date cities and roads, help the OpenStreetMap project. Roads, railways, power lines can be imported with XPOSM (you need X-Plane 9 to build for now but you can use the sceneries in X-Plane 10):

http://marginal.org....nery/tools.html

 

Buildings, forests, objects (lighthouses, wind turbines, etc...) can be imported with OSM2XP:

http://osm2xp.com/

 

If something is wrong or missing near your location, it's your fault. :P

 

Read more about OpenStreetMap here:

http://en.wikipedia....i/OpenStreetMap

 

To contribute, start here:

http://wiki.openstre.../wiki/Main_Page

http://developer.map...pen/tools/guide

 

 

 

 

My favorite OSM editor is here (JOSM):

http://josm.openstreetmap.de/

 

Happy building ! B)

 

I agree, if something is missing, it's your fault. Either because you haven't built it, or because you haven't bought it.

 

You can't expect everyone to have the time or skill to create everything themselves. If you work 40-60 hours a week, it's so you can make enough money to pay someone else to do some of the stuff you don't have the time or skill for. It's not being lazy. There just isn't enough time to both play a simulator and create everything for it. It's the same reason I paid for the FSGenesis meshes for FS9 and FSX, even though the raw data is freely available. I could have learnt how to compile that to FS scenery files myself, but then I wouldn't have had the time to actually fly over the scenery in the 1-2 hours I can set aside a typical day.

 

Paying for the work done by someone else is also being part of the team. By paying for their work, you allow them to set time aside to create more content.

Right now my part of the world is missing roads, reasonable landclass, and cities-so much so I have pretty much lost interest in simming.

 

Would it be fair of me to suggest that the "honeymoon is over" for you, Geof?

 

If something is wrong or missing near your location, it's your fault.

 

You've got that entire post stashed somewhere so you can copy and paste it, right MdMax? :)

 

I've added hundreds of individual water bodies and hundreds of miles of polygon riverbanks to the OpenStreetMap databases since November 2011. Not a single one is in X-Plane 10 yet. I've put in the efforts to improve the source data in my region but my efforts are going unused by Laminar Research. In addition, they've also stagnated the plan to create native WED 1.2 airport distribution capabilities in the official updates through Robin Peel and Laminar.

 

In order for the grand plan to crowdsource the base package, they need to actually implement the processes needed to get the crowd's contributions into the simulation!

 

It's apparent to this new X-Plane user that Laminar Research has an expertly talented and entirely capable group of programmers and designers. They just need more hours in the day and more days in the week in order to truly bring this product up to a level which will make a MS Flight or MSFS user stop what they're doing and give it serious consideration - with or without crowdsourced data.

 

To me, it is unfortunate that MS Flight has been sent to pasture before Laminar has been able to make improvements to XP10 which would be truly noticed by the casual demo tester. Since November the product is better no doubt, but these changes will be very subtle to someone who only tests demo. Quick-views and the new quick-launch flight screen are big moves in the right direction, but things in the simulation itself need some marked improvement to give testing users that feeling of getting something new and exciting.

 

Time to go lay down more taxiway signs at the airport I did my first solo at...

 

-Greg

Hi all !

 

Greg, all the work you did for OpenStreetMap will not be lost. It's downloaded and appreciated by thousands of OSM users every day.

 

But for now in X-Plane, your water bodies can't be seen, and I hope this will change soon. The OSM extract for the global scenery is from July 2011. Your edits from November 2011 are not in the default X-Plane scenery.

 

With XPOSM, and OSM2XP, it's not possible to import water bodies, and I don't know when the tools by Laminar Research will be available:

All of the scenery tools used to create the global scenery will be open source.

Source: http://developer.x-p...-is-this-legal/

 

When I started mapping in 2009, there was nothing but the name of my village and one road. Since then I added the forests, water bodies, streets and buildings for more than hundred villages and towns, and I'm lucky because very nice photo-sceneries are available for my country. The Zones-Photo X-Plane team made an awesome work. I can use everything but my water bodies added after July 2011...

 

I have no idea if Laminar Research will update the global scenery with new OSM extracts, but I bet Alpilotx will create more HD sceneries after the 64-bit switch. Just visit his page here:

http://www.alpilotx.net/

 

Happy flying, or building. ^_^

Why can laminar also not purchase a proprietary database?

 

There is just too much missing-it would take an eternity to populate to the level of default FSX with these methods.

 

Right now my part of the world is missing roads, reasonable landclass, and cities-so much so I have pretty much lost interest in simming.

