New version of AutoAsm released

[Guest cwright]

I've released Version 0.6 of AutoAsm. This is still very much a work in progress and there are still problems to fix. Here's a short introduction from the manual: AutoAsm is a program that creates LWM polygons (water or land) and VTP lines (roads, streams etc), as well as other scenery objects for use in FS2002 and FS2004. It can also generate water for CFS2. In most cases the input data is in the form of a colour bitmap image. The following scenery objects can be created: 1. LWM polygons for water or land. 2. VTP lines for roads, streams, railways etc. 3. VTP areas. 4. Terrain mesh together with user-defined generic textures. 5. Objects such as trees or buildings linked to VTP lines (similar to vector autogen). An installation of Airport 2.60 or 3.0 is required for this. (end of quote) There is a list of known problems, for example there are small discontinuities on VTP lines on the edges of LOD8 squares, problems with islands smaller than a LOD13 square when formed from solid polygons. I just found a little whoopsee - if you want to make terrain you'll have to install the program into c:autoasm. As always, I ran out of time so it's a bit rushed but it should work okay. Fortunately I'll be able to compile the program myself next week, so I'll have an update on Wednesday to fix the terrain problem, and possibly any other problems that arise. Get it here: http:www.kline.demon.co.uk/autoasm.zip Meanwhile, have fun.... Best regards, Chris

[nudata 10]

First -- THANKS!The program seems to loop on inserting dummy points on my Terrascene bmp file. Looking at the Taskmgr on Windows XP the cpu is high and the memory used never changes. Suggests tight loop. Leaving it in that loop for about a minute results in a Run Time error 9, Subscript out of range error.The bit map is 1.2mb. Memory used during the loop is 35mb. I have 512mb with 1ghz AMD. edit:FIXED problem. Had some residual TS textures popping up. Made them black and now all ok.Dick Boley KLBE

[Guest cwright]

Dick, glad to hear you fixed it! At the moment there's only a small amount of error checking on the input read process, so it does require the input bitmap to be relatively 'clean'. Not so bad for a simple image, but it can be a bit of a pain for a complex TS image with perhaps thousands of lines and polygons. It was nice to get some feedback. I hope to put out an update on Wednesday. Best regards, Chris

[wsieffert 0]

Hi Chris,Noticed in the V06, you are using the older TDFHeaders.inc and TDFMacros.inc. Dick updated and distributed new ones about one week ago for use with LWMViewer.Since you are probably going to release a new package in a couple of days, thought you might want to update the files.W. Sieffert

[nudata 10]

Any harm using the latest BGLC born fom the FS2004 SDK? No issues with FS2002 version.What si the proper procedure for determining the center of an image? Just add the NS and divide by 2. Same for EW. ???Dick Boley KLBE

[Guest cwright]

Thanks, good point! Best regards, Chris

[Guest cwright]

Dick, I've tried it and it doesn't seem to work. That's right - and to get the X and Y sizes, just subtract. I've thought of having the program read in the text that TS produces so that the centre position and sizes would be set automatically. Best regards, Chris

[nudata 10]

Probably an error on my part but the placement of the set of VTP objects (roads in this case) are about a lilometer too far to the West. I add the lat values in the text file produced by Terrascene and divide by two. Same for lon values. Have tried different size areas but same result of other problems. I have used Terrascene to produce conventional textures and roads as photo-real textures and their placement is within a few meters of an airport I use as a mark (original FS2004 airport)I had FS2004 loaded and tried to load AuroASM but received out of memory error #7. Killed FS2004 and had 324mb free but same error.Dick Boley KLBE

[Guest cwright]

Dick, that's odd - I'll take a look at the position accuracy. I assume you used the text file that TS produces for the positioning. You could check the memory setting - AutoAsm displays the memory setting in the STATUS slot when you first run it. For TS I use 1,000000 - that's the dim size of the arrays. That setting might use up 20 megabytes or so. To change the memory setting, change the setting on the TOOLS panel and then click on SAVE and LOAD on the MAIN panel. After loading an image the array size readout (just above the map) tells you what memory setting you actually need - if it shows 100,000 then a memory setting of 120,000 would be safe. I just loaded FS and changed the AA setting to 10,000,000 and that locked up. I'll do some checks to get a better idea of the actual memory consumption. Best regards, Chris

