Introducing World2XPlane...

[alpilotx 505]

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.

Yes, osm2xp is doing something like that .... Well, if you are ccurious, I can share some "idea" which I had with respect to "fast" exclusion generation, and even used a long time ago, when I did my own forest scenery add-on in XP9. At that time, XP9already had some very coarse forests out of the box (XP8 didn't have any at all ... only the tech ... why I started my forest scenery project at that time) and I wanted to make sue, that along borders, where my scenery ended (for example in Europe, based on CORINE data it usually stopped at irregular, national borders) more or less smoothly (it wasn't smooth .. but good enough) transit to default forests.

 

So what did I do (I still have the old JAVA code if you are interested :wink: )? Well, basically exclusions only work on a rectangular basis, so I though, it would not make sense to optimize complex polygon structures (I didn't want to work in vector space, which can tend to be slow - depending on operations). Instead, I rasterized the vector area which I wanted to exclude at a low res (I think it was 100x100 per DSF tile ... but this could be variable) and used this raster bitmap "mask" to quickly generate an "optimized" set of exclusions which would be - mathematically and hopefully - as minimal as possible. See, here is an old screen which shows how in the end my exclusions looked:

 

This might be an option for you too ... Of course, it can't be perfect (because of the rectangular nature of exclusions), but still - I think - usually a good enough compromise. You can also tune its detail via the resolution of your rasterization ... and find a good "compromise", where you still don't get millions of exclusions (that might kill X-Plane) but still are"precise" enough.

 

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).

Well, yes, thats still my problem too ... how you can sanely combine HD Mesh based forests with OS forests. Because, the HD Mesh Scenery forests have the advantage, that they are there everywhere (independently of the OSM forest coverage), and have the quite good climate / landclass based diversification. On the other side, OSM forests have the advantage (at least where available!) of some very nice / tiny details which works nicely with photoscenery (and sometimes can even be too detailed - but that can easily be taken care of via vector simplification). Maybe the above approach with selective exclusions could help here (you "exclude" my forests, where you have you own ... or something like that)

 

Hmmm ... I already had the idea, if I could include "small" OSM forests in my "farms and tree lines" scenery. The idea would be, to only add small OSM forests (which are for sure not covered even by HD Mesh Scenery v2) and only add them, where I don't have HD Mesh forests (I have my own data, and can quite well "narrow down" where an OSM based forest might work ... at least in the free open space of meadows, grass, sparse, agricultural areas). Thus I would still use HD Mesh based forests fully but add all those tiny / nice / detailed little forests, where I don't have any ... And I could even  make them (the small, OSM based little forests) follow the climate structure of HD Mesh (as I have that  data - of course - too) more or less ...

 

 

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.

Yes, I know ... thats usually a problem with OSM based forests (I studied them quite a few times).

[Humpty 751]

@Tony  @alpilotx.

 

 The Gmaps works for Google warehouse, i just tested it, currently downloading buildings from North of KBFI . If you want I can give you the Seattle Aquarium which is just off the cranes or what ever that is. It is a 40 MB thing. 

 

Yeah it takes a lot of time for it to break up the objects and convert the textures to .dds

[tonywob 4,768]

 

 

If you want I can give you the Seattle Aquarium which is just off the cranes or what ever that is. It is a 40 MB thing. 

 

That's the problem though, 40MB for one object is huge and would kill X-Plane's performance :(. We need another way of getting these objects out, firstly simplifying them and also using one model, one texture.

 

 

So what did I do (I still have the old JAVA code if you are interested )?

 

Absolutely, why rewrite something, if it's already been done . I'll send you an email when I start work on the exclusions. I'm especially worried about slowing the generator down (even more), so this seems like a really good approach.

[Humpty 751]

That's the problem though, 40MB for one object is huge and would kill X-Plane's performance :(. We need another way of getting these objects out, firstly simplifying them and also using one model, one texture.

 

 

 

Ok. I don't see any performance hit . There are around 11 google models in there.   But let me try the North of KBFI as it is currently downloading 91 buildings and its yet on 26 doing re positioning and stuff , taking long though. 

[tonywob 4,768]

Yesterday we received our first batch of regional buildings for Switzerland, so I naturally regenerated Switzerland with regions enabled to see what it looks like. The buildings have started cropping up and are slowly replacing some of the Eastern European style buildings and facades around Switzerland. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scotchegg 4,158]

Looking very good Tony!

[wolke85 150]

Now this is fantastic!

You guys are really amazing!

I know, iam repeating mayself, but as my technical support ain't not really helpful currently, i will try my best to support You this way - at least for now, because who nows, once i get some time to fiddle around with all this great stuff that may change!

So again saying:

Keep on with Your absolute amazing work!

Really most appreciated!

[tonywob 4,768]

 

 

Ok. I don't see any performance hit . There are around 11 google models in there.   But let me try the North of KBFI as it is currently downloading 91 buildings and its yet on 26 doing re positioning and stuff , taking long though. 

