It looks like OSM is really starting to get filled in now. A few months ago, The U.S. was pretty much empty, save for the Boston area. Other than that, only a few clusters of buildings dotted major cities here and there. Just now, I decided to download data and run through OSM2XP to fill in the states I would fly over for a KORD to KJFK flight and got quite the surprise. At KORD, I maxxed out Objects, Roads, and Trees and decided to do a little sightseeing with the Free Camera. It didn't last too long, however. As I darted towards downtown, I found myself over the suburbs and there were buildings as far as the eye could see. Gobs and gobs of them! Before I could reach the city center, my computer belched out a cloud of black smoke, and a white flag popped out of my DVD drive, along with a handwritten note detailing unconditional surrender. :D Well, it locked up anyway. Had to reboot.

 

Two things from this: First, I clearly need to upgrade my hardware. Second, there's some folks out there who are really filling in the details with OSM. With that providing filler, and WED available for making airports, X-Plane is only limited by your hardware in terms of what it could look like.

 

If you're curious and don't want to risk blowing up your computer, go to http://www.openstreetmap.org/ and check out northwestern Chicago and the area around Midway. Ridiculous detail there.

Here's an example from that area. This is heading northwest towards KORD from downtown, and object details are set to "a lot"

 

 

Now if only there was a way to exclude that random autogen 30 storey building...

I am kinda mixed on it...

 

I got the freeware data for California where I now live (thanks Tom Knudsen) along with a few freeware packages available for San Diego.

 

It does look much better than it did before. However the autogen buildings are just not right, and my area where I live is non existent (roads/buildings), and office buildings are placed in areas where for sure nothing of the type should be and in general it just doesn't "look right" including bodies of water.

 

A complicated deal-and the other sim isn't perfect either-but somehow a little closer. I hope xplane can get it closer too-along with additions of the incredible aerosoft cities that are amazing.

Hello !

 

When generating a scenery with OSM2XP, you can change the LOD of your scenery objets. It's the distance in meters where you can see a building. It's useless to set it to more than 40000 if you have problems with the performance. And if you don't want to generate the scenery again only to change this setting, you can also replace the LOD value in your *.fac files.

 

In OSM2XP, you can also exclude too small buildings.

 

It's better than reducing the number of object inside the X-Plane settings.

 

You can find more tips here: http://forum.avsim.n...e/#entry2430416

 

Happy flying.

Geofa, I feel the same way about the Seattle and Atlanta areas. The former being where I live now, and the latter, where I'm from. I know both places pretty well, and some things still aren't quite right with OSM data translated to X-Plane. Not to mention the lack of data available for the areas as of now. Another limitation is that everything has a flat roof, regardless of what the real thing looks like. Since OSM data only takes into account the polygonal footprint, the buildings are just extruded polygons. However, it does amaze me that in that picture above, each one of those extruded polygons represents an actual building in northwest Chicago and by that virtue alone is something you won't see in other sims. At least down to the last house.

 

That said, when it comes to areas I'm not familiar with, and barring well-known landmarks, OSM data in X-Plane does give a reasonable facsimile of how it looks from the air. I've only been to Chicago twice on layovers, and I'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference. Someone from or more familiar with it would obviously disagree. Still, as far as generic scenery goes, it's better than the barren wastelands there by default. Plus, OSM also give landclass details, like parks, railyards, additional roads, etc., so that's a plus.

Since OSM data only takes into account the polygonal footprint, the buildings are just extruded polygons.

 

Yes, you don't have the geometry of roofs in OpenStreetMap, but right now you can set the height tag for tall buildings. That's helps a lot to recognize a skyline of a town. In the future you may be able to tag a lot more details for each building:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Building_attributes

Very nice-but I just want to sim over something that looks like I live at-sooner than later! ^_^ ( I don't care if pi meson quarks are used to make it-or even if I have to pay more-just want it).

Hello, Ben here, osm2xp developper.

 

I'm 100% ok with you about the look of osm2xp generated scenery.

