TerraShape and TurboCAD (all versions)

[Guest Colins2]

Hi allI have found the problem with TurboCAD opening the dxf files created using TerraShape,It's fixed in the new build on my site tonight.It was a very minor thing, just a CR missing from the end of the file :(The TurboCAD message about file error on line 0 was totally misleading, and wrong (and wasted a lot of my time) :-grrIf any users with other brands of CAD program have any problems, please let me know here or by mail. I have d/l TurboCAD LE which is *free* on IMSI's site and have been testing with this.The LE designation is NOT for a 'lite' version as I thought.TurboCAD LE is the full version of TurboCAD 4 Professional and is a very capable program, perfectly adequate for our needs.If you are looking for a 'cheap' CAD program, I recommend it :)Colin

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Colin, >I have found the problem with TurboCAD opening the dxf files >created using TerraShape, That's great news !!!>If any users with other brands of CAD program have any >problems, please let me know here or by mail. You have email! :-) :-)Thanks for all your hard work. As a scenery tool terrashape is up there with the best of them. This program just makes Fly!II that much better.Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Colin,I visited the IMSI site and looked at the TurboCad LE blurb.LE = learning edition (for people like me :-) )The idea being if they can get one started on turbocad then they have got you hooked for life as a prospective customer.Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Colin:Thanks so much!It worked beautifully! I've finally been able to edit the coast of Buenos Aires around SABE (Aeroparque Jorge Newbery).I was wondering if there's a way to place a photo underneath the project, so you could follow the coast. The concept would be similar to that of TerraModels or Taxiway. I haven't looked around yet.Thanks again!Alejandro AmigorenaCheshire, CTFly! II Beta Team MemberAthlon XP 1800ABIT KR7A-RAID768Mb RAMMSI GeForce 3 Ti 500 64MBSB Audigy GamerCH Flight Yoke USBCH Pro Pedals USB

[Guest Colins2]

Alejandro,That would depend entirely upon the capabilities of the CAD program, nothing else.The problem that I can forsee is one of scaling.The other possibility is a raster to vector program.I've been playing with several and the reults are very different.In the meantime, doing the drawing by eye can give some very good results, check out Andrew's (Hagar) Norwegian Airports.Colin

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Colin:I played around with TurboCAD LE (Learning Edition) and was able to do it. I just added a picture of what I want to create and then "sent it to the back" underneath the coast. Now all I have to is modify the coast following the photo and that's it.Another question: At least in TurboCAD LE, the file is basically a series of tiles (like a grid) next to each other (reminds me of the elevation model). If you change one of these tiles, then you need to change the adjacent one(s). Is this the way it is or would it be possible to draw a single, multi-node, line? The reason why I ask this is because I wanted to add interior lakes and rivers and was wondering if I could just add the polygons or if I had to follow this same "tiles" method.I still can't believe the potential that TerraShape has created.Thanks so much!Alejandro AmigorenaCheshire, CTFly! II Beta Team MemberAthlon XP 1800ABIT KR7A-RAID768Mb RAMMSI GeForce 3 Ti 500 64MBSB Audigy GamerCH Flight Yoke USBCH Pro Pedals USB

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Alejandro, >>I still can't believe the potential that TerraShape has >created. For those of us outside of the USA don't have available all the usdg and dem's. Data for Todds Terrascene is only available as DCW shapefiles. Terrashape has opened up a whole new world for us. We can now edit those shapefiles. You mentioned adding interior waterways - lakes, rivers, reservoirs etc.Using Terrashape to modify downloaded shapefiles I have added all that to my small Sydney project. I kept the best till last. Thanks to Colin's Terrashape program the watery runway/taxiway traps of coastline airports - the worst bug in Fly!II (imho)now has a cure. :-jumpy :-jumpy :-jumpyThank you ColinCheers,Roger @YSSY

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Alejandro, I'll bet Sydney to a brick you are using windows XP as your OS :-)Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[Guest Colins2]

Hi AlexI'm glad that you are enjoying it :)It is time consuming, but it's an alternative to trying to edit TGAs.I personally lean more towards CAD programs than graphic editing programs - I'm not very artistic!For lakes and rivers you have a choice.If you want 'real' water, i.e. so you can land a seaplane and also get the water effects that Fly! offers then you have to use the GTP tiles to get this. You also may have to use Ground Tile Transformer to set the underlying tile type to water.If you just want to 'see' some water, then you could add polygons to the shapefile. These polygons are normally on the dnetp layer (Drainage Network Polygons). These lakes will, in effect, just be 'painted' on.TerraScene should then include these lakes in the watermask but Fly! won't know that it is water.You would be able to land a land-plane on them, but a seaplane would probably crash.If you want a piece of coastline on a (ground) tile that is (say) half water and half land then the tile has to be land type. Fly! uses the GTP/watermask to generate it's water effects.All this sounds very complicated! The GTP files are used for generic scenery.The underlying ground types are used regardless of what texture is painted on them. That's why you get sinking taxiways.Colin

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

That is correct, why?Alejandro AmigorenaCheshire, CTFly! II Beta Team MemberAthlon XP 1800ABIT KR7A-RAID768Mb RAMMSI GeForce 3 Ti 500 64MBSB Audigy GamerCH Flight Yoke USBCH Pro Pedals USB

[Guest Hagar]

Ahh now Terrashape is starting to gain momentum! Well I have been trying to bang the truth of this programs enormous potential into your heads for a while :)Ever since the first Fly! version of Terrascene, all of us outside the US really got an incomplete package. Making scenery up to the US standard was impossible without working in Photoshop for months and reslicing my`ol puter to death. Thats the reason I didn`t upload my Fly! sceneries, I felt they were not good enough to share.And I was about to give up Terrascene, but then came Terrashape!

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Alejandro, I'm having mega problems trying to get Terrashape working on my machine , AMD 1700 XP with Ali Magic chipset and Win 98 SE. I noticed your post that you have sucessfully edited a coastline. I just have my suspicions that there is something amiss with my setup and that is what prompted my previous post. I would be very interested to hear from anyone on the forum who has successfully used Terrashape on win 98SE. On the computer genius scale I rank only one step above idiot. :-) Could you please just give me a few clues as to what you do after you have made the changes to the file within Turbocad LE.I notice that the help file states the dxf format is R13. How do I get R12 ?? The blurb on the website said it's R14 !! ie. What settings etc you use to save it How you convert it back to the fly! format and what you do with the Fly format files once you get them.Somewhere in there I'm going terribly wrong as no matter what I do I end up with Fly! crashing to desktop at the Helicopter screen.Please help before the frustration sends me crazy :-)Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Andrew, Mate I'm doing a quick survey. Have you altered any coastline GTP files and if so what is the OS of your system. It looks like this might be the impetus I need to justify an upgrade to Win XP.Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[Guest Hagar]

Hi Roger,I`ve tried all the Microsoft stuff from the first DOS and up. Windows 95 was a time bomb, full of bugs. Win98SE also had a devil built-in, and I never touch those again. I got so mad I even put the CD`s in the recycle bin. Before I touch the 95 series again, I`d rather try Linux. Now I use WinXP Home, and I like it very much. Still has a built-in devil, but a rather peaceful one :-halo BTW I don`t have a clue about gtp files yet.

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Andrew,>I`ve tried all the Microsoft stuff from the first DOS and >up. Windows 95 was a time bomb, full of bugs. Win98SE also >had a devil built-in, and I never touch those again. I got >so mad I even put the CD`s in the recycle bin.It's not my intention to start an anti MS$ campaign. I have had a very happy relationship with Win 98SE. :-) until now :-(Colin has tested Terrashape on both XP and Win 2000 and thinks that it *should* work on ANY of the 32 bit win based OS's.It's only that all the people who so far have posted success with Terrashape modifying the gtp files are using XP?I have used Terrashape with QuickCAD just to modify shape files and although the info was flattened into the 0 layer I have found that I could work around that problem to some extent.I have recently downloaded TurboCad LE (free) and thanks to Colin this can now open the dxf files with the data correctly layered. So I have full shapefile modification available under Win 98SE. This alone makes Terrashape an invaluable asset to any scenery designer outside of the continental USA >BTW I don`t have a clue about gtp files yet. This is argueably the best feature of Terrashape. Just imagine the intricate fiords that you could make with genuine water (not just painted water) that you could land a seaplane on!If one is unfortunate enough to have an airport built on reclaimed land from the sea Fly!II unfortunately still sees that airport's fundamental attribute as water even though land texture has been placed over the top of it and Terrashape has the capability of allowing the coastline gtp files to be modified to allow for the landfill.Terrashape is too good a scenery tool to miss.If it works out that I need a new OS to run it then a new OS it will be. The jury is still out on that however.Cheers and thanks for the commisserations,Roger @YSSY