Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Mariopilot

OPEN BETA/COMMUNITY PROJECT: OSM World

Recommended Posts

Roads are on the easy side, but very boring!

Basically:

 

QGIS:

  • import roads.shp, powerlines.shp, railways.shp
  • simplify all of them to 0.0001 deg.
  • vector->data management tools->split vector layer : select "FCLASS"

SbuilderX:

  • import layers of iterest and export as BLN (hint: for agiven Fclass, import its "links" too, so in SBuilder, you compile less times.

Sbuilder:

  • load a BLN. set texture type and width
  • compile

I have myself a little note file where I keep all texture types, widths, and other details.

 

Generally these layers do not give trouble unless too big. If needed, split the area in QGIS so that they do not exceed 20MB.

 

A problem you can have in SBuilder is that of "overflow". the error pops out, and SBuilder terminates. It generally means you did not simplify the layer or an unfortunate condiction occured near the LOD8 boundaries. select half (say the upper one), save, compile. Always save after selecting and before compiling. If it crashes, next time you open, you have your selection saved. if it goes "overflow" again, reopen, select a quarter... continue to narrow the cause down... once the offending line is found, attempt nudging points away form the LOD8 border (this might be the cause, in this case I donot know the specific cause, just trial and error to fix).

I think I'll make a how-to guide. I'd rather have a global OSM scenery instead of a few bucks more, cannot process all of it myself.

 

it can be easily split:

  1. coastlines (very complicated)
  2. waterbodies (fairly complicated)
  3. roads, railways, powerlines (easy)
  4. waterways (easy)
  5. urban polys (not so simple, studying an improvement for more texture variation))
  6. mask terrain mesh (fairly easy)
  7. default airport excludes (fairly easy)

plus, the work can be split "by country", except for coastlines, and airport excludes.


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

FS9 scenery land class is normally stored in a HUGE bitmap (worldlc.bgl). This approach allows for squares of approx. 1Km where a given texture type is defined. FS9 then generates a sort of fractal intersection between adjacent different classes. It looks plausible and OK, but it is limited to that 1 Km resolution.

 

Then there is VTP (Vectored Terrain Polygons). Generally you use this to define things like airport skirting polygons, or apply a custom texture to them. A VTP vertex can be placed with an accuracy of about 4.5m in FS9. This is roughly the space occupied by a single pixel on the ground. The trick here is that VTP polygons can be assigned any of the land classes used by FS (although some seem to crash it). These polygons simply adhere to the ground like a decal, the AutoGEN being identical to what you will get by using the texture from landclass BGL.

 

To avoid compiler issues with geometries becoming corrupt when snapped to this resolution,  OSM World uses about 10m resolution. OSM data includes land use polygons, I extracted the "residential" and "industrial" type, leaving the rest out, as "Forest" can be lots of things depending on region!

To date, OSM world does not include any texture of its own. I experimented using residential roads and vector autogen to place rows of buildings, but it did not work out ( FSDeveloper thread ).

I think I get it: So to achieve the good definition of your urban areas you did not use landclass files but rather the VTPs? And you can assign only one texture set  to one type of polygon, I assume, so you'd have to do this by hand for each polygon?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes, VTP polygons. only one texture set can be assigned per polygon. I split the residential polygons in "big" and "small" with QGIS, and then compilet them with different textures. I am looking into a method to select a random half of polygons from these 2 sets so to obtain a variation of 4 textures...


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I believe the fTools plugin of QGIS contains random feature selection tools. You already using that?

 

http://docs.qgis.org/2.0/en/docs/user_manual/plugins/plugins_ftools.html

 

I will try to do some Asia in the next weeks, plus of course the landclass ;-). Thanks for the extensive info! Off beta testing now ... ;-)

 

Cheers,

Andreas

I think I get it: So to achieve the good definition of your urban areas you did not use landclass files but rather the VTPs? And you can assign only one texture set  to one type of polygon, I assume, so you'd have to do this by hand for each polygon?

This also how ORBX does their regions for FTX and OpenLC. I think its an elegant way of doing it and they way forward to FS9.9.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm... yes! I was experimenting with a SAGA function that was supposed to split the layer for you as well, but it refused to work. Will try the one from ftools next!


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Roads are on the easy side, but very boring!

Basically:

 

For Colombia and Argentina I had also some overflow errors when compiling roads in Sbuilder 2. IIRC, in the first line of the SCM file (open it with Notepad), there is a line that says "Set ( BUF xxxx )", where xxxx is a power of 2 (I can't remember if it was 32, 256 or 1024). What I did was changing it to 8192, saving the file, and recompiling it directly with SCASM (drag-and-drop!).

 

One thing I did was to limit roads only to the major ones. A finer grid may leave you with no autogen, specially in the cramped Colombian cities (the Top3 most dense cities for the Western Hemisphere are all Colombian). I have only dared with roads and a general country-wide exclude, no coastlines or waterbodies.


Best regards,
Luis Hernández 20px-Flag_of_Colombia.svg.png20px-Flag_of_Argentina.svg.png

Main rig: self built, AMD Ryzen 5 5600X with PBO enabled (but default settings, CO -15 mV, and SMT ON), 2x16 GB DDR4-3200 RAM, Nvidia RTX3060 Ti 8GB, 256 GB M.2 SSD (OS+apps) + 2x1 TB SATA III SSD (sims) + 1 TB 7200 rpm HDD (storage), Viewsonic VX2458-MHD 1920x1080@23-144 Hz (locked at 120 Hz, FreeSync ON), Windows 10 Pro. Runing FSX-SE, MSFS and P3D v5.4.

