Did you read what I write? It follows the rule of "urban density" which is derived from a lot of different types of population density etc. source ... or in some cases "heat maps" are already encoded in the urban landclass (like in the USA). And if there is nothing, then I do the "heat maps" myself by making the innermost parts of cities "densest" and then lowering to the outskirts.

 

The autogen zoning then follows this density info (more or less).

Yes, I did indeed read what you wrote. I also know that "urban density" can mean many different things even within this context, most usually the number of people within a given area, not the type of buildings, which I usually think of as zoning, hence the question.

Alpilotx,

 

I think the problem HiFlyer is talking about is the generic object file in XP.  I notice that if I try to increase the objects at my local airport, KROA, it builds tall buildings right at the end of runway 33.  I am therefore limited in the amount of objects by not only my equipment, but by the program itself. This has nothing to do with what those who work to enhance our experience have created.   In my opinion, the program should not do this near the airport, but it is built into the program by default.  I understand that all cities are generic and I think everyone else does as well and should not expect to find the local shopping mall where you know it to be.

 

I appreciate the work in "building the world" on a few DVDs, and appreciate the work you (and many others) have done to enhance what we have in our imaginary, but very real to us, world.

 

I am a low and slow flyer, wanting to fly where I can see all the "good" stuff and there are others who just like to fly way above all the "good" stuff.  I have flown since simulators were just a bunch of white lines on a black screen and very much appreciate where we have come.

 

Thank you and those like you who dedicate many hours into something you obviously love, and do so in an effort to satisfy us.  

 

Word to the wise - That will never happen 100%!

 

John

Sorry John, but somehow I can't really follow your thoughts ... how you try to connect the dot't with HiFlyers questions.

 

Just to make things clear ... There is almost nothing about the scenery (and how it looks) "built into the program" (in a literal sense). Everything about the scenery resides outside .... The placement of urban assets is based on specific "zoning", which tells the sim, where to put what kind of urban assets ... So, it the scenery says, hey this patch close to the airport is "High density", then X-Plane will take some appropriate "high density" art assets (which can end up being high risers) ... So, effectively its all in the scenery files and how it is connected - via a few abstraction steps - to artwork (objects, textures etc.)

 

And thats what I was talking about. Where those "decisions" come from, which define what type of "urban zone" is placed where in the scenery ... This way, you can end up having "high risers" close to the airport (and I described, why it is extremely hard to get right ... because of too little good/quality data/information about these "simple" facts which define our urban landscape).

 

PS: and hey, I started simming with a few colored lines too (even though, I was quite young at that time): ... you can find out more about me here

Andras, I just wanted to thank you for an amazing add-on to X-plane. XP10 is now my favorite sim:

• Incredible HD mesh made by you!
• Incredible night lighting that is literally light years ahead of Prepar3DV2 and FSX
• That feeling of actually flying through air, that makes landing in turbulence so challenging

Alpilotx,

 

I think the problem HiFlyer is talking about is the generic object file in XP.  I notice that if I try to increase the objects at my local airport, KROA, it builds tall buildings right at the end of runway 33.  I am therefore limited in the amount of objects by not only my equipment, but by the program itself. This has nothing to do with what those who work to enhance our experience have created.   In my opinion, the program should not do this near the airport, but it is built into the program by default.  I understand that all cities are generic and I think everyone else does as well and should not expect to find the local shopping mall where you know it to be.

 

I appreciate the work in "building the world" on a few DVDs, and appreciate the work you (and many others) have done to enhance what we have in our imaginary, but very real to us, world.

 

I am a low and slow flyer, wanting to fly where I can see all the "good" stuff and there are others who just like to fly way above all the "good" stuff.  I have flown since simulators were just a bunch of white lines on a black screen and very much appreciate where we have come.

 

Thank you and those like you who dedicate many hours into something you obviously love, and do so in an effort to satisfy us.  

 

Word to the wise - That will never happen 100%!

 

John

You are correct. There are programs I am aware of like the introvision procedural city tech, that design generic cities based on rule-sets like I described to create "plausible" cities, usually with a hierarchy that places taller buildings in city centers, residential buildings in the outskirts etc, all of which can be further refined by various available databases.

 

I was just asking if X-plane used similar rule-sets/algorithms. (Which also tend to have height rules)

You are correct. There are programs I am aware of like the introvision procedural city tech, that design generic cities based on rule-sets like I described to create "plausible" cities, usually with a hierarchy that places taller buildings in city centers, residential buildings in the outskirts etc, all of which can be further refined by various available databases.

 

I was just asking if X-plane used similar rule-sets/algorithms. (Which also tend to have height rules)

And ... just to sum it up :

 

Effectively the X-Plane scenery generator does something - remotely - similar. But the big difference is this: if you use one of those mentioned city generators (I know about a few of them - even though never used them directly) you are usually working on a single city. And for a single city, you can go into great depths to either get good "data" for the single city, or manually tune it a lot ... and with more meta information / parameters, you can - of course - make an automatically generated city look much better (and the tool can do much more "fine tuning"/magic).

