I'd like some opinions and input

[Guest Larry S]

I'm thinking about re-releasing some of my early scenery. The problem is, I wasn't aware of the memory leak problem with landclass and textures. As I see it, the three lighthouse sceneries I've done either have or will create problems.So I guess the first question is should I fix it and upload a revision 2? I'm inclined to think yes.Second question- what would be the preferred folder layout?I can create a seperate scenery and landclass folder for each area. That would mean a total of 6 folders at this point, and any future sets would add 2 more folders for each. If I'm able to complete what I originally intended, there would be a total of 10 to 12 sets, or 20 to 24 folders for the handfull of peolple who get all of themOr I could create a seperate scenery folder for each and one master lighthouse landclass folder for all of the landclass files. Less folders, but removing one area would be a pain that way. I could make that a little easier by identifying the file names in some way.Last option I can think of would be one master lighthouse scenery folder and one master lighthouse landclass folder. On a personal level, I favor this option. Any thoughts, or am I making "much ado about nothing"?

[Holger 0]

Hi Larry,geez, who'd want to fly circles around lighthouses? Just trash them!OK, that was a lame joke - I love your lighthouses, as you know. Please do update and re-upload them.I'd prefer your own prefered option: give all lighthouse files the same master scenery folder name, e.g., "Larry's Red and White Things" That way, any new bunch in the series just gets placed in the same folder and you can even re-use some of the textures. Same thing for the landclass, save for the texture subfolder. P.S. Are you placing your lighthouses based on RW coordinates or do you place them on the closest default shore? I'm asking cause I'm working on replacing shorelines in some coastal areas (and others are probably too), which requires a lot of shuffling around of "real estate". Putting them on their own little G2K4 island (if the default shore is misplaced) might be a pain now but could ensure compatibility for the bright future.Cheers, Holger

[Guest Larry S]

Thanks for the input Holger.I hadn't thought about duplicate textures, would save a small amount of disk space.Your comments on location, and future shoreline plans opens a whole new can of worms.I used RW coordinates from www.lighthousefriends.com and others as a starting point. On the west coast, that almost always put them in the water. I'm assuming that means most of your corrections will be replacing water with land. Where I could, I used sat images and compared to a top down view, and I compared the mesh to pictures and tried to place them where they looked right. I think worst case would be some might be a further inland than they should be. I'll try to figure out an easy way to check the current locations against the real world shoreline to make sure.Have you laid out a plan of attack as far as where you plan on working? The North Cascades scenery didn't create any problems, by the way.

[Guest Slacktide]

Holger, Are you thinking of replacing the Puget Sound shoreline? I was thinking of tackling that as my next project (currently, I'm about halfway done with creating all the ski areas in Washington) If you're planning on doing that, I'll just move to redoing the shorelines for Long Island, NY, which severely needs it.I also love the lighthouse scenery... I can practically throw a rock from my window and hit the Mukilteo lighthouse from here. The shoreline data for Puget Sound is definitely skewed, I'd say around 1/4 mile off or so. USA roads makes you realize how bad it really is.Dan

[Holger 0]

Hi Dan,Puget Sound is yours - great project! My North Cascades stuff was a quick "excursion" across the Canada/US border; I'm a northern kind of guy (well, except for my South Africa/Namibia stuff).Cheers, Holger P.S. Ski areas are always nice too - looking forward to those!

[Guest jimkeir]

Hi.> geez, who'd want to fly circles around lighthouses?Somebody in a Tiger Moth? JK

[Guest Slacktide]

