David Baron wrote: > So what indeed would/should go there. Three layers here, it seems. > > 1. Contour, the floor. This represents the ground elevations and such. The > aircraft model interacts with this one, taxis on it, takes off from it, flies > over it, lands or crashes onto it. > FGSD/World Custom Scenery Project http://www.custom-scenery.org/ > 2. The terrain image, the carpet. This is laid or projected onto the > countour. > Here is where I believe the googleearth(-type) images should be used instead > of generics. Now, everything is there so when flown at altitude much greater > than the features heights, this looks realistic and no further furnishings > are required. That bridge is represented, buildings, roads, all should be > there without further editing. > > Note that this image was projected from the real ground contour onto a flat > photo and is now re-projected onto our contour. Where there are steep > inclines at feature boundaries, editing may be needed. Otherwize, should play > as-is. > > This can be algorithmicly accented. Forests at lower altitude could have > their > "surface" randomized a bit to simulate treetops, for example. Buildings could > be "raised" though one might not know how much to do it. Side views of > skylines and such would provide more clues. > Not really sure but you might like to have a look at Martin's work
http://document.ihg.uni-duisburg.de/cgi-bin/mapserv40?mode=browse&layer=railroads_railroad10&layer=railroads_railroad20&layer=cities_urban&layer=gshhs_coastline&zoomdir=0&zoomsize=3&imgxy=300.0+300.0&imgext=174.714916+-41.484516+174.964916+-41.234516&map=%2Fhome%2Fmas%2FWWW%2Flandcover%2Flandcover.map&root=%2Flandcover&savequery=true&program=%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmapserv40&map_web_imagepath=%2Fhome%2Fmas%2FWWW%2Ftmp%2F&map_web_imageurl=%2Ftmp%2F&map_web_template=main.html > 3. 3D objects, the furniture. These are various buildings and other features > that we want to show heightwize. Needed near airports and major cities where > altitude much greater than features heights is no longer the case and > elsewhere for eye-candy and more realism. Mostly generics if there is a > sufficient library of building shapes and bridges. Distinctive buildings such > as for New York: Empire State, Chrysler, Statue of Liberty, Financial > district lower Manhattan structures and certain bridges, need be added. > http://fgfsdb.stockill.org/ > What tools are available for doing any of this and previewing it in a > reasonably visual manner? > aaaah.... many tools available; FGSD - Modify the terrain, TaxiDraw - Modify the Airports, taxiways etc TerraGear - regenerate the .btg tiles used by FGFS Blender - modeling 3D models FGTools - placing models and generating AI scenarios would be the main ones I have experience of. To preview the results... well there's only one way... fly it!! ;-) Regards :-D ene ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users
