if you don't mind learning a new tool, checkout ScenProc for generating Autogen based on OSM data: https://www.scenerydesign.org/scenproc/

Unfortunately, the U.S. isn't the best when it comes to coverage but it's getting better.  I just generated some tiles with Ortho4XP(for P3D) for my part of the country(Midwest/Great Lakes) and it did a pretty darn good job in most areas.  This wasn't the case just a year ago.  So data is getting better here in the states, I'd say.  Also, you can check out the aforementioned Ortho4XP(for P3D) if you want to make your own photoreal rather than paying the completely outrageous price for MSE.

7 minutes ago, klamal said:

if you don't mind learning a new tool, checkout ScenProc for generating Autogen based on OSM data: https://www.scenerydesign.org/scenproc/

Unfortunately, the U.S. isn't the best when it comes to coverage but it's getting better.  I just generated some tiles with Ortho4XP(for P3D) for my part of the country(Midwest/Great Lakes) and it did a pretty darn good job in most areas.  This wasn't the case just a year ago.  So data is getting better here in the states, I'd say.  Also, you can check out the aforementioned Ortho4XP(for P3D) if you want to make your own photoreal rather than paying the completely outrageous price for MSE.

Well, yeah, i'd love to generate it on my own (will check your suggested programs), the problem is that USA is a bit to large for one man band. If any of you guys would "offer his own private spare time for the greater good", we could do it the way Italy and Spain were done by dividing the huge amount of work among us, each taking his "own" part. I'm not American, but i would love to be a part of it. And then there would be matching of colors, which seems (according to Benjamin) more of a problem. 

On the other hand, MSE wouldn't be that pricey (and right now they're offering 50 + 10 % discount on PcAviator) if the quality (colors) would have been right. I would pay the price, if it were like Orbx, which unfortunately (most probably, please surprise us JV) won't do any of the p3d sceneries in the future any more. 

6 minutes ago, AndrejS said:

Well, yeah, i'd love to generate it on my own (will check your suggested programs), the problem is that USA is a bit to large for one man band. If any of you guys would "offer his own private spare time for the greater good", we could do it the way Italy and Spain were done by dividing the huge amount of work among us, each taking his "own" part. I'm not American, but i would love to be a part of it. And then there would be matching of colors, which seems (according to Benjamin) more of a problem.

Unfortunately this is not allowed due to copy rights with the satellite imagery that we obtain from these providers.  They don't allow redistribution, even if it's for free or "shared".

There are some that do allow it.  But as far as I'm aware, none that are used with Ortho4XP do.  At least for the USA.  There is a government source(can't remember the url right now) that is free to use and distribute from the US, but I don't think it provides a usable API for Ortho4XP to consume.  I could be wrong though.  I've never actually tried to use it myself.

7 hours ago, Benjamin J said:

Color matching is tricky and is unlikely to give consistent results all over - there's always going to be an area that's off. Also important to point out that the quality of the photoscenery will depend a lot on the local weather. Variables such as humidity can really change the photoscenery!

It makes sense. Lots of cold Atlantic water on the eastern coast, with less sunshine produces colder colors. 

With regards to the freeware, I do see that you intend to fly all the way to PAKN, although I'ma  little confused about your route. At any rate, I'm just going to throw this out there: Take a look at Blue Sky Scenery. They do freeware photoscenery for a large part of the American Southwest, going up to Pacific as well, to Washington. And from what I can see, the level of detail is not that much worse than MSE, perhaps even on par in some areas. It's just more of a hassle to download it all.

I'll check the Blue Sky, but at least for the western part of USA, i've got it covered with ORBX. As for freeware, Italy and Spain really are great, have you tried them (even though it's Europe)?

As an additional plug, you might be interested in the sceneries Matthias is generating for Africa, as well as parts of Europe. If you go to the Showroom forum at the FSDeveloper forums, you will find a Project Africa topic, detailing his more recent advances for Africa. These sceneries are incredible and FREE. 

Will do it. 

Thanks for very (at least for me) informative post Benjamin. 

Regarding the western route from Dallas to King Salmon, it was made the way it is because i wanted to visit all of my airports (well, most actually) and i admit, that i'm landing on airports that aren't suitable for GA planes, but that's life. 