Oh Joy... :)I've finished Steven's Pass, a more detailed Mt. Baker, and most of Crystal. I'm still going to do Hurricane Ridge, Snoqualmie (that's a tough one) and probably Mission Ridge. I'm skipping Loup Loup, 49 North, Bluewood, and some other tiny local areas, unless there is a huge demand for them. It's amazing how well they lay over the FSgenesis terrain... I know Stevens Pass like the back of my hand (probably have 100 skiing days there) and most all the trails fit the mesh perfectly. It would defintely be easier to identify the trails if the USGS DOQs were from the middle of winter, instead of July-September.I have another "just for fun" project, a drained Puget Sound. There is a 30m bathymetry dataset, and I think it would be interesting to see what Seattle would look like if sea level dropped 1000 feet. Just have to figure out how to convert ESRI ASCII grid format in NAD27 into a USGS DEM in WGS84.Dan

[Guest Larry S]

A drained sound would be a gas. I've done a lot of fishing in the sound, and did quite a bit of scuba in my younger days. I know what a few small areas look like down to 60 or 70 feet, and I've been off Saltwater State Park down to 110 ft. That was a big oops. We were exploring the barge that was sunk there as an artificial reef and didn't check the guages often enough. Exceeded the dive tables by about 5 minutes.I'd love to see what it looks like. If I knew even the slightest bit about mesh I'd offer my help. My knowledge being what it is, I'll help you most by not offering.

[Guest Larry S]

I made a few small quick coastlines and opened the G2k4 to see how far off my lights would be. Some a lot, some ok.Then I edited hp914140 and removed the water at Tatoosh island. Low and behold, the real island elevation appeared, where there used to be flat water. The Island that FSGenesis added is much more detailed and accurate than the default, as expected. And looks much better than the one I added.Is anyone working on the Pacific Coast of Washington? I know Dan is going to do Puget Sound, how far did you plan to go? If it's not stepping on anyone's toes, I'd love to the Pacific coast just to see what other surprises are there. Destruction Island? The offshore pillars at Olympic National Park?

[Holger 0]

Hi Dan,sounds great. I've only seen Steven's Pass in the summer (started a 100-mile hike north on the Pacific Crest Trail from there) but I'm sure it'll be great as an all-season add-on ;-)MicroDEM opens each file in the user-defined "primary import datum", which should provide you with an automatic reprojection to WGS84. Then you can save your DEM as detrended, which is the equivalent of lat/long. Then re-load that and save as 16-bit BSQ, which is the format expected by resample.exe....or so goes the theory. I've never fully tested this because I use a commercial GIS and I've had problems with MicroDEM before (it doesn't always read the header projection/datum information correctly). However, since then many new versions of MicroDEM have shown up - currently 8.0 alpha - so you might have better luck.Cheers, Holger

[Holger 0]

Howdy"> geez, who'd want to fly circles around lighthouses?Somebody in a Tiger Moth? ":-xxrotflmao Cheers, Holger

[Guest Slacktide]

>A drained sound would be a gas. I've done a lot of fishing>in the sound, and did quite a bit of scuba in my younger days.> I know what a few small areas look like down to 60 or 70>feet, and I've been off Saltwater State Park down to 110 ft.>That was a big oops. We were exploring the barge that was>sunk there as an artificial reef and didn't check the guages>often enough. Exceeded the dive tables by about 5 minutes.>I'd love to see what it looks like. If I knew even the>slightest bit about mesh I'd offer my help. My knowledge>being what it is, I'll help you most by not offering.>Just a little update on this project... Mesh is done. Now working on landmasks so you can actually SEE the underwater terrain. Some screenshots of my test area near Mukilteo:The first is taken from just about where the Mukilteo lighthouse should be, looking across toward Whidbey island. The brown area is where the sound used to be. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85106.jpgThe second is taken from the middle of the sound, facing back toward Mukilteo. The helicopter is right at sea level, the ground is 600 feet below us. To the left of the helicopter, you can see Larry S's Mukilteo Lighthouse scenery, which was placed at the edge of the default coastline. Makes you realize how far off the default coastlines are, eh?http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85109.jpgThe third shows the helicopter landed on the seabed. Note the altimeter is reading -600 feet. Again, we are looking up toward Mukilteo.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85111.jpgLast, a marine chart of the area. Seems to match up with the dataset I used fairly well.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/85114.jpgDan