Wanna order your Ground2K4 background bitmap for free?

[Holger 0]

Howdy:Giorgio, I apologize if my previous post came across as "rude"; that certainly wasn't my intention ;-)I just uploaded the Maltese Islands as well as northern Jordan to AVSIM: G2K4-bmp_Malta.zip and G2K4-bmp_Jordan-N.zip.A few days ago, I also uploaded an image package of the Innsbruck to Bad Toelz area (Austria & Germany, G2K4-bmp_innsbruck.zip). That one wasn't requested by anyone so go wild! Feel free to use my small Ground2K4 project of Innsbruck city as a starting point (Innsbruck_G2K4.zip, source files included) or start from scratch.Enjoy!Cheers, Holger

[Holger 0]

Hi all:Big whoopsy! Anyone notice anything wrong with the "Jordan" files? No? Oh, good! Well, they don't, in fact, cover Jordan but Lebanon, just as requested by Giorgio. My apologies for the misnaming! Now I'm going to sit down and write "Beirut is the capital city of Lebanon" a thousand times - well, maybe with the help of copy & paste ;-)Cheers, Holger

[Guest Giorgio]

Hi;no need to apologize Holger, I was'nt really serious.My best thanks for the bitmaps - the community owns you a lot for making Ground2k design so much easier; if I consider the time I spent in trying to fit my coastlines in CFS2 starting from the maps I found with the time I've spent today in drawing the whole island from the Landsat images, well, what other to say than thanks...Getting to technicalities: pity that there's only half of the 10m resolution image, because with steep and rocky coastlines like these they really make the difference - another reason to heartily recommend SPOT images for projects like this (I would'nt for large inland areas, except in the case one has whole weeks to spend).Just to brief about the results: they are quite good, taking in account the lower precision (I was working previously with a map with 5 meters resolution, alas not rectified - probably a standard Mercator projection, as far as I can say), but there are some problems with the western coast of the main island fitting in or with the available SRTM meshes. At first I thought it was just a shabby finish on my part, so I redesigned the strip, but no, sea goes uphill for about 40-50 meters on the whole western coast. I can't say if this comes down to the mesh or to the reference points in your bmps (checked and re-checked about 5 times the data), but I thought it better to say it open.Let me know,cheersGiorgio

[Holger 0]

Hi Giorgio:thanks for the feedback; looking forward to your project's "output".I have no abolute means of testing the spatial accuracy of the satellite images. For areas with high-res add-on mesh, I usually pick a steep canyon, draw it in G2K4 and hope it'll fit with the mesh. So far, all images seem to have an accuracy of about 20-30 meters, which is what the NASA specs say it should be.I thought I had found such a "test canyon" on Ghawdex Gozo (sp?; the western Maltese Island) but when I checked it in FS it ended up being in the water; seems like the coastline is way off. However, my test "road" overlay on LMML and its almost perfect match assured me that the image coordinates are OK. Could you post a screenshot of the coastal area with the problem? Could this be an issue with the default LWM flatten (doesn't really sound like it)? Also, it's possible that the SRTM mesh was adjusted in its position to better fit the default coastline; does the author state anything to that effect?If you find that the entire island chain is offset you can adjust the corner coordinates in the Ground2K4 project .lwm file without having to start again from scratch. The coordinates are stored in lines "0010" and "0060"; just make sure that you adjust all of them by the same amount.Cheers, Holger

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Giorgio.The SRTM data, and the mesh made from it, are probably not as accurate as the Landsat image.CFS2 has no flattening of the LWM polys, so you'll need to add SCASM flattens at the coasts, to control the mesh. Steve Greenwood has a utility that will do the trick ( ...Utility to Flatten terrain ).http://www.fs-traveler.com/resources-d.shtmlOr, you could write the flatten SCASM code by hand. The polys should be convex, and counter-clockwise ( I think ). Extend the flattens into the land a bit, and out to sea a bit more.Dick

[Guest Giorgio]

Hi all,I'm quite convinced that Dick's "prognose" is right, since I had to do some stretching and narrowing on parameters of previous island backgrounds to have them fit with existing meshes. Dick, I assume that coastal flattening will spoil the result a bit; your second solution is way off my technical means, so I will try to follow my current empirical way - either changing how Holger says the bitmaps' parameters and/or fixing the coastline one pixel after the other (how weary! but if there's no other way...).Thanks a lot for the help,GiorgioPS: The flatten utility could fix the other problem I have, that is, the quantity of lumps and bumps left by SRTM meshes at Grand Harbor.

[Guest crashaz]

Hi Giorgio!I have had some of the problems you are seeing. Us CFS2 designers are also interested in Malta for a campaign we are doing. Maybe we can help one another.I use Blackart and have had very good results!First we want to set the Sea Level Clipping parameters... basically telling the program to set all sea level areas to 0.Set Sea Level Clipping parametersLoad .hgt file and then.....1. Click Image2. Select Array Operations3. Select Sea Level Clipping Parameters4. Keep lower limit of -15 and set upper limit to 7 (my choice)Any sea elevations between -15 and 7 are set to 0.Now that we have set the parameters... time to actually perform the operation.Fix Sea Level Elevations1. Click Image2. Select Array Operations3. Select Fix Sea Level ElevationsThis should flatten all sea areas with elevations of -15 to 7 and set them to 0.Just save the .hgt file to it's previous name and it is ready for SRTMtoBGL. I have used this extensive in my SRTM LOD9 mesh of the Philippine Islands.... has worked very well....especially in Cavite on southeast Manila Bay where the U.S Asiatic Fleet was stationed.Can reach me for the moment at crashaz at hotmail.comI will look at Malta and let you know what I find.