Mobile rig: ASUS Zenbook UM425QA (AMD Ryzen 7 5800H APU @3.2 GHz and boost disabled, 1 TB M.2 SSD, 16 GB RAM, Windows 11 Pro). Running FS9 there... sometimes on just battery! FSX-SE also installed, just in case. 

VKB Gladiator NXT Premium Left + GNX THQ as primary controllers. Xbox Series X|S wireless controller as standby/travel.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

 


One thing I did was to limit roads only to the major ones. A finer grid may leave you with no autogen, specially in the cramped Colombian cities (the Top3 most dense cities for the Western Hemisphere are all Colombian).

 

I think in general smaller roads in towns cannot really be recognized from the air. I am having trouble with large roads even when flying into my home airport. VFR is usually done by Visual Reporting Points like prominent buildings or highway crossings or radio masts. 

 

I also prefer more autogen in cities but like detailed highways, large roads and railway lines outside of town.

 

Sascha

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm, if the overflow error is at SCASM level, the file may just contain too much data... what I do is split the roads by "Fclass", and get rid of the smaller ones, like residential. I however keep service and tertiary to add a bit of variation to cities. Here the texture assignment and characteristics I have been using:

CANALS
	W15 texture streams perennial LVL4

rivers
	W70 texture streams perennial LVL4

streams
	W30 texture streams perennial LVL4



ROADS: LVL 6  - LVL8  over water
	
	MOTORWAY 1146 W60 LVL8
	PRIMARY 1142 w50 LVL8
	SECONDARY 1162 W35 LVL8
	TRUNK 1146 W70 LVL8

	
	SERVICE 1163 w15 LVL6
	TERTIARY 1158 w15 LVL8
	

	PATH 1161 w10 LVL6
	TRACK 1161 W10 LVL6



POWERLINES LVL 4 1211 W30 NO WATER OVERRIDE

RAILWAYS: LVL5 1210 w30 lvl 8 WATER PVERRIDE

LAKE AND RIVER COASTLINES LVL8 NORMAL W70 HARBOR 1039 W10
LAKES lvl 8 RIVER URBAN PERENNIAL 1101 w30


Landuse: LVL4


INDUSTRIAL:		106 MEDIUM GRID DRY
RESIDENTIAL BIG :	121 LARGE CITY HIGHRISE
RESIDENTIAL SMALL:	108 MEDIUM NON-GRID DRY

 filter $area < 0.00014
v.dissolve 0.0003

signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All, a simple question. Will you accept a having to edit terrain.cfg to get more road diversity, and eliminate the "offset" that sinks streamlines a little in the ground?

 

I have permission form Sascha to use his road textures. I may edit them so to have roads textures with 6,4,2, and 1 lane, but getting them to work requires terrain.cfg modification.


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Alright, I'll do!

The advantage is that if you do not modify your terrain.cfg, it will merrily work with the old roads! Wonder why FS9 defines so many textures that are just plain identical...

I originally planned for this scenery to include all sorts of vector autogen tricks, but performance wise it was a chimera... I imagined trains on railways, buildings besides residential roads, tunnel inlets and so on... pity FS9 rendering engine does not have a good way of working out library object autogen without gobbling up CPU like mad...


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Will you accept a having to edit terrain.cfg to get more road diversity, and eliminate the "offset" that sinks streamlines a little in the ground?

 

Absolutely. It's the price we pay willingly (or ought to) to squeeze some more improvement out of FS9 ;)

 

Mario, you should change the names to something unique. If you want you can include the changed road and rail textures in your package.

 

Sascha

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Mario, you should change the names to something unique. If you want you can include the changed road and rail textures in your package.

 

Sascha

 

That is the only way to diversify road textures.... probbly the ACES team was planning for it but it never made it to release... after all, a 30m wide line gets about 6 pixels across in resolution... not much you can do with that!


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It appears enhancing road details top show single lanes depending on their class is a pipe dream, unless there's a way to inject 2048px textures into FS9 rendering engine. a 60m wide road (and you guys suggest they look a tad too wide) a 4.5m/px gives me 13 pixels to work with. for a 6-lane road, I am left with 2px/lane... although the original texture is 256x256 and split into 4 vertical strips with 64px each, FS9 scales it down and the detail is lost...

Of course FS-X can run higher res roads and happily allow for this, but with OSM World level resolution vector data and so many different road textures it will probably run at 2FPS (ultimately, this is why we still run FS9)


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi all, big news!

 

I have decided to steer this project in a different direction, all thanks to the community response. It has been different than what I expected! You guys went on to experiment with the concept to expand the coverage! The new road map (no pun intended?) is to get more people into it, and hopefully cover the whole world! I will take full credit and sell for $10'500 per copy, with a 1-month license to be renewed each month... :Pig:

Unless you fell for this joke, the forum is hopefully going to move to the freeware section very soon! There we can get much more audience for people to jump in! Of course you know what that means for the price tag of OSM World Western Europe :)

 

I feel I have more to gain by allowing a community effort rather than try to capitalize ona project that ended up growing past what a single person can do in reasonable amounts of time :)


signature.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...