Howdy,As a beginning project, I would like to create a number of small (fictional) South Pacific islands for FS9. What would be the best (and easiest, especially for a new scenery designer :-) ) programme available? From my initial research, it looks like Ground2k may be the tool; but I was wondering what other designers might recommend. TIA.

My AutoAsm program can be used to create islands quite easily. In fact it includes a detailed tutorial for creating an imaginary island with coastline, lakes, roads, buildings running along the roads and terrain - including a volcano! In the next version you will be able to add animated traffic moving along the roads. AutoAsm is quite a complex program with a bit of a learning curve, but it's not that difficult. To create the islands you would simply draw appropriate polygons onto a bitmap using a paint program and the program will convert them into the scenery. You would draw another bitmap to define the terrain etc.... http://www.kline.demon.co.uk/autoasm.zip Best regards, Chris

Howdy,Thanks, Chris; downloading it now.

Hi, also my prefered tool is "Sbuilder" from Luis Sa. Look at his http://www.ptsim.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=18forum for further questions.You can easliy create LWM, VTP Polygons, Shorelines, Streams and many more.

Hello,Manfred there are a lot of tools out, doing you things, to come to the target: doing a nice and accurate scenery.It depends, what data you can use, and the area you will cover!Ground2k and Sbuilder are great tools.AutoAsm is more a raster program. Some kind of raster to vector program.But: it also can import vector data.Vector data you draw again! In a different style, with different points.When you get familiar to it, you will find out: it is a nice peace of work.Because raster to vector conversation is a very hard work!It is a complex program Chris did (and you have to get familiar to the GUI), but almost everything is automatic.You can use it for a lot of things and (easy) raster formats and maps.And you can use it also only for parts of scenery design.Kind regardsHorst

Howdy, Well, I'm about a third of the way through the AutoAsm manual (and tutorials) at the moment. It is a learning curve, but not tooooooo steep. :-)The thing I'm grappling with (for the moment) is the issue of scale (that is: how to scale my own map image and get AutoAsm to recognise it). But, as I said, I'm only a third of the way through reading, so maybe all will be revealed.

Hi Cap, good luck and have fun! If you do have any questions or problems just ask and I'll try to answer. About scaling: you set the scaling with the X and Y text boxes marked 'SIZE (DEGREES)'. This sets the size of your entire bitmap in degrees (longitude for X and latitude for Y). Suppose you set X and Y to 1 (i.e. one square degree). If the polygon representing the island stretches half way across the bitmap then its size will be half a degree, and so on. Hope that makes sense.... A small tip: if you change the size or centre position settings you must read in the bitmap again for the changes to take effect. Best regards, Chris

Howdy,Ah! Gottcha. Thanks, Chris. One very powerful tool, indeed.