[Guest crashaz]

OK just did N35E014 and N35E036used the above method and compiled with SRTMtoBGL.Email me (crashaz at hotmail.com) for the BGL Giorgio.... no lumpy ocean.:-wave

[Holger 0]

Hi Luis:I just uploaded two more Caribbean sections, Guadeloupe and Dominica. With the recently uploaded Antilles2004 freeware scenery these bitmaps might be a bit redundant but I had the imagery already...Enjoy!Cheers, Holger

[Holger 0]

Hi all:There's a mistake in the formulae for calculating subsets of the large bitmaps. Nobody else has noticed that yet? Thanks to Mervyn for pointing this out to me - not one of my stellar moments in math ;-)The correct formulae are (I hope): N(subset) = N(original) - (Yres * Nrow) W(subset) = W(original) + (Xres * Wcolumn) S(subset) = N(original) - (Yres * Srow) E(subset) = W(original) + (Xres * Ecolumn) (use negative lat/long values for western longitudes and southern latitudes)Cheers, Holger

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Holger,Redundant? I hope not. While I have not looked at that Antilles package, it is difficult for me to believe that anyone can have made a realistic representation of such a large area and of so many islands. Like so much scenery for Flight Simulator, I suspect that most of it is of a fictional or imaginary nature.So, your bitmap contributions are most welcome, since my renditions will be completely realistic, as you know.Thanks for what you have put up so far, and please do not give up, as the Grenadines and Carriacou are truly Paradise on Earth.I have been working by fits and starts recently because of prolonged black-outs here, but will send you the results as soon as they are done.Best regards.Luis

[GHD 21]

Hello Luis,Off topic, apart from the blackouts, I was a bit concerned that the trouble in Haiti might be causing problems for you. Is this so?Regards,George

[Holger 0]

Hi Luis:you should have a look at the Antilles scenery. I can't vouch for the accurate placement of 3D-objects but the authors have replaced coastlines and transportation grid (with Ground2K4) for 11 islands (or groups of smaller islands) and also include mesh and landclass updates. I just had a quick look yesterday and the G2K4 files look quite accurate. Here's a LWMViewer screenshot of Dominica and Guadaloupe.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/66882.jpgCheers, Holger

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Interesting, Holger. My principal reason for re-doing the islands is so that the altitude mesh falls correctly on the land masses. As you know, the default islands are the wrong size, the wrong shape, they have an incorrect orientation, and they are in the wrong place. So, a realistic altitude mesh will never fit on them.The only solution is to re-draw the islands correctly in the right place, and then, to disable the water flattens in the hyp bgl. The result is that the islands finally look like the real thing WITHOUT those ugly seaside cliffs.Unless this Antilles scenery has followed this procedure, then the altitude mesh will not work and, aside from more detailed coastlines and modified land class, the islands will still look as bad as the default.However, since I have not tried the scenery, I do not know what has been done by its creators. If they provide a modified hyp bgl, then that means that they have placed the correct island in the right place. Otherwise, it is the same problem as the default.I notice that the designers of the package provide an all-inclusive executable file. That sort of solution gives me a feeling of horror - how do I know what it is doing? Can it contain maleficial code that contains viruses or sends, for example, unpleasant e-mails to Holger (or whatever pseudonym he is presently using) without my knowledge? Why trust this package from some anonymous and unknown group? Am I paranoid? Don't answer that!Hello George, thanks for asking. Big problems with Haiti, as usual. This is nothing new, except that now the influx of Haitians is much larger than usual. Given that we are in the midst of a vey serious economic crisis at the moment, it is not the time to accept 10s of thousands of destitute and starving Haitians, who are likely to remain here, since our misery is still a cut above the absolute poverty of their own country. The best solution would be to ship them all to the US and Canada, all 8 million of them. No more Haitians, no more problems in Haiti. Leave the land unpopulated for a century or two, and let it recuperate from the desolation. But, the US Coast Guard does not agree with this solution and just brings back all the boat people that survive the trip to Miami. Thanks, guys.Best regards.Luis

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Luis.I have read of problems with the published Antilles scenery. I think they did try a replacement of the default HP BGLs... but if the sim crashes, that's of no benefit. I tried it, and I had the sim crash.It is an auto-installer, and they do not explain they are renaming and replacing some default files. If the crashes or oddities are due to the HP BGLs, then they will remain after the Antilles scenery is deleted!It took me a bit of time to figure that out and restore the original default files. Simmers less experienced may have a bad time of this.I don't know if the AVSIM download has been corrected to eliminate the crashing.Dick