[Guest cwright]

Dick, I've just done some tests and it looks to be pretty accurate. I used the TS1.bmp included with the installation. The TS text is:textures.lowerLeft.latitude=32.635600000000004textures.lowerLeft.longitude=-99.15060000000001textures.upperRight.latitude=33.2515textures.upperRight.longitude=-98.4275 from which I calculate centre long: -98.78905 centre lat: 32.94355 size long: 0.7231 size lat: 0.6159 I added a square in each corner and measured the square position in FS. The results were pretty accurate. The largest error was 0.00016 degree, which I estimate at 15 meters, while the others were out by about 7 meters. These errors were for the LWM water and VTP shoreline. The image is 8000*8000 approx, so the pixel resolution is approximately 8 meters. Out of the eight measurements, the error for half of them was therefore about equal to the resolution. This implies that AutoAsm is not introducing any error at the edges, but I'm wondering if a linear interpolation for all the points inside the image is valid. I'll have to think about that! Best regards, Chris

[nudata 10]

Confession - I was forgetting to enter the size values!Once I did that the the roads came within about 50meters of where I wanted them. I use TDFCalc to accurately define a point in FS2004. Then used the lat & lon differences between TDFCalc values and thoese of AutoASM for the same point to adjust the AutoASM center lat/lon. Came quite close but had to do some final tweaking to places everything releative to the airport.I did find that sometimes the Read Dat function would hang in a tight loop (98% cpu) for about 20 seconds and then fall back to operation of AutoASM (regained control) If all I do at that time is to reclick on Raed Data it works ok. Seems triggered by changes to Center and Size. Not all the time. About 75% of the time.Dick Boley KLBE

[Guest Richard Hill]

Chris;I was wondering if you could send me a copy of a 1 degree .TSP file, based on colors/texture you use. What is the limit of road types in FS9? Do you use solid colors or texture, or they just used to define VTP lines, like shorelines for rivers/lakes, and highways? I have printed the LWM viewer and AutoAsm documentation, and plan on doing your Tutorial tomorrow, thewase are just some questions I have.richardlhll@wmconnect.comRichard;

[Guest cwright]

>Chris;>>I was wondering if you could send me a copy of a 1 degree .TSP>file, based on colors/texture you use. Hi, Richard, I included three .trp files in the zip. Copy them into the TS textures directory. First, create your TS project in the usual way. Then select options / load render options and select one of the autoasm files. If you select autoasm_vtp then it will just do roads etc. >>What is the limit of road types in FS9? AutoAsm has all the FS2004 road textures built- in, but not the new textures for FS2004. The new types are listed in terrain.cfg in the main FS directory, though I haven't got round to using them.>>Do you use solid colors or texture, or they just used to>define VTP lines, like shorelines for rivers/lakes, and>highways? The output from TS should be just lines for shorelines, lakes, roads etc. The .trp files I mentioned will do this, all other types of output are disabled (e.g. solid polygons and textures). In TerraScene everything should be disabled in the options except some of the items under lines (day). The only items that are enabled under lines (day) are roads, streams and the water (land side). Hope you had a great Christmas! Best regards, Chris

[Guest Richard Hill]

Chris;Had a great ChristmasThanks, I will have to do some more work. Will you be making the main menu setup easier? I have a hard time setting up for my paticular drives, 2 drives with 4 partitions of 20GB each, it always says C: and I have Flight Simulator on K: and AutoAsm on M: Also how can one enter Western Hemisphere Cords all the Input Image file displays is N and E. As I have only used TerraScene I guess It will take some time for my 57 year old brain to get the hang of things.Thanks for the reply;Richard;

[Guest cwright]

Hi, Richard, I'm not quite sure what the setup problem is. Don't forget, once you've set up the paths etc, click on SAVE and that makes it permanent for the project. I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'it always says C:' To enter western or southern coordinates, use a negative value. There is a bit of a learning curve but after you try out the tutorials hopefully it will get a lot easier! Any problems, don't hesitate to ask. Best regards, Chris