 

Edited January 2, 20206 yr by AndrejS

9 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Megascenery Earth combined with Nuvecta leaves a lot to be desired and is far away from what you see in the Orbx TrueEarth products.

Nevertheless I would always prefer it over any landclass scenery even if it is by Orbx.

But if you are fine with landclass products I would stay with them.

 

Anyway before getting heavily invested in Megascenery Earth maybe consider waiting for the new MSFS which will most probably make any Megascenery Earth product obsolete.

 

Since MSFS will take a lot of time to pass from the beta version (Microsoft has the largest beta tester base in Windows users) to final product, i'll be more than happy to stay with P3D, where i've invested too much money to just throw it away. 

8 hours ago, AndrejS said:

Since MSFS will take a lot of time to pass from the beta version (Microsoft has the largest beta tester base in Windows users) to final product, i'll be more than happy to stay with P3D, where i've invested too much money to just throw it away. 

Nothing wrong with that.

23 hours ago, AndrejS said:

Thanks for very (at least for me) informative post Benjamin. 

Regarding the western route from Dallas to King Salmon, it was made the way it is because i wanted to visit all of my airports (well, most actually) and i admit, that i'm landing on airports that aren't suitable for GA planes, but that's life. 

 

You're welcome. I didn't realize there was a free Italy photoscenery, but I will definitely get it! Thanks for mentioning it. I see this person has covered a very large part of Europe in general, which is awesome! Been looking for some nice Alpine sceneries.

12 hours ago, Benjamin J said:

You're welcome. I didn't realize there was a free Italy photoscenery, but I will definitely get it! Thanks for mentioning it. I see this person has covered a very large part of Europe in general, which is awesome! Been looking for some nice Alpine sceneries.

It's not exactly Alpine, but AirHispania (dnld link) is also worth trying and it's a bit more organized (regions) than Italy. It's however made by different scenery builders , so some regions aren't color matched really. 

Edited January 4, 20206 yr by AndrejS

On 1/2/2020 at 6:38 PM, klamal said:

if you don't mind learning a new tool, checkout ScenProc for generating Autogen based on OSM data: https://www.scenerydesign.org/scenproc/

Unfortunately, the U.S. isn't the best when it comes to coverage but it's getting better.  I just generated some tiles with Ortho4XP(for P3D) for my part of the country(Midwest/Great Lakes) and it did a pretty darn good job in most areas.  This wasn't the case just a year ago.  So data is getting better here in the states, I'd say.  Also, you can check out the aforementioned Ortho4XP(for P3D) if you want to make your own photoreal rather than paying the completely outrageous price for MSE.

Kevin, which of the two you'd select if coverage wasn't a problem? I haven't got time for both (learning curve seems steep) so i have to pick one. 

By watching some of the Ortho videos on YT, ScenProc seems like a more user friendly? I've chosen ScenProc, since it gives me more freedom to be creative (in productive testing phase ). Now it's time to read the manual and learn the package by making errors after errors. 

Edited January 4, 20206 yr by AndrejS
package chosen

Ok, Nantucket (what else) agn files made. Again, basic question. 

How do i know in which scenery folder to put these agn files. I'll first install the Massachusetts FL and then put the agn files in the texture directory. 

How to do it for a patch of land where i have no 3rd party scenery, just Orbx OpenLC SA or their West coast sceneries installed? Should i put them in the appropriate FTX_NA_ \texture folder?

Where to put agn files if there's nothing else but the default P3d scenery? How can i find the right location since there are only bgl files in the default scenery file structure and their names i can't interpret? cvx0406.bgl for example???? 

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Well, that's quite satisfying, the created AG fits perfectly, i'll just have to match some more objects (and modify creation parameters) to really have a good AG.

New questions opening though : 

- how can i check the osm file, preview its contents. I know that it has a text format, but there has to be some way to check what's in it? Right now, i can only do this using QGIS (it shows only three layers which is not what i've expected)

- how can i preview the bgl and agn files, preferably the final result (agn+bgl)? Since most of the bgl tiles don't contain an airport, there's no way to preview it using ADE

- when downloading the OSM data, can i set the layers i want to download, because from what i can see in qgis, it only contains three layers, which perhaps is enough since AG is only generated for buildings and vegetation?

