This is a big problem with OSM, in the fact that one town can be populated completely, even down to the house numbers and fences, and the next town can have no buildings at all. Using this alone for data inside X-Plane would look quite odd. This can be seen with OSM2XP data for example in the UK, where there are areas which don't even have any trees, and other areas which have random villages mapped, and others where everything is mapped. It's slowly improving everyday, and I'm doing my part to flash out the areas I know pretty well, knowing that why it might not be in the default X-Plane 11 scenery, it will be in OSM based scenery products.

 

The solution at simheaven.com is a good one, where they fill out less-populated areas with random autogen. It works well in the US/Canada and the UK. However, in Europe (especially Switerzland/Germany), the data is brilliant, and it looks fantastic in the sim.

The solution at simheaven.com is a good one, where they fill out less-populated areas with random autogen. It works well in the US/Canada and the UK. However, in Europe (especially Switerzland/Germany), the data is brilliant, and it looks fantastic in the sim.

They don't fill out anyithing with random autogen on their own  :rolleyes:  ... its the default scenery (the default autogen - I was writing about all the time) which is left in the scenery where there is too little OSM data.

Do you read what I write?

 

I said: NO, we do NOT use OSM landclass data, because its quality is extremely varying and thus not a reliable source for scenery generation on the global level. So, even if our sources are not 100% perfect (and they are - for sure - not even 90% perfect), they are still - on a global / general scale!!! - much better than what OSM would deliver on its own. The only option would be to do some kind of mixing ... but believe me (I work with tons of geodata since years) even this approach has quite a lot of pitfalls (and could even make things worse in some places).

 

The problem with Canada is, that until now I could only rely on the not so perfect, global dataset called GlobCOVER. Its not bad in general, but neither is it perfect in many areas .... and it - sadly - tends to have quite a few "errors" when it comes to urban areas. So, here, the real solution would be to use some different data for Canada .... but until now, I have not found a good solution / replacement (which is really usable). Its also a quite complex process to incorporate new datasets in the process ...

 

Usually try to. Brain malfunction when reading your reply to tonwob. Thanks for clarifying further.

Just as a little heads up: you comments motivated me to look a little further with the Canada issue ... now I possibly have found some much more detailed landclass data for Canada, which might improve the situation and the entire look of that region. I am still very early in the data evaluation, so I can't (and won't) promise anything. But at least here are some chances, that it might be usable (and then, of course, it would mean HD Mesh v2 for Canada too).

Hi all !

 

If your street and house is already in OpenStreetMap, if your were able to see it in OSM2XP sceneries, and if you're now used to JOSM or another OpenStreetMap editor, then go to the Open Source Routing Machine:

http://map.project-osrm.org/

 

1) Enter the address of your home in the 1st field including your house number (Start)

2) Enter the address of favorite airfield in the 2nd field (End)

3) Check the route calculated by the routing machine

 

If everything is OK, then start this "game" again asking the route to the building where you work.

 

Don't forget: OpenStreetMap can be used in flight simulators but also in navigation systems for your car where you can get free and up to date maps:

http://osmand.net/

 

Map the houses and forests, but map also everything that can be useful for drivers, including speed limits, traffic calming devices...

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:traffic_calming

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Maxspeed

 

@alpilotx: Do you think future X-Plane default sceneries will include leisure pitches (at least for tennis and soccer) ?

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:leisure%3Dpitch

Thanks for the info. I'm adding everything I possibly can as I get more proficient with JOSM and which tags are available. As well as just doing this for the benefit of flight simulation, I've also started fixing roads, fixing the names, adding missing ones etc. I generally pick a small square on the map in my area I know, and then start adding buildings, woodland, schools, churches and whilst I'm doing each street, I will check for errors.

 

To see a record of what's changed in particular areas and who's active, have a look at this brilliant site:

http://simon04.dev.openstreetmap.org/whodidit/

 

Also, if you want to see the buildings and woodland you've added in 3D, wait a few hours for you changes to sync, and then check out the map below: (Zooming into your area and going around in 3D).

 

http://map.f4-group.com/#camera.theta=0.057

 

Finally, anyone who thinks it is an effort to add lots of buildings and terraces, please consider using JOSM only and not potlatch. Then have a look at installing the following plugins:

 

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JOSM/Plugins/BuildingsTools

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JOSM/Plugins/Terracer

 

Using JOSM and the above plugins, it's possible to add villages easily and more accurately. Happy Mapping :-)

@alpilotx: Do you think future X-Plane default sceneries will include leisure pitches (at least for tennis and soccer) ?

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:leisure%3Dpitch

You know ... with OSM so much is possible ... but I definitely can't say what will or will not be used one day in X-Plane (but there are definitely many many ideas floating around).

I just wish we could get to the level of what ORBX FTX Global offers in P3D.

 

Although being sold as a texture enhancement only, FTX certainly uses sophisticated algorithms because the truth is that most of the places I have visited have a high level of detail and density including building types, streets and roads, water courses, etc... and those I know from RL are so close to real!

 

They will release LC products in the future, but some sort of detailled GIS info must have been used! It is simply amazing!  Going to dense cities like Paris, Madrid, London, etc... I get a huge number of amazingly placed auogen objects, with my fps never droping. I wish I could have the same, both the looks and the smoothness in X-Plane 10 when I approach the same places filled with OSM and XPlane's default autogen scenery, with fps getting down to single digits, and sometimes the sim simply crashing!

Well, just by looking at the ORBX price tags you might get a feeling why their quality it is as it is ... because they need to invest substantial amounts of manual work to achieve their results.

Although being sold as a texture enhancement only, FTX certainly uses sophisticated algorithms because the truth is that most of the places I have visited have a high level of detail and density including building types, streets and roads, water courses, etc... and those I know from RL are so close to real!

 

My understanding is that FTX Global simply retextures the default FSX landscape, and just layouts the autogen to fit the new textures, the data itself is part of FSX. FSX has always been able to place autogen much more convincingly than the default X-Plane can IMO.

 

The problem with OSM in X-Plane at the moment is that all the buildings look the same, and not everything has height tags. I've been playing round with OSM2XP settings trying to make it more ORBX-like, and have so far done the following things:

 

- Inserted churches from OpensceneryX instead of drawing a box house to fit the shape. This is surprisingly nice, when you see little villages with a church in the middle (Although it is placed at a random angle).

- Restricted the height of the buildings without height tags to between 5m-9m. This stops it inserting random highrise buildings, which IMO look bad. It looks much more realistic now. Generally, I've found if people add highrise buildings, they generally tag them as such, and this works much better.

- Linked water-towers, pylons, light-houses, cooling-towers etc to objects in X-Plane. Works well in most cases

- Linked them to the denser forests by alpilotx.

- Reduced the LOD right down from the default 20km, to 11km. This works well for me, and gives me good performance.

 

I'll keep experimenting. I'm no artist though,but I really would like to modify the facades to look a bit better, especially to fit into the UK.

Whow Tony, that's very interesting!  Will you make it available for us :-)

Is there something like a 'building guide for dummies' that we can use to help with certain regions, places?

Hi Eric,

 

You'll find video tutorials here:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Video_tutorials