Introducing World2XPlane...

[Humpty 751]

http://www.cgtextures.com/

 

 

+1

[tonywob 4,768]

Brilliant site Andras, thank you. That has lots of textures we can use, it even has some Venice style building textures :-)

[NoComment 1]

CGTextures is indeed a great source (if not the best) for free textures however their license is very "strange" . As we don't know which license Tony is going to use for distributing his scenery, this can or won't be a problem. For example if Tony chooses a CC or open source license any models textured with cgtextures cannot be used :(. (That's why I gave an example of people taking pictures of their own homes, a lot less license problems )

[tonywob 4,768]

 

 

As we don't know which license Tony is going to use for distributing his scenery, this can or won't be a problem

 

I won't actually be distributing any scenery myself, (maybe one or two small areas for testing). The program allows other people to make their own scenery, and distribute it, e.g. simheaven. Briefly looking at CGTextures, it seems fine to use as part of the 3D models inside the application (or games as they call it), but one is not allowed to redistribute texture sheets using material from their site.

 

Regarding a license. At the moment, the application will remain closed-source, but free(donationware). My decision is based on the following things:

 

1) I prefer to keep full control over the direction of the application and which features to add and when. e.g. If I decide to shift focus to other sources such as Ordnance Survey, Geoportal.pl, etc. They I can do so without annoying other people who may be working on the app, and using a feature which I'll be changing. 

 

2) OSM2XP has been opensource for a while now, and not one person has contributed to it :-)

 

3) If/when I get tired of developing the application, I will then opensource it.

 

4) However, all 3D models created for this application will be opensource. This way, people can easily contribute, and not be worried about loosing rights to their models.

 

In order to protect the "openness" of OSM, my own work on this application and models, and any models/textures submitted by other users, all scenery generated using this application and the custom models created for it, must also remain free. I don't want to see a situation (and I doubt it would happen), where people create scenery packs using the free data on OSM and the 3D models and facades created by others, and then sell it as their own work. I hope people can respect and understand this, and it won't put people of using the generator.

[tonywob 4,768]

The git repository for the models is up

 

https://github.com/tonywob/world-models

 

If anyone requires editor/check-in access, then please let me know.

 

I will add tickets as I find them for models that are needed, but please feel free to submit ANY model you want

[Desaix 235]

Thanx Tony for your precious work. Bear with me, I'm one of the two requesting access to your first rep, but as I told before my first priority is to release my scenery and then start to work on obj for your project altough both projects will use some common stuff. Now that the main hill (and most difficult since I only installed Sketchup a week ago) task is finished I can focus on small building for what I'm gathering textures.

 

The link provided by Andras is unvaluable...I had difficult to find free old building facades but that looks like a bless from heaven. Anyway the result of my effort, you can see why I had little time to shift to house. I guess we cannot use this obj for your purpose  :lol:

[tonywob 4,768]

That is one fantastic 3D model, good work. I can't wait to see some of your work in X-Plane

[wolke85 150]

Thanx Tony for your precious work. Bear with me, I'm one of the two requesting access to your first rep, but as I told before my first priority is to release my scenery and then start to work on obj for your project altough both projects will use some common stuff. Now that the main hill (and most difficult since I only installed Sketchup a week ago) task is finished I can focus on small building for what I'm gathering textures.

 

The link provided by Andras is unvaluable...I had difficult to find free old building facades but that looks like a bless from heaven. Anyway the result of my effort, you can see why I had little time to shift to house. I guess we cannot use this obj for your purpose  :lol:

 

WOW!

That looks breathtakingly great!

[Desaix 235]

WOW!

That looks breathtakingly great!

Thanx, actually I'm spending more time trying to make it to fit seamlessly to V2 mesh than what it took to develop model.

One thing that I really pay deairly for would be an easy way to modify terrain meshes in custom scenery, I mean something easier than raster tool for which you need a MIT bachelor to get through.

I read something along this line had been worked by Ben Supnik to allow tunnel in airports but as usual that means 10.30 and above, if not 11

[tonywob 4,768]

I've added a very basic GUI, so that the generator is easier to use:

 

 

So running the application is simply a matter of double-clicking on a file. All configuration/rules (and there are a lot of them), are done via the config file, and I'm in the process of writing instructions and also commenting the file so hopefully it's understandable. The log will show you any problems with the data and the IDs, so that the relevant items can be fixed in OSM.

