FSX AFRICA LANDCLASS - Runway Elevation Issues

[pierrecor 1]

I fly quite a bit in Africa (FSX)and there are a number of runways that are either "sunken" or "elevated" above the average elevation. The sunken runways sometimes make it near impossable to land. Any fixes around??? I have NMG Trading Africa Landclass for FSX installed - does not fix the issues.Pierre

[Mace 1,902]

Landclass will not fix airport plateau/trench issues.For that you need to custom-fix each airport individually, or find someone that can do it for you. A program that can do that is ADE (Airport Design Editor), available in the file library here.Short of fixing each airport, the only other solution is to turn down mesh settings, but that is a poor solution if you ask me.The cause of this problem is because some airport elevation info in FS is simply incorrect, especially in places like Africa. Another cause is the fact that an ARP (airport reference point) may be 10-20-30-50 meters different elevation from one end of the airport to another.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

[RFields5421 1]

Do you have an addon mesh product?I haven't seen any issues with the default mesh, but there are a great deal more with FS Genesis mesh.In general the default airports seem to match the default mesh pretty well on a stock install of FSX.I've been working my way through Angola and Namibia to update airports to work with FS Genesis mesh.

[pierrecor 1]

Yes, I do have an add-on from NMG Trading (www.nmgtrading.co.za) with 76m mesh. I have posted a message to them for comment. Since I have paid a fair amount for this I expect them to have it fixed, especially if the revised landclass is causeing the problemWill post here once I have recieved and answer. Otheriwse it is manual fixing from my side as Mace stated.Thx

[Guest Seadog]

Pierrecor -Just so you can communicate clearly with NMG Trading about your problem, you may wish to be aware that landclass and mesh are two different things. This is my understanding of it, that you are describing a mesh problem.Landclass is the classification of the predominant usage of the surface of each square kilometer, such as forest, grassland, urban and so forth. Depending on that classification, certain graphical displays are called up to depict the general contents of that surface. Mesh is what controls elevation features. Landclass depictions, called tiles, sit on top of mesh and conform to the changes in elevation prescribed by whatever mesh you are using, but do not control elevation.Generally speaking, FSX runways override mesh variations and are required to be depicted as flat and level. This, despite the fact they are almost never flat and level in real life. The runway height is fixed at a single elevation, while the surrounding mesh continues to slope and ripple its bumps and dips as in the real world. This leaves the runway sitting above land which is lower than that single runway elevation point and carving into terrain that is higher. The more accurate the mesh, the more obvious becomes this limitation of FSX.If the product you bought is Africa Terrain Mesh 2007 (FSX), the product description indicates it contains a revised landclass product for Africa. But the landclass is not the source of your issue. The more accurate mesh is what makes the airfields appear to be on cliffs or be sunken.-Doug

[Mace 1,902]

>Yes, I do have an add-on from NMG Trading>(www.nmgtrading.co.za) with 76m mesh. I have posted a message>to them for comment. Since I have paid a fair amount for this>I expect them to have it fixed, especially if the revised>landclass is causeing the problem>Good luck getting NMG to do anything--as the problem is not their mesh per se. The problem is the incorrect FSX airport elevation data for Africa. Fixing airport elevations requires a different scenery design method than making mesh and landclass.Mesh-maker FSGenesis does indeed fix their airports so hopefully NMG will do the same, but as I said it is not mesh design that fixes the problem--it is airport design.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

[nateanderson 1]

Just to reiterate what others have said. The problem you are facing is not the mesh or the landclass, but that many African airports and airstrips have wrong elevation data. Go to Google Earth to see approximately what the elevation should be and you will find airports off by up to 200 feet or more in FSX. Same with some of the rivers and lakes.For sure the default mesh matches the FSX elevations better; however, it is also very low resolution in Africa and rounds off all the terrain, making the areas I know from real life to appear non-distinct. I use FSGenesis which greatly improves the sharpness and realism of the terrain, and I just put up with the plateaus and valleys. Unfortunately some airports are so deep in holes it is impossible to fly out of.As others have stated, there are ways to correct the airport elevations, but it is more effort than most simmers want to invest. Hopefully in the next FS version MS will fix the flat runway issue and at the same time allow the airports to automatically blend smoothly into the surrounding mesh and scenery.Ben

[pierrecor 1]

Hi Doug,My apologies to NMG. Nico from NMG send me a note describing the issue - which is MS who has less interest in Africa than anywhere else and could not care to fix the issues. It seems to me that if I want to have it fixed it has to be me alone - depending on the importance of itBut very thanks for the advice and everyone else who has commented on the issue.CheersP

[1mikel151 71]

>Hi Doug,>>My apologies to NMG. Nico from NMG send me a note describing>the issue - which is MS who has less interest in Africa than>anywhere else and could not care to fix the issues. It seems>to me that if I want to have it fixed it has to be me alone ->depending on the importance of it>>But very thanks for the advice and everyone else who has>commented on the issue.It's not just Africa, it's pretty much other areas where detailed addon mesh is installed. FSGenesis came out with a fix for their mesh that allows for the detail, but makes the change in elevation between the airport and the boundaries less noticeable. So you are not the only one that deals with this issue.Regards, MichaelKDFW

