AFCAD duplicate: newbie questions

[Guest altransam]

Hello everyone, i have a questions concerning AFCADS, mainly with possible duplicates;I already know to move all AFCADS to ADDON SCENERY/scenery folder,that alone caused me some headaches before i read about it :-(Let's say for exemple, if i use Scan AFD tool and for CYUL airport, i get: AF2 CYUL2002.BGL AND F1UT_CYUL.BGLSince i use Ultimate traffic, this is normal yes?i tried to remove the first BGL, leaving F1UT that caused the planes to be all scattered around airport and not at there gates so, no good.of course, if i remove F1UT bgl, i will not get traffic to that airport.So my questions are these:1: is it OK to have more than one AFCAD to the same airport as long as they are not the same name per se2: what is consider a duplicate since i do not think you can have 2 AFCAD bgl with the same name in the same folder ?Thank you for showing me what i miss!Alain

[Cruachan 705]

Yes, I would be interested in knowing a bit more about this as well.Currently I have 2x AFD files reported as duplicates and both are associated with CYPK (Vancouver+ scenery):AF2_CYPK Pitt Meadows.bglCYPK_airport_objects.BGLMike

[Guest CowlFlapsOpen]

I'll leave this to the experts but one thing to caution is that all .bgls in the scenery folder are NOT AFCADs. Some are scenery enhancement objects, such as the second one appears to be. Further, all my airports that have modified AFCADs (i.e, downloaded etc.) have duplicates--the stock one remains and the add-on one is in the addon scenery folder. The addon folder is a higher priority so it overrides things. Once in a while I get duplicates from different sceneries in the add-on folder. In fact, My Traffic 2006 has hundreds of new AFCADs so any other add ons I have for other airports produce duplicates. I try not to allow two different add on sceneries to have AFCADs for the same airport (found it caused problems)so I am careful to disable the lower priority one by attaching ".passive" to the end of the name. This is not true of the stock ones though. I just leave them.

[Guest RonB49]

Alain and Mike, both of yo need to download Lee Swordy's AFCAD program. I believe the latest version is afcad221.zip and it is available here in the AVSIM library.You don't really need to read the docs to find out what you are asking. Just enter the ICAO code for the airport in question and you'll see what AFCADs are associated with it. Unless it is a tiny unimproved airport, there will always be one; the default (refered to as "Stock") is always there whether you use it or not. Addon AFCADs are captioned "Mod" and, if they are present, they take precident over the default.Once you have gone this far, you might as well open the addon AFCADs and see what they contain. Lee's AFCAD program is really that easy to use.R-

[masped 4]

1) It is much better not to have duplicate AFCADs - they can often cause crashes to desktop.2) Duplicate AFCADs means 2 AFCAD files for the same airport, but usually in different folders. Scan AFD is very useful for finding them, but it can sometimes show up false duplicates.Ultimate Traffic supplies lots of replacement AFCADs for the DEFAULT airports. If you install an add-on airport with its own AFCAD, like you have for Montreal, then you can either delete the UT AFCAD or rename it to e.g. F1UT_CYUL.bakYou will still get traffic at the airport! The AFCAD file only determines where the aircraft park, not which airports they fly to.

[Guest altransam]

Tank you guys, it has been very helpful!:-)Alain

[FlyingsCool 3]

You need to be careful when removing AFCADs. What has been stated above can be generally true, but not always. For instance, in order to lower the altitude an airport, a developer needs to create an AFCAD that gets loaded before the default AFCAD data to preset the new altitude (FS uses the first altitude it reads as the airport altitude and pretty much ignores all altitude references after that). Then they will create another AFCAD that is loaded after the default AFCAD data in order to modify the runways, etc..Also, I happen to like to use AFCAD2.21 to build runways and taxiways, and SceneGenX to create the rest of the geometry (buildings, signs, etc.). This results in 2 files containing AFCAD data. I don't have any runway data in the ScengGenX file, so it's not conflicting. If you remove either of the files you will lose data at the airport. So for a given airport I am working on, I could end up with three addon files containing AFCAD data plus the default data.Before deleting AFCAD files, I suggest moving them to another directory, and then opening them in AFCAD2.21 and making sure they are actually duplicates.Finally, I don't believe there is a hard and fast rule that AFCAD files need to be kept in Addon Sceneryscenery. I don't do this on any of my installations and have not had any instances of crashes. I like to keep my AFCADs with the airport they belong to so that I can avoid duplicates and can turn airports on and off at will.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com/FC_StartJava.html] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