 

Additionally, I've added some extra features that have cleaned up things a bit and helped fix some problems:

 

1. If you specify your X-Plane folder and ask it to validate, it will check that all the models and facades you've included in your config file actually exist (or will be copied over). This saves so many headaches when X-Plane crashes out because something is missing.
2. I've updated the object rule so it will take a CSV file of models. The rule will use a best-fit algorithm which is much better suited for placing object footprints. Previously, you had to have a rule for every object, which was becoming a pain. The best-fit also is doing a better job, and is matching up objects into their footprints better. The CSV files can be viewed in repository I added earlier. 
3. I've added persistence, which means that the application can be configured to continue where it left of. e.g. If you have started generating a large country, and stop it halfway through, you will be given the option to resume upon starting the app back up again. Additionally, I've added database support, so that it will be possible to use the application on systems with less RAM (It's slower though).

[saed45 38]

tony any update on releasing the pdf instruction?

[tonywob 4,768]

 

 

tony any update on releasing the pdf instruction?

 

No, not yet. I will try to create one or two basic houses tomorrow and then record how I did it, and check it into the repository. However, I won't be writing how to use Sketchup, as there are so many videos and tutorials out there to do this, and after about an hour of following their tutorials, you should be able to following along with the PDF I'll upload.

[wolke85 150]

Great progress Tony!

Bravo!

[alpilotx 505]

Tony, one question: how do you intend to handle forests? I mean, the balance between "default" forests and OSM forests .... I am asking, because usually you will have lots of collisions with "default" (or HD Mesh) forests. On the one hand, in many parts of Europe you have a lot of super detailed forests ... where default is almost obsolete ... though, even there, larger forests could easily come from default (those are usually not that far off from OSM) .... while the small / tiny ones are often not in default / HD Mesh. On the other hand, there are regions, where there are only little or rudimentary forests in OSM .... there the default / HD Mesh based forests can be a far better "compromise". Any kind of "smart" exclusion here (could definitely be done ... at least to some degree ... you can't make it too fine brained ... sure)?

 

And there is also another point, which we have in our default / HD Mesh Scenery v2 forests. They are can be quite versatile, as they are designated by two important factors:

• forest type (shrub, broadleaved, coniferous, mixed ... and differentiated if dense or sparse) - which usually comes from the landclass data
• climate (we use a quite "detailed" climate model of precipitation / temperature ranges)

From these two fectors we can designate quite different forest types to a given polygon ... Thats why you see 265 different for files in "Resources/default scenery/1000 forests/" :wink: ....

 

I think, this versatility might be a problem with OSM based forests, as they - at least from what I have seen - rarely bring that much information (attributes) on they own (often you just know its a  "forest" or "wood") ... (so, you would - again - need some 3rd party info here ... which brings other problems of "usability", as we already discussed). So, I am just curious, how you intend to handle this (if at all) .... but often then I also need to remember (with a grin), how we internally often discussed, that many users are not botanists and thus rarely see the differences (then again, there were already users, who discussed, why some special species are not seen here or there :biggrin: ).

[tonywob 4,768]

To be honest, I'm not sure. Currently the entire tile has an exclusion, so no objects/autogen or forests in the default scenery or HD mesh would be seen. I intend to add smart exclusions at some point, which basically turns off exclusions in areas where there is bad coverage in OSM. I believe Benny did something like this for the unreleased version of OSM2Xp, and it's used in the scenery  for simheaven.  Basically, I guess it would join boundary boxes together around buildings and forests, and then these "merged" boxes would be the exclusions (within a certain threshold). I also need to get this done for scenery boundaries, so that one country's exclusion zone doesn't block the neighbouring country, etc.

 

If the person generating the scenery decided to turn forests off and the exclusions for them, then they could. This means that all forests in the HD mesh scenery would be used, but the buildings and objects in the generated scenery would be used. What would be really nice is if I could somehow detect where the forests are in your scenery, and then use those in place of the OSM forests. I'm not sure if this feasable, and how difficult it would be, but it's always an option (although a hard one implement it sounds).

 

With regards to the different forest types, unfortunately very few of the forests are actually tagged with the type of forest, so normally it's random or it could be based on regions, etc.