Terrain Mesh Recommendation?

[klamal 283]

We could also do it from the end of a runway or on the ramp facing a certain direction as well.. that way we're not confused and taking shots of different scenery...

 

Right. That would be what I'd prefer to do too as I really don't like messing around with pics and stuff on a regular flight that I intend to complete. It would be easiest just to "Go to..." an airport position, look in a certain direction, take a pic, and then compare. Rather than say depart west, get to this position, this altitude, then look this direction, etc before taking the pic. I know you can slew and all that but I don't think, at least for me, that it's worth going to all that trouble. I think we should be able to get some good comparisons on the ground. Like I said, I just am not familiar with a lot of the airports in Europe yet to say that this one would really show differences well vs another area. I assume mountainous areas because that's where you're really going to tell. Somewhere in the Netherlands would be pointless as both would just be flat. So, that's why I say LSGG, maybe ENVA or ENBR(airports I just flew into recently in Norway.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Screenshot comparisons is a fantastic idea, guys.

[Damien 4]

Sounds good to me.. I'm about 4 disks into this 5 disk install so come up with a few places and take some shots.. My FSX Scenery settings on my PC are at max..

 

-Damien

[klamal 283]

Mine aren't at max...I can't remember what settings exactly deal with terrain mesh, but I think there are only a couple at most that matter, aren't there? We would just need those to be the same. I'm away from my FS PC so it may be a few days before I can get to this. Some time this weekend would be a better bet from me...that's when I do most of my flying.

[Damien 4]

I'll try to squeeze some shots off today just to get the ball rolling... Max out your settings.. it's not like we have to worry about frames right now if we're sitting still taking still pictures.

 

-Damien

[Damien 4]

I know we talked about doing this right from the runway but LSGG wasn't showing any terrain detail from the runway.. I slewed to this location quite easily.

 

How to get here... LSGG departing runway 5 straight out to 7000 ft MSL. fly over lake to right dogleg. come right to 090 and fly to the end of the lake. You should see a valley at the end of the lake. First picture is facing roughly 090 at the end of the lake with the valley at around your 1 o clock.

 

 

 

Image 2 is same altitude, flying into the valley a little bit and turning so the lake is on your right, and you're looking back towards the airport.

 

 

 

Anyone got any requests?

 

-Damien

Edited January 8, 2013 by firehawk44
Images removed. Exceed 1600W and 400KB limits.

[klamal 283]

That does look good. Hard to say from memory whether it's better than FSGenesis or not. It looks at least as good based on memory. I will say that. What about flying around the Norway airports I mentioned? ENBR or ENVA.

[Damien 4]

I checked out ENVA.. seemed like a lot of hilly land.. nothing really that would bring out the high resolution of the terrain mesh.. But I'm still poking around...

 

This next shot is taken at LESU, 20,000MSL directly above runway 04. I looked off the right wing tip towards the southeast.

 

 

 

10 KM to the north is Andorra, the most mountainous country in Europe.. I'm not running any sort of European GEX or UTX. This is purely FS Global Ultimate Europe-Africa over default terrain mesh.

 

-Damien

Edited January 8, 2013 by firehawk44
Image removed. Exceeds 1600W and 400KB limits

[Damien 4]

LSZL (Locarno, Switzerland) Runway 08L at roughly 1000 ft MSL looking straight ahead.

 

 

-Damien

[Tabs 2,790]

I've used the FSGenesis stuff for many years going back to FS2002 and I'd recommend it.

 

I don't believe there are actually any data sources for the vast majority of the world that are 1m in true diagonal resolution and I'd be skeptical of claims of worldwide 1m mesh for FSX, especially if the product in question isn't revealing what their source dataset is. As someone already mentioned, taking a 5m or 30m or whatever set and upsampling it to 1m resolution isn't giving you any extra detail - it's like taking a small jpg image, blowing it up to 1920x1080 and then saying you have an HD image - you didn't add any detail, you just made the file bigger. I'm not saying anyone's doing this (I've never used anything but FS Genesis's products) but that is one way people could be deceived potentially. If you know the limitations of the source data that's out there you can make pretty good inferences as to what products derived from that data actually are. No one making mesh for FSX has a fleet of satellites making their own DEMs, so it has to be coming from one of the commercial providers.

 

We ran into this stuff with mesh ourselves when we initially started trying to find source data for the NGX's EPGWS terrain database - for instance SRTM raw data (the main free-to-use source out there) is 30m resolution for the USA and 90m everywhere else - all these NEXTmap commercial datasets have 5m diagonal resolution for most of the populated areas like the US, Western Europe, Australia etc and 30m for the rest of the world. If true 1m stuff existed I'm sure a guy like Justin at FS Genesis who's been in this market forever would know about it and be using it.

[simmerhead 885]

Try out the area around ENBO og ENSH. Should be very jagged and spectacular mountains all around - no hills!

[klamal 283]

Yeah, I definitely agree with Ryan and am aware of that. I've used FSGenesis for a long time too and it would take a lot of proof for me to spend the money that FSGlobal is asking without knowing that it is indeed better than FSGenesis. Picture comparisons would be a start for me, if they do indeed look better. However, the next step would be trying to determine just how good the data source is, if that's possible. There's no way I'm just going to buy this based simply on what they state on their box or web page without proof!

[Jarkko 59]

How does LSGS approach to runway 25 compare to this video?

 

http://youtu.be/dNgDZO95Yhs

 

Are the mountain tops sharp or round like the default FSX version?

[Damien 4]

How does LSGS approach to runway 25 compare to this video?

 

http://youtu.be/dNgDZO95Yhs

 

Are the mountain tops sharp or round like the default FSX version?

 

LSGS, Approach Rwy 25.

 

 

 

After taking a look at a lot of these, I'm starting to think I need GEX Europe and UTX Europe :lol:

 

-Damien

Edited January 8, 2013 by firehawk44
Image removed. Exceeds 1600W and 400KB limits.

[Jarkko 59]

Thanks!

 

If someone wants to compare, the last picture in this post has the vanilla LSGS approach:

 

http://forum.avsim.n...my-breath-away/

 

EDIT: I take that back. I do have GEX and UTX Europe.

Edited January 8, 2013 by jpuustinen