 

Well that's a problem of pretty much all databases the databases of FSX for example were pretty much US-centered, while the situation in europe was hopeless. No cities, no streets and so on. Only the basic land profile was worldwide available all other databases have regions where they are quite good and other regions where they lacked nearly everything. And all proprietary databases have their own structure. So it really makes sense to use a database that can be enhanced by the users.

 

As far as I read I think they haven't recut the landscape files in the meantime since 10.10 would have been the first possible version but in this they fixed the road building algorithm that especially had problems at the borders of these files.

 

In fact for european users OSM was a huge leap forward since the roads and lakes are nearly complete and up to date in europe.

As a little heads up: a new round of OSM data import is definitely planned (I am nagging Ben since some time to start this ... but its quite possible, that it will not just be a simple re-import with the old algorithm, but will have/need a few tweaks/fixes/updates etc.). And when we have the new OSM data, I will definitely re-cut/extend my HD Mesh coverage with that data (independently how Ben handles the entire Global Scenery).

 

Just don't ask me for an exact time line as I don't have it either (but if I think about it, I could ask Ben to set such a deadline, so you all know how much time you have until then).

 

And something else: some are arguing, why Laminar is not buying "this or that data" ... well, simply think about this way: there were others, who bought a lot of "this and that" and now their product is no more ...

Well that's a problem of pretty much all databases the databases of FSX for example were pretty much US-centered, while the situation in europe was hopeless. No cities, no streets and so on. Only the basic land profile was worldwide available all other databases have regions where they are quite good and other regions where they lacked nearly everything. And all proprietary databases have their own structure. So it really makes sense to use a database that can be enhanced by the users.

 

No Cities? What about London, Paris, Rome, etc? Also you forget about UTEurope, which corrects all the issues with the roads, coastlines. This is what XP10 needs a database like the Ultimate Terrain series provides, at least for the US and Europe. Populating it in pieces, like Geof says will take forever, and huge system resources. The HD space requirement for XP10 is already very high!!

 

And something else: some are arguing, why Laminar is not buying "this or that data" ... well, simply think about this way: there were others, who bought a lot of "this and that" and now their product is no more ...

 

So what you are saying is that Microsoft dropped Fsx because they bought the databases of information. In fact Microsoft dropped Fsx and flight simulators because those products are competing against other more popular within the Microsoft company. I have worked in companies that have dropped products that would be considered very successful by small companies only because it wasn't making as much as another service would have.

 

Sorry, I just do see any merit in the statement that says If LR bought the data they would probably go out of business. Did I interpret this incorrectly?

No Cities? What about London, Paris, Rome, etc? Also you forget about UTEurope, which corrects all the issues with the roads, coastlines.

 

If you want to argue this way: New York o5r San Drancisco is paret of the OSM data too.

UT Europe was an independend add-on but nothing from Microsoft. And you overestimate the result of this add-on.

If you want to argue this way: New York o5r San Drancisco is paret of the OSM data too.

UT Europe was an independend add-on but nothing from Microsoft. And you overestimate the result of this add-on.

 

I have nothing against the OSM data, (In fact I like it) only that it only covers small areas at a time, and the HD space requirement is considerable.

No, I didn't imply, that buying the data was the deciding factor ... I just wanted to - in a very general sense - point out, that throwing more money on "problems" not necessarily delivers better results (in the long term) ... But maybe this is just my notion of things, as I am - generally - more an "open source"/collaboration etc. oriented person.

 

About cities. Well, I think many don't understand, that the data side is not such a big problem in XP10s Global Scenery. The data which I used for it is quite good ... especially in USA and Europe (but I wouldn't argue that its 100% optimal). And all that information is already quite well - still, I would never say perfectly (as its all algorithmically transformed data) - encoded in the scenery. But, what is still a bit lacking, is the representation. Namely how the "autogen" transforms that data in visible structures ... This is something, which needs lots of artistic hand work and time (but to my knowledge, it is worked on, and might show some more improvements in the near future).

 

And of course, you always have the option of transforming OSM based urbanization (via osm2xp) into X-Plane which is the not autogen anymore, and the cities look even closer to the real one. And if thats sill not enough, then you need hand crafted city sceneries ... again something which is technically no problem for XP10 ... but a problem of having someone to do it (usually, something done as a 3rd party scenery).

 

By the way, if you are interested in some more details of the XP10 Global Scenery, I recommend you this "little" interview (I did with xsimreviews some time ago):

http://xsimreviews.com/2011/12/10/developer-interview-andras-fabian-mr-x-terrain/

OSM data grows steadily. 2 years ago it had 50 million road, 1 year ago 100 millions, now 140 million:

 

http://wiki.openstre...bstats2Ways.png

 

When Laminar will re-cut the OSM data, it will probably be about doubled compared to July 2011, when it was cut for the first time.