Slopes?

[scott967 62]

My "mesh smoothing" method seems to have some promise. I had tried this as a proof with KLAS in FS9. In FSX it's a little easier due to improvements in resample.exe, but it still isn't something that is automated.For a general description of the work flow, this is what I did (I use Global Mapper GIS, I assume other comparable software could also be used).1. Obtain elevation data for affected area (I used the NED 1/3 sec data which is probably the same used in creating the addon mesh).2. I loaded elevation data into Global Mapper. GM has a number of "shaders" for elevation. I used the gradient shader, setting the range from black (0 meters) to white (255 meters). I turned hill shading off.3. It is necessary to get the elevation range in the area of interest into the range of 0-255 meters, so that there is a correspondence to grayscale (I don't know of any other easy way to edit an image if more than 8 bits are used). I looked at the elevations around the airport (flatten is 1440.484m) and found that if I applied an offset of -1384.76m that the elevations were within the 0-255 range (GM allows you to do this easily). After the offset, the airport flatten is 56 meters.4. To obtain the flatten area, I decided to extract the FS9 flattens (I don't know of any easy way to extract FSX flattens at this point. An alternative is to create a new flatten.)5. I imported the flatten as a shapefile polygon, which I filled with gray value 56. At this point I have displayed a grayscale representation of the elevation data with the flatten overlaid. I exported this as an image.6. I opened the image in GIMP 2.4. I found the best approach was to use the gradient tool set to radial and lighten only. (In this case, the airport is on a plateau, and hence what is desired is to raise the elevation smoothly to the flatten elevation from the surrounding, lower elevation. Graphically, this means to lighten the affected areas. The range of my gradient I set to 56 (height of the flatten) to 25, which appeared to be the lowest area that I had to smooth to. Generally, I applied the tool to an area extending outward from the flatten towards the area of lower elevation. 7. Once I was done, I loaded the edited image back into GM. In GM, I converted the data from image data to elevation data (takes a couple steps but nothing special). 8. Now I just reversed the offset, adding back in the 1384.76 meters to restore my original elevations. I then saved the elevation data as a 16 bit elevation GeoTiff which resample can use directly. 9. I ran my file through resample using LOD equal to the addon mesh (FWIW the addon mesh was LOD 12, and I set the parameter to LOD= 9,12), and also sent my flatten through SBuilderX to create a new flatten bgl. I placed my new mesh file and flatten in a new sceneryarea (higher priority than the addon mesh) and it worked as expected.scott s..

[nudata 10]

Looks interesting.... Question - does this provide straight line slopes from the flatten to the multiple NED points around the airport? Thus any intervening bumps or valleys may require additional attention?Regards,Dick BoleyA PC, an LCD, speakers, CH yoke

[scott967 62]

It's a straight line, so any terrain details are lost. That's where some artistry comes in, in fine tuning how you apply the gradient.scott s..