New project: Tile server for MS FSX based on Google Map...

[Guest cbuchner1]

For now this project is limited to streaming photo terrain data. I doubt Flight Simulator would start to recognize new BGL files containing a mesh grid when they get added during flight. And I would not know how to create these elevation meshes dynamically (without the help of the flight simulator SDK). The issue is that these meshes are compressed and I do not know anything about the compression format they use. So this would only be possible with the help of Microsoft.

[Guest Langeveldt]

>>Thanks for the kind words.>>Unfortunately, for Africa the satellite data which is>published online probably covers only a few major cities in>good resolution, the rest will look good only from a very high>altitude.No problemFortunatly around my locale (Between FAPE and FAUH, there is a large swathe of high res data (In Google Earth), I can even see my garden table.. This would be enough to keep me happy, and a lot is covered very well up north.. I also fly all over the world, not just in my back yard :)Good luck, and if the "Big Players" are looking for some evidence of support, they know where to look :)PPL - Algoa Flying Club (Port Elizabeth, South Africa)FS5, FS98, FS2000, FS2002, FS2004, FSX user :)

[Guest Catalano]

Hello Christian,really interestings things you made.But I would like to see you Fotos, can only see the frames (Platzhalter).Do you have an idea what I can do to see your fotos?Thanks it advanceBodo

[Guest Catalano]

Now it works.Sometimes you just have to wait and do other things ;-)Bodo

[Guest cbuchner1]

Hi there!My Windows native filesystem filter driver replacing Samba is making GREAT progress. I am building a version for MSN Virtual Earth only at this time.First benchmarks show the loading times after selecting a flight have dropped from 10-15 minutes to roughly 3 minutes. That is when the JPG files from the Internet have already been downloaded previously. So this version will have a good chance of keeping up with fast aircraft.So far I have incurred 3 bluescreens due to carelessness (mostly not checking for NULL pointers in the kernel driver). Luckily most of the work is done in a user space application which is easier to debug and does not take down the entire system when it has a problem.It took a bit of time to convert the Microsoft SimConnect header file from C++ to C and my existing code to comply to C rules. I am using SimConnect to get the aircraft position from the Simulator.I am amazed how much code reuse I got between the Linux and the Windows version of the program. libcurl and libjpeg are available in a 100% API compatible version on Windows. Excellent! About 75% of my own Linux based source code can be used on the Windows version with only minor changes due to my use of C standard libraries. Excellent again!So my estimate of 2 weeks for the port and the driver development was quite correct. There are still some issues with the Kernel mode driver, but I can get these sorted out this week.More work will soon go into the image processing / tile coloration of USGS data to make it appear more realistic.

[Guest cbuchner1]

I continuing to work on brightness and contrast adjustment of the USGS tiles on Virtual Earth such that they blend in nicely with the surrounding lower resolution tiles.Also I will be looking into developing an intelligent prefetcher for tiles. This means anticipating where FSX will be looking for the next tiles to load. By preloading stuff ahead of time, I will be able to minimize the delays that my code causes inside the Flight Simulator texture thread (fiber).There is a certain non-zero probability that I might be changing my career path over this. Think moving 6000 miles to a suburb of Seattle called Redmond. ;) But let's not jump to early conclusions yet.

[Guest ACyLum]

Hi ChristianThis is a great project that you are working on! - I've been catching up and reading through the thread here.I noticed that you are now programming filter drivers to "hook" the file system and substitute in your streaming textures. I do filter driver programming too - I made an XP driver that would "on-the-fly" decrypt aircraft BGL files as they were loaded for fs2004. People who had the right key would see the custom plane, others would only get a flying billboard with a URL or a default plane. If you need, I'd be happy to help if you have any filter driver questions.

[Guest cbuchner1]

Time for another update.Progress has been slowed down a bit because I had to spend my weekends searching for a new appartment and soon I will be moving.Right now I am testflying a new feature that I added. As mentioned previously, I am creating a composite of color information from MSN Virtual earth with higher resolution black & white USGS data also from MSN Virtual Earth.Sometimes the color layer is shifted by a few dozen or hundret feet vs. the black & white photo. Probably because the person georegistering all the USGS maps for MSN did not yet have his or her morning coffee. And besides, georegistration of thousands of USGS map sheets is a dull job - small errors happen.So I added an autocorrelation feature that tries to match the exact position of the lowres colored tile to the position of the highres black & white tile before transferring color information. Works like a charm! The algorithm uses a hierarchical approach, starting to autocorrelate a downscaled version of both tiles first, then gradually increasing resolution. This is fast enough to work in realtime and it produces a good match in most, if not all cases.Before adding that feature, the color of objects would sometimes appear next to an object. Like for example, the blue of a lake would bleed into the neighboring green fields. But now color and details are much better aligned. This does not yet quite look as perfect as on selected areas of Google Earth, but is much more consistent on a continental (i.e. US wide) scale.Deserty areas look AMAZING on Virtual Earth, I am currently flying over Anza Borrego State Park east of San Diego.And one more thing: I am in the process of tracking down some annoying bugs in libcurl, which does all the HTTP access for me. My use of libcurl is rather extreme (dozens of parallel HTTP requests with strict timeouts). It seems that libcurl sometimes frees some internal structures that it later tries to reuse. And crash! This is a hard to track problem as it occurs only sporadically but when it happens it is a showstopper. After locating the problem, I intend to file a bugreport with the libcurl developer team, possibly with a proposed fix attached.Christian

[Guest Langeveldt]

I understand absolutely none of that :) But sounds great, well done.. Glad to see you continue with this exciting new venture :)

[Guest cbuchner1]

Allright, let's explain in pictures. Direct your browser here.http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=3...dir=0&alt=-1000You will see the Grand Canyon in high detail (you can even zoom in further), but unfortunately in gray. Since flying over gray terrain is unacceptable, I transfer the color from a lower zoom level to the gray photograph.When you zoom out a bit, you get color.Problem is, the color and the gray picture don't align perfectly - and that is what my latest program feature can correct. Now the color ends up where it belongs. ;)Christian

[Guest cbuchner1]

here's a set of 55 images of flying over MSN Virtual Earth terrain mostly in areas with USGS coveragehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/cbuchner1/set...157594513158518featured locations are:- mountains near/east of Friday Harbour (default flight in FSX)- Aspen, CO- near Frasier Park (Pine Mountain Club), CA- Telluride, CO (location of a landing mission in FSX)On some photos you may notice that the post-coloration of B&W photoscenery causes some aquarell/pastell tint which may look a bit cartoonish or unreal. I am still working on that ;)The one photoreal image uses high res color aerial imagery and is over Utah near Salt Lake city. Quite a difference to the rest of the images. Unfortunately that kind of quality is limited to some major US cities.Christian

[Cessnaflyer 56]

That is amazing I wish this became a reality for everyone.

[acmech 2]

Can this work in fs9? You have done what most simmers just dream of doing.Great work and progress.

[Guest cbuchner1]

Would work in FS9, if I limit myself to 4.75m / pixel ground resolution and use FSUIPC instead of the SimConnect SDK. I might look into this in the near future, but a general release of this software seems unlikely anytime soon.Christian

[GaryGB 10]

Keep up the great work, Christian!:-) GaryGB