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI-x16 / AMD

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Just to round off the excellent explanations that everybody else has given, it is important to note that Microsoft is not to blame for the inaccurate airport elevations depicted in game.The developers at ACES do not have personal knowledge of all the world's airports and must obtain airport reference information through the usual channels, either a private company like Jeppesen or public sources like the F.A.A. and its distributors.The problem lies with the data itself which is often inaccurate, even in the U.S. since many countries allow airport operators to report this information themselves, without any rigorous requirement for accuracy.In addition, please remember that the purpose of airport reference information is to allow the pilot of an aircraft to arrive within the approximate area of an airfield. That data is not meant to be used for the accurate re-creation of the airfield within Flight Simulator, and approximate data is more than sufficient for its intended use.Therefore, Microsoft is not to blame for this situation and the only remedy is for users to make the corrections themselves, until some hypothetical time in the future when the available data will be correct for the entire world. But, I would not spend time waiting for that.Best regards.Luis

[RFields5421 1]

>My apologies to NMG. Nico from NMG send me a note describing>the issue - which is MS who has less interest in Africa than>anywhere else and could not care to fix the issues. It seems>to me that if I want to have it fixed it has to be me alone ->depending on the importance of itIf that's the way they reply, you have just added another developer to my list of amateurs who do not understand FS.Microsoft provided us with a reasonably accurate working verision of Africa based on the best data they could purchase within the budget limitations of the FS development team.Things like using Google Earth to make airports are violations of copyright. While Google does not care if you or I updated and distribute airports - you can be very sure they will successfully sue Microsoft.So much other data available on the web for low or no cost, specifically excludes major commercial development like Microsoft. The data owners can and will sue MS.NMG then comes out with a mesh product, which I will grant you is most likely more accurate and detailed than the Microsoft mesh.Fine - however - NMG, not Microsoft, broke those airports.We have accepted that the mesh breaks the airports for years, because we want more accurate mesh.But it is the mesh developer's responsibility to either (1) fix the airports which no longer match the mesh, or (2) be open and honest about the issue.To blame MS as not caring is a crock of BS.Either NMG does not care, or more likely, does not have a sufficient knowledge and understanding of how FS works, how FS is built, to do a good job and to answer questions accurately.Now for the price I pay for mesh, I certainly don't expect the developer to fix every airport by hand.Unfortunately too many developers know only one small area of specialization in FS. Items like mesh require a wide range of skills and knowledge, not only in mesh, but airport construction in XML code, water class and it's polygon impacts and much more.We're just so much luckier in FSX that it fixing an airport elevation is a five minute job with one tool, unlike FS2004 and previous versions.End of Rant

[nateanderson 1]

Reggie,Although I don't think your post was in response solely to mine, I wanted to respond that I was not blaming anyone, but rather stating why the airport/mesh discrepancy exists. I do not use NMG nor have I communicated with them so I don't know their explanation.MS has used the slogan "As Real As It Gets" for years. The program is called a flight *simulator* because it is supposed to simulate the real world. In the real world there are airports in Africa which exist at very specific altitudes. It is not accurate to say that a mesh developer has "broken" an airport when MS has the altitude way off in FSX to begin with. I would not expect a mesh developer to put false mesh data into their product to match FSX airports that have wrong altitudes to begin with. It is the responsibility of the user to figure out how he will deal with this discrepancy.I know that the airport data can be hard to get in some areas of the world, as I have tried to find some of it myself. For those, MS has used what they could find and for sure some of it was wrong. I doubt that MS sells many copies of FSX in Africa so they did put less of their budget into both the mesh and airport data on the continent. At any rate, every version of FS greatly improves the elevation data. Hopefully the next version will allow for a transition area around airports to blend into the surrounding mesh, similar to what FSGenesis is trying to do at major airports with their version 2.Ben

[Holger 0]

Hi guys,a couple more facts to consider:1. ACES used the same Shuttle Radar source data for their Africa terrain that most if not all terrain developers use. The difference is that ACES couldn't include GBs of terrain data with the FSX box so they compiled it at a lower resolution, which explains the more rounded topography.2. ACES were aware of the elevation discrepancies between the terrain source data and the reported airport information, not just in Africa but worldwide. Thus, in order to minimize plateaus and trenches they pre-processed the Shuttle Radar source data to blend the terrain with the airport elevation; essentially, they "fudged" the elevation data in a circle around each airport flatten.3. Terrain mesh developers usually compile the Shuttle Radar data without any adjustments. Thus, one could argue that ACES actually cared more about terrain-airport integration than mesh developers. Currently, the only exception is Justin of FSGenesis who is working on replicating ACES' approach.Having said that I agree that, from a realism standpoint, it's not desirable to make one element less accurate to make it work with another element that's incorrect to begin with. Eventually, more and more airports will be adjusted by add-on developers, freeware and payware. However, if the terrain mesh has been "fudged" to work with the incorrect default elevation then the new airport won't work with the add-on mesh anymore. Thus, my preference is to work with airport elevation adjustments and external sloped flattens as much as possible. Tools like ADE and SBuilderX make these tasks pretty straightforward. Cheers, Holger

[Guest sssummer]

>3. Terrain mesh developers usually compile the Shuttle Radar>data without any adjustments. Thus, one could argue that ACES>actually cared more about terrain-airport integration than>mesh developers. Currently, the only exception is Justin of>FSGenesis who is working on replicating ACES' approach.>That's not completely true, FSDreamscapes with their 5M mesh for Utah and photoscenery is also integrating the mesh with the airports to eliminate plateaus and sunken airports, however, this is true for their general 5M mesh releases that have not been done with corresponding photoscenery to this point.Brian S.

[Mace 1,902]

>Hopefully the next version will allow for a>transition area around airports to blend into the surrounding>mesh, similar to what FSGenesis is trying to do at major>airports with their version 2.>What I hope for in the next version of the sim is that this will all be a moot point--that airport scenery will be fixed to the terrain mesh, no flattens needed.This will have the twofold benefit of 1)eliminating the discrepancies between mesh and airport elevation data, and 2) give sloped runways.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT