Detroit Metro Area

[Guest]

I have made a Terra Scene of the Detroit Metro Airport using the default settings and 10 miles hoping to not get to Canada. I was not successful and still get the White rectangle on the other side of the Detroit River.Is any one doing a photo realistic scenery of Michigan?

[RandallR 444]

The best way to handle a border area like this is to download shapefiles for the Canadian side and mix them with USGS data for the U.S. side. The Canadian areas will have less detail but will be quite acceptable.I am finishing up a large TS project covering all of Ohio, including portions of Lake Erie and the Canadian areas within those tiles. The mixed data has worked well.It will take us a couple of weeks to finish this project, but if you are still having problems with Detroit, let me know and I'll render the area. I especially enjoy flying into Detroit City airport.

[dkohl 0]

Randall:Could you "package" your Canadian border work (Detroit and Ohio) so that those of us with TerraScene can repeat your work? Would be appreciated for those of us that have not yet learned how to download the Canadian border files.BTW: Does this work with Mexican borders? I was trying to do some San Diego, Southern Arizona and Southern New Mexico rendering and had the same "grew land" problems.Thanks.-DK----David KohlFly! II v2.5.240Dell 8200 P4/1.8G, 1024MB RAM, Nvidia GF4 Ti4600 v41.09, WinXP Home Edition SP1.CH Pro Pedals and Yoke USB.

[RandallR 444]

DK,When the Ohio Project is released, the Marblehead global tile compressed to 139 MB, so we will make that available as a completed tile.The rest of that area, including Marblehead, will also be made available as scenery packs because of the size.The Detroit global tile would be available as a pack also.

[dkohl 0]

When I say "pack", I mean to zip up all the relevant Shape files and USGS data with "directories" specified in the ZIP. Also include the TSP. Then anyone who has TerraScene can unzip to their TerraScene installation and create the scenery on their own. This is what you did for Tampa and it worked great.-DK----David KohlFly! II v2.5.240Dell 8200 P4/1.8G, 1024MB RAM, Nvidia GF4 Ti4600 v41.09, WinXP Home Edition SP1.CH Pro Pedals and Yoke USB.

[RandallR 444]

Yes - that is what I meant. :-)

[RandallR 444]

David,I just finished the global tile below Detroit Metro as part of the Ohio Project - Wow! - what a bear! It looks good now, and stops just above Grosse Ile.I can see now that this area requires some special work. I had to combine USGS, Tiger Census, and DCW shape files - then the day image on the border areas and the water mask required extensive hand-editing. Obviously, this area cannot be done with a common project pack, but I'm developing some "work-arounds" that should allow the scenery to be properly rendered without people having to edit the images themselves.

[Guest]

I am curious, How did you learn all that? I read the Terra Scene Manual, however I I just select the area by airport, choose 20 to 30 miles radius and render I notice also some people are using something called photo shop.Is there a comprehensive manual that can teach me how to do Terra Scene for the Roads, Lakes and Rail Roads and add significant landmarks like the Uni Royal Tire on I-94 or the Ren Center,on the Detroit River.

[RandallR 444]

Titus,I've been using TerraScene for a long time (relatively speaking), dating back to early TS1 and Fly! where we had to download each USGS file manually from the USGS site, slice the scenery with Flyedit, then create response files from which we rendered EPD pods. TS2 was a huge leap forward in ease of use and can, indeed, be as easy to use as you state. But...there are limitations.If you are working outside the continental U.S., then there's more work to do - still not difficult, but you need to study the tutorials regarding creating scenery with shapefile data. This is also important if there is a problem with USGS data (rare, but there are some bad areas or problems), missing data, or a need to update for changes (new lakes, roads, etc.)The problem with Detroit is that it borders Canada, leaving a "gap" in data (no USGS files for anything but U.S.), so it's a combination job (part USGS for the Detroit side and part shapefile data for the Canadian side). There's also a problem in border areas with USGS info - sometimes data will be missing right along the border or incomplete. Any gaps will be filled by huge blobs of default background texture.The extra work was for these items:--DCW shapefiles were downloaded and designated to render Canadian portions--U.S. 2000 Tiger Census shapefiles were downloaded and designated to fill in some missing data for the border--Other U.S. 2000 Tiger Census shapefiles were downloaded and designated to add new lakes, roads and detail areas such as parks, airports, cemetaries, etc. that did not exist earlier or were not detailed in the older USGS info--Anomolies in the data (especially along the border) left lines in the images that had to be removed - Photoshop was used to edit them out.--These same anomolies forced the editing of the water mask - this was done in Photoshop by layering the water mask onto the day image that had already been corrected and edited. This gave me an exact guide for painting in the water areas that were missing.--A new texture pack was created (basically a slight modification of the default in this case) so that Canadian land areas would not be represented as a swamp :-)For areas where accurate data is not available, Colin's TerraShape program can be used in concert with a CAD program to create custom shapefiles. You can then assign textures to these new shapes to create specialized sceneries in TerraScene.If you download Tiger Census shapefiles, you can combine them with regular USGS data. Roads, lakes, and railroads are already highly detailed in the standard USGS data, but by adding Tiger shapefiles you can pick up new ones.If you are ever going to share your sceneries or even extend your scenery area or make adjacecent landscapes, designating a distance won't work. You'll need to create your sceneries to no less than a 1/4 globe tile and use "snap to grid" to get them right. I create entire global tiles for the most part, so that adjacent sceneries will load properly and be as "seamless" as possible.

[Guest]

Thank you for your detailed answer. I think I'll stick to the easy way and wait for better sceneries to appear on Avsim Libraries. Again I want to thank you for the thought and care with which you answered.

[Guest Colins2]

RandallYou have to admit, though, it's fun :)Colin

[RandallR 444]

Don't put away your TerraScene - there will be a lot of new sceneries available throughout this year and beyond, but because of the size required, the majority will be "packages". They'll be easy to use, but you'll need to load them up in TerraScene and render them. The best way is to start it up before you go to bed - your new scenery will be waiting for you in the morning.

[RandallR 444]

Colin,So that's why I'm averaging 3 hours of sleep/night? ;)

[RandallR 444]

Titus,Here's a look at the area in question - Grosse Ile is in the center with the Canadian land mass to the right. The border comes right down the waterway.

http://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3e8aebd9068620ef.jpg

[RandallR 444]

OK David, it's now available.

http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/3899.jpg

http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/3900.jpg