[scott967 62]

The above is a VITAL POINT. AFCAD, and ScanAFD, appear to scan sceenry files looking for an FS9 header, and then it it's FS9 scenery, look for an Airport element. The problem is two-fold:1. The AFCAD program is only capable of dealing with SOME of the data in the airport element. Thus, it is necessary to create an addon scenery file with airport data in it using methods other than AFCAD 2.2.1 to do a complete design. AFCAD and ScanAFD will see these, but they can't do anything with them. And, it is not a bug or problem.2. The AFCAD program is designed to read the default airport information, delete the parts that need to be modified, and then create the new, modifed data. It isn't really designed to modify addon scenery into new AFCADs.scott s..

[Bill A 68]

Try this from avsim:scanafd.zipBill

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Bill,"Try this from avsim:scanafd.zip"...that's what I used and it turned up the above-mentioned files. I've used it in the past and it has been relatively easy to decide which of the duplicates to remove/disable. However, these 2 files were different and I needed further clarification before doing anything rash.Mike

[jvile 1]

What makes a AFCAD bgl a AFCADAt the root level of FS9 in the APnnnnnnn.bgl is what most people call a Stock airport. This airport is the default airport that ships with the original FS9 program.When you use the AFCAD utility program (which is WYSIWYG) you copy out of the root file the following xml data onlyRunways including Markings, Lights, OffsetThreshold, BlastPad, Overrun, ApproachLights, Vasi, Ils, Glideslope, Dme, VisualModelStartsFrequenciesHelipadsTaxiways including TaxiwayPoint, TaxiwayParking, TaxiwayPath, TaxiNameApronsApronLights Fuel Services What the AFCAD utility program does not copy out of the root bgl is the Taxiway Signs (if written in xml and nested under the airport header)All the Approach data including elevations/runway designator for each runwayAll the Terminal WaypointsAll the Terminal NDB'sCopies out the NAVDATA (ILS, GP, DME, etc.) but does not allow us to deleteThat means AFCAD does not entirely overwrite the original airport but FS9 must use both the original and the new AFCAD airport as one complete file. This is seen when using the AFCAD program and it will list one bold type airport (AFCAD) and one ghost type airport (original).The trigger that other utilities (scanAFD) use to see if you have duplicate AFCAD's is the Airport Header and not how a file is named or where it is at (@ or above the Addon Scenery priority levels).The problem is when a designer of scenery decides to add a airport header to one of his scenery bgl's. Utility programs can lead us to believe this is some kind of an additional AFCAD airport. The question is why did a scenery designer add the airport header. Airport headers do not belong in any type scenery bgl file because airport scenery is not nested or a part of the airport AFCAD data to begin with.If the scenery designer places new Taxiway Signs which is nested inside the airport facility information then MSN has clearly specified (as per FS9 standards) the proper placement of this additional data (bgl file) so utility programs do not see it as a duplicate AFCAD.All Airport placed buildings, signs, additional eye candy scenery, etc. is not part of the airport header, does not belong in the airport facility elements and is LAT/LON specific ONLY (excluding region specified type buildings). This also includes all exclusions that should not be listed inside the scenery.cfg file but a XML data bgl file placed properly again as per the FS9 standard placement. All 6 airport elevations (excluding numerous Approach data elevations) are always read at the root level (APnnnnnnnn.bgl) and should always agree with each other. Airport elevations are always listed in the Airport Header, Runway, Runway Start Locations, ILS, GP and DME. The problem is when we copy out of the Apnnnnnn.bgl (using the AFCAD program) all the elevations we can now modify these. If we change any of the elevations with the AFCAD program FS9 honors this change except for the Airport Header elevation which is always read at the root level file.Changing just one elevation with the AFCAD program causes lots of different problems with Aircraft landing on the runway, aircraft sitting at the ramp on startup, go arounds of the AI Plane Traffic, etc. which is read from the 6 different elevations that are part of each airport. The complexity of the 6 different airport elevations as seen with AFCAD is another post but there are different utilities that do address symptoms rather than causes when you see elevation issues.hope this is also helpful