I'm using xplane facades, wich are basic polygons that you extrude from a footprint, it's great because it allows you to respect the original shape of the building, but it's very poor in terms of graphic quality overall.

 

For small rectangular buildings it's not so bad because i can use a sloped roof on them, but for complex shapes it's far from beautifull.

So i'm currently working on an evolution that will let osm2xp use 3D objects , with good placement using the osm polygon angle and shape.

 

The issue ticket is here if you want to comment/star/suscribe http://code.google.c...y Owner Summary

 

work in progress screenshots :

 

First a shoot of osm data and what osm2xp generated, open in wed

http://osm2xp.google...801084&inline=1

 

You can see that it fits , angle, dimension, location etc...

 

Then a shot took in xplane 10 , you'll see 3D objects along facades (even the simple rectangular sloped roof house is a 3D object : http://www.openscene...en/3/index.html)

 

http://osm2xp.google...801084&inline=1

 

 

Now remember that osm2xp is now openSource, i did my best to make this software, but it's far from perfect, so if you have suggestions / feature request, you can create a issue ticket to help me improve it.

 

Now whatever the work i'm doing on osm2xp i think that you won't be able to generate a perfect xplane scenery with just a clic on osm2xp.

If you want something very realistic and beautifull you will need to work more than that, tunning osm data, creating a few 3D models for local landmarks etc...

 

When i'll have a bit of free time i'll make a tutorial to show what can be done if you take some time to modify the osm input data and tune osm2xp.

That's also the goal of another project i'm working on, that will let you download complex generated osm scenery.

I'll work tile after tile (starting on France), cleaning/tuning osm data, creating 3D objects for local buildings etc... and some web/desktop app will let you download/automaticaly update scenery files.

 

And if some people help for their area, in a few months we'll have the best vfr experience we could have for all the places where osm data is good.

 

Cheers

 

Ben

Hey, Benny. Thanks for joining in the thread. I just want to thank you for your program. While it's true that there are some limitations with what can be done, what you HAVE done has lead to a tremendous improvement to the scenery, in my opinion. Please don't take the criticism of lack of building detail in OSM as a criticism against your work. Something tells me that if OSM allowed custom building models to be included in the map database, you'd figure out a way to bring that into X-Plane. :)

 

And besides, you can't beat the price!

 

I do have one question, however. Would it be possible to add a way to exclude individual X-Plane default autogen elements, e.g. that multistoried office building that randomly pops up in residential areas as seen in the screenshot above?

did you try a facade exclusion?

did you try a facade exclusion?

 

This is where I get a little confused. I've always thought that the facade was the texture that was applied to the polygon that makes up the shape of a building, so I never considered making an exclusion.

No they are xplane objects, using a texture along a extruded polygon.

 

http://wiki.x-plane.com/Facade_Overview

Why not just make your own photoscenery with G2XPL, then put the OSM data on top. I agree the odd 30 story condo in a rural area is a little off putting, but the main problem i have with XPX scenry is that the entire world is grass-covered, photoscenery takes care of that.

 

I do that for Florida and it looks good, I have the whole state at LOD 17, and some parts at LOD 18. Then add some converted sceneries, a few of the default objects, and you have a pretty good simulation of reality.

I've started some very limited experiments with OSM2XP in my local area (Bethesda, MD - Washington DC suburbs). A mixed bag so far - buildings and locations are an improvement on default, but only in town centers - for the surrounding residential areas I'm still dependent on autogen. I suppose the next step would be to learn texturing and also photoscenery creation (as PingPong suggests) but speaking as someone who's still feeding two sims, I'm not sure that I'm ready yet to dive in that far. Yes, I know it's the X-Plane way, but there are practical limits on how much time I can invest. I'm hopeful that some professional scenery will arrive to fill the gaps - right now, scenery is the main factor that keeps me from committing fully to X-Plane.

The beauty of G2XPL is that you can set it to download large sceneries when you are away from the PC, the only limitation for me now is space(those things are BIG).