As some might have seen I asked this on TerraBuilder forum, but didnt get the desired result.Can shape files be used with FSSDK tools?Richard Hill

Hi Richard.You might want to contact "Andper" ( Anders Persson ) who posts on this forum. He has a way of using shapefile data with some TDF polygon structures to make BGLC code for landmasking, and possibly shorelines as well. So far, he has not posted the method he used.Dick

Dick;Thanks for the reply, so far it seems TerraScene might be the easy way to get the required results.Richard Hill

Hi Richard.In the months to come, I think we'll get some software that may really help reduce the texture overhead of the Terrascene/Terrabuilder method.Chris Wright is still improving his AutoAsm program, and may now be able to process an image as large as an LOD8 sized bitmap. His program produces LWM code. With a little creative editing, that LWM code could be made into VTP Method1 polygon code, and that will allow us to place mesh-clinging polys anywhere we want with great precision.Making a Terrascene 'mask' for roads ( showing only roads in the output ), and viewing them as polys instead of lines, we may soon be able to place a layer of roads into an LOD8 Cell very quickly with a combo of Terrascene and AutoAsm. And as you are aware, the roads of Terrascene are very detailed for the US and Canada... right down to the street level, with precision of placement.Another possibility would be a program to process scenery like Autoasm, but to take a entire folder of CUSTOM textures and process them in a stack. The Area and Cell numbers can be derived from the CUSTOM texture name. So a folder could be fed 'hopper-like' into a program like AutoAsm, and compile the code from the textures.Anders is working on the direct conversion of shapefiles into BGLC code.The advantage of all this is the texture reduction. A 265Kb BGL could replace 265Mb of CUSTOM texture, if the BGL uses default FS2002 textures. I've got my home area done with 1 season ( 6 LOD8 sized Cells ) with CUSTOM textures. To get all seasons and night, it would cost 1.5Gb! A TDF BGL could do exactly the same thing with about 500Kb. And neither method should bog down the computer's display. I still get my 24 FPS with over 6000 CUSTOM textures... the same should hold true for the VTP BGLS, but much more memory efficient using only the default textures. And this may be possible in a few weeks.Dick

I started a project to export BGLC code out of ArcGIS. I'm not doing much work on it at the moment, but eventually I should finish it.Cheers, Christian