Trying to wrap my head around XPX and Openstreetmaps. XPX ships with openstreetmap data or does it download the area prior to launch? Or do you have to download it yourself from openstreetmap and convert it using osm2xp? I'm trying to make sense of what benefit is gained by using osm2xp as I usually just pick a spot and fly.

Trying to wrap my head around XPX and Openstreetmaps. XPX ships with openstreetmap data or does it download the area prior to launch?

No, X-Plane never directly contacts OpenStreetMap directly. This is only a free data repository. But Laminar uses parts of this repository to fill tgeir own databases and basic land files, namely: They import the locations of rivers, lakes, roads, railways and the several basic informations (forest, small commercial, industrial, residential area... ) from openstreetmap, to generate their basic dsf files that are included in X-Plane 10.And it uses these infromations to automatically fill this landscape with trees and buildings. In a way it plays sim city. But it doesn't know where buildings are located in reality.

 

OSM2XP uses different informations from openstreetmap: It takes informations about single buildings (location, form height and type (eg normal building, Wind Turbine tp generate a map and fills this maps with buildings and facades from OpenSceneryX. So as an example: if openstreetmap knows that there is a large building at this location it can place facades at the correct location, but it has to guess a lot- It doesn't know what kind of roof this building might have. and if there wasn't the explicit height of the building in the metadata of this building it has to guess even this.

But the building informations in OpenStreetMap are far from complete. While some cities or University drop their complete maps into OpenStreetMap so that OpenStreetMap even knows the number of every house, Or it knows that this building is in fact a cooling tower of a factory, or a large chimney, some other cities simply do not exist, since no one bothered to enter this data. But since OSM is used for more and more projects, its information is continually growing.

 

X-Plane 10 doesn't know anything about OpenStreetMap, it only gets a map with objects. How this map was generated isn't its problem. We can probably expect that these originally strict borders will vanish.

Laminar talked about using at least the kind of buldings to place certain objects at their correct locations. While OSM maps as from simheaven starts to use zones data and they will probably use more and better buildings in the foreseeable future.

The main difference is Laminar wants to use as few informations as possible to generate a believable look in an area, but since we are now using 64 bits and disk space gets cheaper and cheaper their limitations will decrease. I would really be surprised if alpilotx's New Zealand Pro would not become more or less a part of X-Plane 10.30 .

The OSM maps on the other hand will try to squeeze as many informations out of the OSM data sets as possible. Since no one needs to use their maps they don't have any limitaqtions. as long as the data and the objects are free.

Thanks for the input. So basically I should take my favorite region, download it from OSM and convert it using osmxp for an ever more plausible world?

Just building my own landmarks now using that approach as xplane works for Midwest well. Really want to see baseball diamonds and golf courses generated for vfr purposes and plausibility.

Thanks for the input. So basically I should take my favorite region, download it from OSM and convert it using osmxp for an ever more plausible world?

Why from OSM. It is mor effective to use directly the converted files from simheaven.com .

Thanks for the input. So basically I should take my favorite region, download it from OSM and convert it using osmxp for an ever more plausible world?

 

In theory, yes. First, you'll want to check out OSM to see what sort of coverage has been done of your favorite region, as OSM is a crowdsourced work in progress and not all areas have coverage. Compare, for example, Chicago, IL and Los Angeles, CA and you'll see Chicago is packed with building footprint data, while LA is pretty sparse. Cities, local governments, and/or universities  keep databases of the buildings in their area as "shapefiles", and some areas have been released while others haven't. You could try manually editing an area yourself, but unless it's a small town, you're looking at a herculean task to get the same sort of detail you'd find in Chicago.

 

 

No, X-Plane never directly contacts OpenStreetMap directly. This is only a free data repository. But Laminar uses parts of this repository to fill tgeir own databases and basic land files, namely: They import the locations of rivers, lakes, roads, railways and the several basic informations (forest, small commercial, industrial, residential area... ) from openstreetmap, to generate their basic dsf files that are included in X-Plane 10

 

Just as a point of order, I've struck out the parts which aren't entirely accurate - OSM is used strictly for road, rail, and water data. No landclass or land use data is sourced from OSM. Landclass/landuse is generated from other libraries, and through the magic of the scenery tools they have, they merge OSM, landuse, and elevation data into one file... the elusive base level .DSF

The basics about what is from where, was covered in my old article here:

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

 

To correct your OSM-in-Global-Scenery statement a bit more: roads, rail, powerline, water and park (polygons) data are from OSM. And water is selective. Until now, you only got polygonal water features, but not linear water features (like small rivers) in the Global Scenery (or in my HD Mesh Scenery). In the coming iteration, I try to include (and it seems to work really well) linear water features too (only the ones attributed waterway=river !) ... this will definitely be included in the next version of HD Mesh Scenery (hopefully coming in about 4-8 weeks) and possibly in Global Scenery updates (http://developer.x-plane.com/2013/04/dsf-recuts-some-basics/ ) too.

Lookin forward to it Alpilot. Your work is top notch and much appreciated.

The basics about what is from where, was covered in my old article here:

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

 

To correct your OSM-in-Global-Scenery statement a bit more: roads, rail, powerline, water and park (polygons) data are from OSM. And water is selective. Until now, you only got polygonal water features, but not linear water features (like small rivers) in the Global Scenery (or in my HD Mesh Scenery). In the coming iteration, I try to include (and it seems to work really well) linear water features too (only the ones attributed waterway=river !) ... this will definitely be included in the next version of HD Mesh Scenery (hopefully coming in about 4-8 weeks) and possibly in Global Scenery updates (http://developer.x-plane.com/2013/04/dsf-recuts-some-basics/ ) too.

 

That's great Andras!

 

Does that mean for places like Darrington in Washington state, which at present seems to be missing the river leading up to Concrete; that it might be included in the recut or your future mesh sceneries?

 

Cheers

 

Dom

Yes, the little river in Darrington should be included (I am sure, I have already seen it in test runs). BUT, don't expect some super accurate river representation from linear rivers (as their plain nature is giving less information to work with than a polygon water body can do)! ... Linear rivers just get a generic width which is quite narrow (to be safe from "collisions" with other possible geographic features) but you can definitely recognize them as small rivers/streams from the air, and they enrich the visual of many regions quite nicely.

But if we use the files from www.simheaven.com we dont need to use osm2xp do we? They go strait to the scenery library as they are?

 

I'm about to reinstall XPX just to check out this OSM hype I see around here. Too much talk and too little youtube and/or pics.

@Bunkers: IT DEPENDS! The OSM (or OSM+Autogen) Scenery on SimHeaven is NOT giving you the base scenery (like Global Scenery or my HD Mesh). It only ADDs the OSM buildings and forests on top of the base scenery. So in this constellation the used base scenery (Global Scenery or HD Mesh) is important!

 

Whereas the Photoscenery from OSM is replacing the base scenery completely (effectively its a photo base mesh with already included - copied from original Global Scenery - roads etc.), so in this case, the base mesh (Global Scenery or HD Mesh) is not affecting you anymore.

 

And just in case: SimeHeave is planning to create new photo tiles based on my new HD Mesh (when ever I can finally release it) ... so you won't loose out on the improvements in the new version of the HD Mesh Scenery.

alpilotx: it's really astonishing, what balu and you produce. keep on rockin...

 

since there are so many layers in the process, its hard to follow what is won or lost when using the different packages.

i hope you get the bug squeezer ben aligned so that it makes it into the standard!