 

Whereas the scope in X-Plane is extremely broad ... effectively the entire planet (millions of cities). So we NEED to take an approach, where we can get some low level, generic description of cities ... And because there does not exist such great data set for the entire planet, we need to fall back on simple descriptive values like population density (and tune that as long as it fits in our scheme) and industry/non-industry (even this is something non-existent for many regions!) .... And of course, with this "little" data you can't do the magic like other city generators achieve ... but at least you can do it on a global scale  B) (without extreme amount of manual work needed)!

That's why I am really in love with photo scenery.

 

With FSX and previous versions it was too heavy, and expensive. Now, thx for instance to SimHeaven we can have a very acceptable ZL17 coverage.

 

I am really looking forward for PilotBalu to update his photo sceneries with your mesh. I was already getting accustomed with seeing a lot of familiar

patterns when flying around where I fly for real...

 

 

I am really looking forward for PilotBalu to update his photo sceneries with your mesh. I was already getting accustomed with seeing a lot of familiar
patterns when flying around where I fly for real...

 

If you have g2xpl, you can do it yourself. I've been updating all my tiles (No need to redownload the photos), and the result is well worth it. e.g. Flying around Northern France, you can see the docks at Calais quite clearly, whereas before they weren't visible. Even things like the white cliffs of Dover in the UK are now clearly visible. Makes a huge difference.

PilotBalu (SimeHeaven) is already working on it - or at least plans to do so very soon. I think you can expect updates from him in the next few weeks (though, I don't want to promise anything here on behalf of others ... I just rephrase what he said in a German forum)

 

 

If you have g2xpl, you can do it yourself

 

I'll have to get it... Never really tried to use that tool, and don't even gues what's involved...

Simple rules won't work for generating cities on a global scale. Cities evolved differently. Some have very old, low-rise buildings in the downtown area, that were never touched for historical or economic reasons. They might have high-rise apartment buildings or office parks in the outskirts. Other cities might have completely razed and re-built downtown areas with shiny high-rise buildings. In some cities, housing is provided primarily through tract housing, in others by town houses or apartment buildings. Often there's a mix of building types that doesn't follow a predictable pattern.

Simple rules won't work for generating cities on a global scale. Cities evolved differently. Some have very old, low-rise buildings in the downtown area, that were never touched for historical or economic reasons. They might have high-rise apartment buildings or office parks in the outskirts. Other cities might have completely razed and re-built downtown areas with shiny high-rise buildings. In some cities, housing is provided primarily through tract housing, in others by town houses or apartment buildings. Often there's a mix of building types that doesn't follow a predictable pattern.

Yup, which is why the rule-sets are open to be refined by other data. But some simple rules are useful, such as no houses/buildings above "X" height within some predetermined distance of an airport unless overridden by higher level data, etc.

 

Essentially, I just like to understand how things work.

Today I decided o download, from flightsim.com, the two tiles that cover Portugal.

 

I bought a Firts Class Membership ( had one around 2004 / 2005 ), and it was really fast!

 

Tonight I will:

 

1) Disable the SimHeaven ZL17 photo scenery coverin Lisbon

2) Install both zones

3) Go flying around LPPT, and then Bragança and Serra da Estrela.

 

One of the features I like the most in X-plane 10, and I guess will turn even better now with Mesh v2, is flying near Mountains / Hills. It really pays, specially

if you're on a good glider model and the wind blows in such a way that you can find ridge lift!

Jcomm, I just came here to say that I downloaded (free...slow...crawl...going to buy a membership as well...) the tile for the Great Lakes as a test.  What an O.M.G. moment as I pulled out of North Bay, and headed east.  Holy ....well....yeah.....you know!    It was like I was going over real terrain.  This will be worth the membership alone, and now am going to load up for Europe and the rest of the world.  I have the disk room, so why not?   To Andre.....thank you SO MUCH!   Between your efforts , Sim Heaven's great OSM offerings, and John's two xxxMaxx products, I am all set to go.....and explore the XPX world.   The above noted MAKE XPX....and reaching an O.M.G. moment is too easy man...way to easy...

I have downloaded the full mesh v2 set already :-)  Still on an external disk, about to be installed in X-Plane 10, but still awaiting news from ortto-photo from SimHeaven.

 

It's amazing, for instance, what the mesh did at most airports for the accuracy of the "rw follows terrain contours" option. At LPPT it made quite a difference, and it's now perfectly possible to check that box in the rendering options :-)

SimHeaven (PilotBalu) is downloading too ... but I think he will start working on his pat of the magic over the coming days. But how does this stop you from checking out the HD Mesh Scenery v2 on its own (anyways ... many, many parts of the HD Mesh won't be  covered by photoscenery from SimHeaven ... his server space would explode B) ).