Moving an Island

[Guest pecrowther]

Now that I have learned to use coastline maker and have moved the shoreline and roads to exactly the right locations, I find that the underlying grid that I created is not in the right location. I now have a few roads that plunge off the end of the island. So it appears that I need to move the grid a wee bit west.I have tried to do so by inserting different values in the destination section of my inf file. But, so far, the island is refusing to budge. Any ideas?Also, I recall reading about a process for converting from USGS dems to dems that are more appropriate for MSFS. For example, the USGS dem appears to generate a map that is slightly tilted. Perhaps this would help solve the problem with the location of the grid?Thanks

[Guest luissa]

>Now that I have learned to use coastline maker and have moved>the shoreline and roads to exactly the right locations, I find>that the underlying grid that I created is not in the right>location. I now have a few roads that plunge off the end of>the island. So it appears that I need to move the grid a wee>bit west.>>I have tried to do so by inserting different values in the>destination section of my inf file. But, so far, the island>is refusing to budge. Any ideas?>>Also, I recall reading about a process for converting from>USGS dems to dems that are more appropriate for MSFS. For>example, the USGS dem appears to generate a map that is>slightly tilted. Perhaps this would help solve the problem>with the location of the grid?>>Thanks Hello,Do want to shift your new roads and shorelines?or do you want to shif the mesh (the terrain model) to match you new roads/shorelines?In the second case (or if you want to make meshes from 1 arc second or 3 arc second data) I have a tool that reads the DEMs and converts them to BSQs (ready to use by MS tools) or to bitmaps (for viewing the DEMs). It also merges, interpolates, filters, crops, up samples, down samples, ..., BSQs. If you want to try it please email me at luis@ptsim.comRegards, Luis

[Guest pecrowther]

It is the latter. I was to move the grid. The coastline, roads and airport are now exactly where they need to be.I am using a 10m dem. I combined four 7.5 X 7.5 grids into a single 10m dem that covers 15 X 15 grid. (Although I can't remember what utility I used to do that.) I used "read_dem" to convert it to a "dat" file. I used "resample" to convert the "dat" file to a "bgl" file. In the inf file I originally had "UseSourceDimensions = 1", which left the grid displaced slightly east.As a test, I deleted "UseSourceDimensions = 1" and inserted the (what I think are) the proper coordinates: NorthLat = 15.125 SouthLat = 14.875 EastLon = 145.75 WestLon = 145.5I then tried changing the last two lines to: EastLon = 145.65 WestLon = 145.4assuming that this would shift the grid west. But absolutely nothing happened.Am I missing a step? Would your utility help?Thanks

[Guest pecrowther]

After responding, I realized that I had seen the "Lon" commands also expressed as "Long" (I believe the SDK gave both versions). So I substituted "Long" for "Lon" as follows:EastLong = 145.65WestLong = 145.4Using TMFViewer, it appears to have shifted - by too much. So I inserted a .01 shift instead.The problem is that, when I go to fs2004, the cliffs are unchanged. And, as I look at the quality of the cliffs, they appear very jagged, which suggest that something is overriding my mesh. (I now have a large coastal plain.) I wonder if I am not being nailed by a "flatten" command that is overriding my coastlinemake commands- since I am moving the island into what was formerly ocean?I see that the last paragraph of the LWM SDK talks about how to specify no flattening for LWMPoly's. Is that what I need to do?

[Guest luissa]

Hi,Changing the boundaries of the Destination scetion will not shift it. What you need is to change the North Latitude and West Longitude of your input data in the Source section.Regards,Luis

[Guest pecrowther]

Thanks Luis,You are right. That does it too. I had tried that before, but since nothing changed, I assumed that the grid had not moved.Looks like the default flatten command made it look like nothing moved.Any ideas on how to get rid of the default flatten? I have heard that you can fix it by getting rid of the default bgl for the area, but might create other problems.Fortunately, the area I am working on is 3 islands all alone in the middle of the Pacific- Tinian, Saipan and Rota. So I may be able to fix the damage.Phil

[Holger 0]

Hi Phil:here's an approach for editing or replacing the problematic water flatten files: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=15058&page=If the area is fairly small you can also try the re-mesh function provided it Ground2K4.Cheers, Holger

[Guest pecrowther]

Holger,I had just noticed that there was a helpful conversation going on "next door". By trial and error, I found the right HP bgl file, pulled it (and set it in a safe place) and checked out my mesh. Almost perfect. I may be able to use your method, or because I just happen to be working with a small group of islands, can do a mesh replacement.Thanks to you and Luis for helping me solve a perplexing problem.Phil

[Guest pecrowther]

Just an update in case anyone else is trying this:1. I eliminated the mesh conflict by locating the fs2004 HP*.bgl for the area in which my island is located and removed it to a safe place.2. Since we do not have the tools to disassemble and reassemble the fs2004 bgls, I found the corresponding fs2002 hyp*.bgl and disassembled it using BGLAnalyze. Since this is a fs2002 file, BGLAnalyze had no trouble disassembling it.3. I edited the area where my mesh is located to remove conflicts and reassmbled it using BGLC with the fs2004 TDFHeader and TDFMacros (the same I used to compile the coastlinemaker files).4. I inserted the edited hyp file in the Addon Scenery files with my new mesh.Everything seems to be working just fine.(I suppose if I wanted to be perfect, I could disassemble my new coastline LWM file and and merge it into the edited hyp file. That would eliminate some duplications.)Now, if I want to, I can repeat the process for the surrounding islands.Cheers,Phil