Removing Taxiway Signs-

[Guest kenmc]

Hi All - After reading the dialog between several flight simmers at "SceneryDesign.org" on their attempts to remove taxiway signs, I decided to try it myself using FSSC. I chose the large Canadian airport I'm familiar with. I used the exclude mechanism in FSSC because I find it easier to use than "Excbuilder". It's easy to drag your exclude around the editor and change the verticle and horizontal values quickly. I started with a 4000 x 8000 ft. exclude and dropped it where I knew a large group of signs were. I was careful not to put it over the airport reference point which is located next to the control tower. To make my exclude easy to find in FS9, I placed a tree at each corner of the exclude and checked FS9 to see if I was successful. Voila! a large group of signs had vanished but not all of them. I returned to FSSC and reduced the exclude to 4000 x 4000 ft. I then moved it so that it touched two of my trees[leave the other two trees where they are for now]. I went back to FS9 to check and the signs had returned, so I knew the reference sign was in the other 4000 x 4000 ft. section. I then returned to FSSC and moved the exclude to touch the other two trees. I then moved the remaining trees to touch the vacant corners of the exclude. I then reduced the exclude to 2000 x 4000 ft. and repeated the process. Using the trees as markers in this way, made it easy to isolate the reference sign quickly, rather than trying to track the location using the Lat. Long. read-out at the top left corner of the screen. After several hours I had located no less than 11 groups of signs "sprinkled" over the landscape. I use that term because there didn't seem to be any logical sequence used by the scenery designer. None of the reference signs were any where near the ends of the runways, nor were they associated with taxiway A as had been suggested. In conclusion, sign placement seems to be at the discretion of the scenery designer and how they approach the task. Hope this helps some of you struggling with this issue. Regards, Ken

[wsieffert 0]

Was the scenery you were trying to remove the taxiway signs FS2004 compliant or was it FS2002 or earlier compliant?I haven't had any problems excluding signs using either Excbuilderv2 or SceneGenX on FS2004 compliant scenery. I would think that SCASM style excludes may be handled differently by the FS2004 Scenery Engine than XML style excludes since the options of the two excludes are different.W. Sieffert

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Ken.I suspect that is true... the signs seem to be sprinkled in groups, with each group having it's own "leader". Exclude the leader and the rest disappear. I don't know of any easy way to delete all the signs quickly and accurately.Decompiling the default BGL to XML may give the locations... and may prove to be the easiest way yet.I had thought of a tool that would read a lat-long while slewing, then you could define a 'radius', then press a button. The 'radius' could be quite small, as you only need the refpoint.Slewing and pressing repeatedly over all an airport's signs would eventually get all the leaders...press another button, and a single Exclude BGL is made of all the separate exclude "bursts".Alternately, SceneGenX seems to be able to import XML code... if so, it should be able to import taxi signs as well, and they could then have an exclude placed over each sign??? Dick

[wsieffert 0]

SceneGenX does import XML taxiway signs. I am redoing Orlando Executive (KORL). I imported all the default scenery I could find, including Taxiway Signs, Library Objects, Generic Buildings, etc. As part of my update, I use the

[Guest PaulL01]

>SceneGenX does import XML taxiway signs. I am redoing>Orlando Executive (KORL). I imported all the default scenery I>could find, including Taxiway Signs, Library Objects, Generic>Buildings, etc. As part of my update, I use the>for the rest of the scenery.>>Since I imported the existing signs, I don't need to do small>excludes. All I need to do is grab the signs within SGX and>move them to the correct locations. Any sign not needed is>deleted. I haven't had any bleed-through from default scenery>files.>>W. SieffertIn what bgls did you find your taxiway signs?

[wsieffert 0]

APxxxxx.bgl files. For some reason, one or both of the BGL decompilers may or may not decompile the signs at any particular time.W. Sieffert

[Guest kenmc]

Bob - My scenery is FS2004 compliant. I didn't say Excbuilderv2 didn't work for me, it works fine. I just found the excludes easier to install using FSSC. Ken.

[wsieffert 0]

Hi Ken,I continue recommending using the new XML style programming, since this is what FS2004 is optimized. I find XML more understandable than SCASM. It takes me longer to understand the SCASM flow than XML.Hopefully, MS will continue down this path with follow-on flight simulators. MS provides no guarantees on where they will go. Each new flight simulator has produced new methods. MS software engineers are young, interested in new and innovative techniques to software design.W. Sieffert