[FlyingsCool 3]

Hi Jim,I'm a little confused by what you are saying and am looking for your advice on airport design. I don't have any experience using the "utility" programs (I assume you mean AFCAD scanners) as I have always managed my AFCADs by hand. You state that airport headers do not belong in any type scenery bgl file. I traditionally use AFCAD2.21 to edit runways, taxiways, Tower location, and parking. It can't handle buildings or taxiwaysigns, so I have always used SceneGenX for those. For polygons, I usually use AFCAD2.21 for Asphalt and perhaps some roads on the airport. I use SBuilder for airport background. This method means that I will end up with at least 2 files with airport headers per airport I design. In fact, even if I don't add any airport data, SceneGenX automatically puts an airport header in one of the bgl's it creates. Are you saying that, since these are "legal" uses of airport header, ScanAFD will ignore these and correctly determine that there is no duplicate AFCAD data in this airport package? If I don't have any airport data in my SceneGenX file other than buildings, do I need to edit the SceneGenX file by hand to remove the airport header?You touch on airport altitude. I had a problem at MA55, basically a dirt strip on an island near Nantucket, MA USA. FS had the airport at 55 ft. The terrain with 38m Mesh was at basically 1 ft. So the runway was floating in the air. The only way I could fix it was to preload an airport header file before the regional sceneries with the correct altitude in it. Then, in order to delete the default airport, I added another AFCAD that was loaded after the regional directories with the new runway and taxiway locations specified at an altitude that matched the new altitude. FS ignored all flattens etc. and left the runway floating in the air unless I did the above method.Is there another way to correct airport altitude? This seems to be the most logical to me.You state that FS9 honors altitude changes in new AFCADs. In my experience, I have found it is a very bad idea to change airport altitude of any item in an AFCAD file to something different from the first altitude FS9 reads. Taxiways and parking ignore the altitude you enter for them and automatically change their height to the "default" airport altitude (the first altitude FS9 reads). You can create a runway at a different altitude than the "default", but if you put a taxiway on it, the terrain rises to the "default" altitude and the runway is ignored, plus, in my experience, having a runway at a different altitude than "default" can cause a CTD. IOW, FS9 sort of honors airport altitude changes sometimes (perhaps it only forces the "default" altitude for the first runway?), but I've found it's a baaaadddd idea to change any altitudes in an AFCAD file from the "default" altitude. So perhaps the only altitude change that an AFCAD might honor without problem would be the tower altitude?What are these utilities that you speak of that help with changes in airport altitude that designers have to deal with due to changes in terrain?Thanks,Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com/FC_StartJava.html] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

[jvile 1]

ThomasI was a somewhat vague in my post on certain issues and only tried to establish the standard that FS9 is written on pertaining to additional modified airports (AFCAD).First things first.Some scenery design utilities place a airport header into their compiled bgl but we must look at what actually belongs in a nested area within the element of the Facility data which is also placed inside of elements.Use AFCAD to add what AFCAD can modify. That ensures that everything AFCAD can do nest properly inside the airport header which is required.There is a strict ordering of how elements are placed in a XML coded compiled bgl. Looking at my previous post the only additional elements that belong embedded in the airport header are Taxiway SignsApproach dataTerminal WaypointsTerminal NDB's We are sometimes mislead because of the emphsis put onto a addon scenery airport folder which is activated through the scenery.cfg file. This is a holdover from FS2002 which allows 3rd party airport scenery to house all the files needed both in the scenery and texture sub folders. That is ok if we are replacing an entire FS9 default airport but we are talking about modifing the FS9 default airport. I will reference a post I wrote recently that explains how a modified airport (AFCAD) is like a sheet of transparency paper sitting on top of the FS9 default airport.http://discuss.projectai.com/index.php?topic=50747.0read