- when AG is created, can i pick the type of object for individual objects or is everything left for the algorithm to decide? Lets say i want building A to be catholic church and object B the orthodox church. In order to make the AG custom, there should be an option to change how individual objects look like, maybe change the color and size?

On 1/4/2020 at 6:30 AM, AndrejS said:

Kevin, which of the two you'd select if coverage wasn't a problem? I haven't got time for both (learning curve seems steep) so i have to pick one. 

By watching some of the Ortho videos on YT, ScenProc seems like a more user friendly? I've chosen ScenProc, since it gives me more freedom to be creative (in productive testing phase ). Now it's time to read the manual and learn the package by making errors after errors. 

As you've probably figured out by now, ScenProc and Ortho4XP are two different types of tools.  Actually, you can use them together.  Ortho4XP will use ScenProc to generate autogen when it creates the photoreal tiles.  So, ScenProc generates autogen.  Ortho4XP generates photoreal tiles(and autogen if you choose to use ScenProc with it).  Hope that makes sense.

On 1/5/2020 at 4:18 AM, AndrejS said:

How do i know in which scenery folder to put these agn files. I'll first install the Massachusetts FL and then put the agn files in the texture directory.

The generated agn files need to go in the /texture folder for whatever photoreal tiles they were generated for.  So, if you generated or have photoreal tiles(from MSE, let's say), you place the generated .agn files in a /texture folder in the same parent directory of the /scenery folder for that geographic region of tiles.

So let's say you have MSE photoreal tiles for Massachusetts in P3D/Addon Scenery/MSE/Massachusetts/scenery.  You would then create a texture folder here P3D/Addon Scenery/MSE/Massachusetts/texture and place the .agn files there.

On 1/5/2020 at 4:18 AM, AndrejS said:

How to do it for a patch of land where i have no 3rd party scenery, just Orbx OpenLC SA or their West coast sceneries installed? Should i put them in the appropriate FTX_NA_ \texture folder?

Where to put agn files if there's nothing else but the default P3d scenery? How can i find the right location since there are only bgl files in the default scenery file structure and their names i can't interpret? cvx0406.bgl for example????

Yes to the Orbx scenery question.  As for no scenery but default, I'm not sure if that can be done. You could try and create a scenery folder(with the /scenery and /texture subfolders) and just place the agn in the /texture and add to P3D and see if it works.  But I think it needs .bgl w/ it.  I could be wrong though.

On 1/5/2020 at 7:13 AM, AndrejS said:

Well, that's quite satisfying, the created AG fits perfectly, i'll just have to match some more objects (and modify creation parameters) to really have a good AG.

New questions opening though : 

- how can i check the osm file, preview its contents. I know that it has a text format, but there has to be some way to check what's in it? Right now, i can only do this using QGIS (it shows only three layers which is not what i've expected)

- how can i preview the bgl and agn files, preferably the final result (agn+bgl)? Since most of the bgl tiles don't contain an airport, there's no way to preview it using ADE

- when downloading the OSM data, can i set the layers i want to download, because from what i can see in qgis, it only contains three layers, which perhaps is enough since AG is only generated for buildings and vegetation?

- when AG is created, can i pick the type of object for individual objects or is everything left for the algorithm to decide? Lets say i want building A to be catholic church and object B the orthodox church. In order to make the AG custom, there should be an option to change how individual objects look like, maybe change the color and size?

- I'm not exactly sure what you want to check in the osm file, but QGIS is a good program to view what's there, if not the best.  You can view objects' attributes to see what would be generated by ScenProc.  Though this will depend on the way you set up ScenProc too.  I believe you can also see that same info here too: https://www.openstreetmap.org/  (This is where ScenProc gets the OSM data to begin with).

- You can preview the bgl/agn files using TMF Viewer and/or the Autogen Annotator from the P3D SDK

- I think you can set the OSM layers you want to download.  And even down to the features.  If not via the website, I know you can via QGIS.  I don't know that you need to do that though as ScenProc will just filter out what it needs like you say, building/vegetation.  So you're just making it more complicated on yourself I think.  🙂

- I think you can do this via ScenProc but I've never tried myself.  Worst case, if you really wanted to specify a specific object, you can go back in and use the Autogen Annotator tool from the SDK that I mention above.