 

I downloaded such a scenery pack from xplane.org a while ago for Switzerland, and it was around 300MB in size, and it increased my X-Plane loading time significantly, that in the end I just removed it. I also tried generating Warsaw myself as this has a lot of 3D buildings, but it took so long that I just gave up. As I said earlier, gmaps breaks each model up into lots of little objects each with their own texture, so they can't be used in the generator, as each part would have to be placed in the right position, and this would be incredibly difficult.

 

If you wish to use such scenery, then there is nothing stopping you just including the gmaps scenery on top of existing scenery, but its usefulness in the generator is limited, because, as well as the above reason, such objects are mostly landmarks which are suitable just for one place, so there is no need to even use the application to place them in the first place. What is useful is reusable objects such as supermarkets, factories, which can be found in Sketchup by searching the 3D warehouse.

[Humpty 751]

@Tony,

 

 Yes I know that it breaks up the objects , I just thought maybe it could have helped with your stuff.  

 

 I will look in to the sketchup models you have specified. I wish I knew graphics , I swear I would have given the XPX community a whole replica  city FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE      .

[tonywob 4,768]

I will look in to the sketchup models you have specified. I wish I knew graphics , I swear I would have given the XPX community a whole replica  city FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE      .

 

In the time it takes gmaps to create a city, you probably could have :lol:  Seriously, go to youtube and learn how to make buildings. The buildings only need to be really really basic, i.e. A texture box with a roof. I will try and get a PDF up soon with some instructions on how to do it.

[Humpty 751]

In the time it takes gmaps to create a city, you probably could have :lol:  Seriously, go to youtube and learn how to make buildings. The buildings only need to be really really basic, i.e. A texture box with a roof. I will try and get a PDF up soon with some instructions on how to do it.

 

LOL yeah you are right. Would be nice once the pdf is available.

[tonywob 4,768]

I'm looking for users who are willing to take a few photographs for our building repository, specifically, we need the following:

 

1. Photographs of regional style houses in European countries, especially UK/Spain/Italy. We already have a large repository of Eastern European houses, so regional variation is needed. Even a picture of your own house, if you want to see it in X-Plane eventually ;-)
2. Large regional supermarkets in European Countries, e.g. Carrefour, Lidl, Edeka, etc.
3. Shopping centres and small shops.

The photographs need to be taken face on, and ideally on two or more sides of the building and in good light. The textures can then be used to model regional buildings.

 

If anyone can help and doesn't mind going out in their local area and taking a few shots, then please let me know. 

[wolke85 150]

I'm looking for users who are willing to take a few photographs for our building repository, specifically, we need the following:

 

1. Photographs of regional style houses in European countries, especially UK/Spain/Italy. We already have a large repository of Eastern European houses, so regional variation is needed. Even a picture of your own house, if you want to see it in X-Plane eventually ;-)
2. Large regional supermarkets in European Countries, e.g. Carrefour, Lidl, Edeka, etc.
3. Shopping centres and small shops.

The photographs need to be taken face on, and ideally on two or more sides of the building and in good light. The textures can then be used to model regional buildings.

 

If anyone can help and doesn't mind going out in their local area and taking a few shots, then please let me know. 

 

Hi Tony!

Okay - at least for the first point here: Photographs ...

I may be able to at least help out for buildings in my local area here (Vienna and the Northeastern part of AUT)  ...

Sadly not the "Italian/UK/Spain" style urgently needed obviously, but maybe still usefull.

Any specifics in regards to filesize/resolution or so?

If Your time allows it, please let us know here or contact me via PM.

[tonywob 4,768]

Hi Christoph, thank you for your kind offer. Austrian buildings are also good, so anything you can provide which can help myself or others create regional buildings would be a plus. However, if possible, concentrate on small Austrian village houses. At present, there is no need to do large buildings in city centres, as the facades actually already do a pretty good job .

 

With regards to filesize, the images only need to be small. i.e. At the most, one building in a picture of 512x512. Try and get at least 2 sides of the building, in mostly the same light. 

 

More than likely when the buildings are pasted onto texture sheets, the size will be decreased further, so there really is no need for super high resolution.  The best thing to do is take the picture face on and not at an angle, as is greatly speeds up the building creation.

[wolke85 150]

Hi Christoph, thank you for your kind offer. Austrian buildings are also good, so anything you can provide which can help myself or others create regional buildings would be a plus. However, if possible, concentrate on small Austrian village houses. At present, there is no need to do large buildings in city centres, as the facades actually already do a pretty good job .

 

With regards to filesize, the images only need to be small. i.e. At the most, one building in a picture of 512x512. Try and get at least 2 sides of the building, in mostly the same light. 

 

More than likely when the buildings are pasted onto texture sheets, the size will be decreased further, so there really is no need for super high resolution.  The best thing to do is take the picture face on and not at an angle, as is greatly speeds up the building creation.

 

Alright!

Going to follow Your istuctions as outlined here and getting my camera ready right away now!

I will send You a PM some time next week when i'll have some first photos to share!