Building Lake Ponchatrain Causeway

[Guest wathomas777]

I would like to add the Lake Ponchatrain causeway to FS2004. With USA Roads, I now know exact positioning of the Causeway.I figured that I would start out with a simple bridge, and it is definitely missed.But I have absolutely no experience in the area. Could someone give some suggestions on what tools I need to use to do this, and how hard it would be?Thanks in advance.

[bob.bernstein 0]

I've read this a couple times now...folks keep saying that the USA roads program is putting the roads in exactly the right place..In my experience everything has the potential to be off a bit, on what basis is it known that this addon is the perfect georeference?B

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Will,Nice to see you around here.If you only want to place a simple bridge, you might try Ground2K4 by Christian Fumey, available in the AvSim library.All you have to do is draw a 2-point line from one end of Lake Pontchartrain to the the other and choose the type of default bridge that you want, Very easy.Any questions, just ask here.Best regards.Luis

[Guest JoeW]

In my Florida Bridges ( an Ongoing scenery) I use airport to establish a scale and take the top left and bottom right corners coordinates and use the same Background BMP in Ground2k4. Then choose a line/ 4 lane undivided concrete bridge. make a start and a finish. You must have the start and the finish in the bmp.I placed the 9 mile bridge in the keys this way. You have to be very accurate.Joe W.

[Guest wathomas777]

USA roads is not perfect, but Flight 1 licensed the road database from a company that does GPS or similar mapping. I have no proof other than circumstantial. That is, in all "default" photo scenery areas in FS2004, the photo roads almost perfectly line up with the USA roads. Same holds true for owners of Megascenery. Now seeing that Megascenery is based on actual satellite data, and completely obscures the USA roads, when I see a Megascenery road merge perfectly at the seam with a USA road, then I will assume the other USA roads are equally accurate. And from what I see in some screenshots, it's not just the Megascenery "freeways" that line up, but also the arterials, and side streets as well.

[Guest wathomas777]

Maybe so, but I'm having problems, I did not have a .bmp of the area, so I took a screnshot of the area from FS2k4. I will be connecting the bridge from the southwest corner to the Northeast corner.I finally got Ground 2K4 to accept the reference coordinates of the .bmp, but it's asking for names for my exclude file and my scenery file and WC and LC Raw and BGL directories and I have no clue what they mean.I simply want to connect a bridge object from one point to the other. Is it pretty easy, because the help file and the tutorial talk about modifying textures, and I only want to put a bridge object between the two point line.But I can't even get that far.Really I know nothing about this stuff and stumbling along.Heck, the actual bridge is located right on the Northern Shore, it's just displaced north by about 20 miles.I wish someone could come up with a drag and drop manipulator that would allow you to grab an object, (or get a new one, and then either drop it in the desired place, or define it's endpoint or LAT/LON and it would create the .bgl, but that is too much to wish for.Luis, I would much appreciate any help you may have. Is Ground2k4 the right app for this?

[Guest JoeW]

You must name the files .... before you start. Excludes I usually name the same as the bgl but with a EXC in it. example: H_Franklin.bgl, H_Franklin_exc.bgl fot the exclude.A top down from FS9 is OK ... thats what I use. I get the coordinates from where I am, save as a flight... ( So I can come back to the same exact place. exit and start airport. If I took the topdown with 1 "-" the scale will be 25, If 2 "-"'s then it will be 12.5. this is in airport... move the curser to the top left of the bmp note the coords, then the botton right. This will set the scale in ground2k4...Joe W

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Will,Yes, Ground2K4 is what you need. Get version 5.1 and also the updates.Just give the bgls and the exclude any old name - it doesn't really matter for your purposes.You must exclude the old bridge. To do this, select the Exclude icon (X) and click on the Area (the grid) where the old bridge is located. Just click OK to exclude.Then, draw a 2-point line from one bank to the other for the bridge and choose the Line properties as indicated above. Generate the bgl with the Creation icon (the light bulb) and that is it.Don't hesitate to let us know how it turns out.Best regards.Luis

[Guest wathomas777]

When I try do do it, I get some error due to a .dll not being available. I will research later to find what's causing it.