To all Terrascene Beginners - Pascals TS "debugging-tool"

[Guest HeliFLYer]

If you are a TS beginner and have to use shapefile-data for scenery outside the USA its difficult to see what mistakes you made when manually adding shapefiles to the project. Pascal LSGC made a little mini-tutorial to produce "maps" with your TS-data - works also with shapefiles. I used it as a "debugging-tool" and found immediatly some big mistakes I made (and what poor landuse-data we can get for Europe). See 2 examples (before and after error-correction) as attachment, because I don't actually know how to place the pictures HERE.Your will find Pascals mini-tutorial under Subject: "RE: Who wants to create shapefiles for...."Thank you once again Pascal Lachat for that wonderful idea!Georg

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Hi Georg!Pleased that you find the idea useful! :-)BTW, where is the scenery you are working on?I agree, getting good shapefiles for Europe is a real problem! There exist some incredibly detailed datas for Switzerland, but the price is incredible too, :-eek just not in the range of my possibilities!************Mini tutorial to place a picture HERE : http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43386.jpgAfter you hit the "upload file" button, the box says:"The file you chose was sucessfully uploaded to the server.The URL of this file is"followed by the complete url, which you can just copy and past inside your message.Don't forget to remove the content of the Attachment box after that (or we'll see your image twice)************ Cheers!Pascal

[Guest HeliFLYer]

Hi Pascal,the region I am working on is a Northern Germany area around Bremen where I live and have most of my (virtual and real) heli flights. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43787.txtAt the begin of this year I already made a satellite-picture-scenery with converted scenery from fs2k with FS-IMP from Padraic Morgan. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43788.txthttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43789.txtThe disadvantage of this is that - I cannot share the scenery. It is stricly prohibited by D-Sat-provider AND Padraic Morgan though I'm sure most of the fs2k-scenerydesigners of this region would not refuse to conversion/sharing if asked and honoured (especially as those fs2k-sceneries which work well with FS-IMP mostly are outdated). - my computer must bare a heavy workload resulting in stuttering frames if FS-IMP-Scenery is to dense.- colors (even if you improve them) and resolution of the scenery are not satisfyingSo, now I had the idea try some other method with combining different grafic-data through many layers. TerraScene (and your TS-map-procedure) is expected to be a wonderful frame to put all this together. To develop the methods or search for them in tools, descriptions, the forum etc. is a very time-consuming work and I don't know wheather my skills are good enough to get a satisfying result. BUT I try it because it's FUN and maybe in some month there is another piece of earth FLYable for all who are interested.Next step will be to read your ETS-Tutorial-Ang carefully, I just had a look at it. But as a beginner you have to go on step for step and some weeks ago I really found it TOO ADVANCED for me. My goal is to show up in the forum in some (how many?) months and tell you all that there is a little scenery ready for download, not eye-candy but with all you need as a VFR-pilot: water/streams/lakes, highways/streets, cities/small town, some little airports, some important objects (VFR!). Let's see if it is possible.Thank you once again and also to all those other numerous FLYers who make our SIM to such a wonderful experience day by day!

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Hi Georg!The pictures don't show yet, you must check the "jpeg image file" button just before uploading. I had to download them and change the file extension to see them.Forgive me, I want to post them again so that everyone can see your very nice scenery (and be frustrated as well ;-)).<>In my opinion, this definitely the way to go! There are many possibilities with layering, for example:-Combine black/white orthofotos whith color satellite pictures-Colorize b/w orthofotos with TS produced maps (Dannol has shown some beautiful shots with that technique, but has never distributed the scenery)-Use color satellite pictures to adjust TS rendered scenery and give it some lively colors.These are just ideas which require some work and adjustment, and I'm sure there are many others!Sorry if my ETS method is a bit though :-) I guess you are not the only one who tried to use it but couldn't get past the tutorial!Now I'm working on the second version. I was frustrated because I couldn't get some realistic mountains with sharp rock and steep cliffs! Had to push the whole thing a bit farther. I use the "Filter Factory" (a programmable plugin for custom filters) to get some nice plugins with complex math. I created some "elevations maps" for each type of terrain (forest, rock, buildings) and the standard TS shading, then the filter computes a nice bumped map for the final shading.My maths where a bit rusty, but now I have (slowly) made the most important steps. I hope the final result will be good enough. :-)Cheers!PascalGeorg's Bremen scenery:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43822.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43823.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43824.jpg

[Guest HeliFLYer]

Hello Pascal,sorry for the inconvenience I caused. Checked also the box "embedded URL", that was wrong. I just answered Jan and put some pics in after having read your message above. Worked fine.Thank you for your advice. My intended steps are:- Get a basic picture with towns, highways, streets, railroads with use of TS (already in work)- Extract a water-mask from the satellite-picture- Scan in VFR-chart and extract some information (i.e. big forrest areas have special color), size it (TS or Sat-Pic as frame)- Search for free b/w Sat-Pics of the area (no positive result until now)Sounds very easy but will be some challenge for me. Give me some time.Thank you once again for your assistance.Keep FLYingGeorg (EDDW)