Chris Metzler wrote: > On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:36:46 -0600 > Laurence Vanek wrote: > >> Chris Metzler wrote: >> >>> Are you speaking of where these things are located (i.e. the river >>> isn't where it should be), or the visual appearance of the areas along >>> rivers/lake edges/city boundaries? >>> >> I am primarily speaking of visual appearances. Normally river & lake >> boundaries are not stretches of straight lines with sharp angles when >> they change directions. City boundaries ... same comment. >> >> We also have issues with runways running out into rivers & lakes in >> certains locations. >> > > Right, but that's not because the runways are in the wrong places. It's > because the bodies of water are. > > Both of these problems stem from the use of low-resolution datasets for > roads/rails/rivers/lakes/etc. in scenery production. The ground > elevation info used is of fairly high resolution, but the vector data > (anything that follows a line, so roads, rails, coastlines, rivercourses, > city boundaries, etc.) are of fairly low resolution. The most > straightforward solution is to use higher-resolution datasets to make > the scenery -- and indeed, for much (most?) of the world, better datasets > than what's used for the downloadable scenery are available. The problem > is that using these datasets can dramatically increase the polygon count > of the terrain; if you're using an older/slower computer, this can make > fgfs annoying or even impossible to use. Since the downloadable scenery > needs to be usable by a large cross-section of users, you're probably not > going to see this happen unless we have a change in the software that > generates scenery (see below). But that doesn't mean you can't get the > higher-resolution datasets and make your own scenery for FG; some people > with fast machines do just this. See the wiki pages about TerraGear for > more on how to go about making your own scenery. > > Another possibility is using FlightGear Scenery Designer, or fgsd, which > in its older versions allowed you to edit scenery tiles directly: raise > or lower the ground, change ground polygon types (water --> urban, etc.). > I don't know what the status of fgsd is at this point, because I've been > away from the project for the last year and a half or so (I bought a > house and moved in with my gf! Woohoo!); maybe someone here can provide > more info. > > What would be nice is to find a way to modify TerraGear or replace it > with a new scenery generator which can handle the higher-resolution > datasets a little more gracefully. After all, scenery incorporating > such high-resolution has been generated for other flight simulators and > doesn't result in crushing CPU/GPU loads. But that's not a trivial > project by any means. > > -c > So it would appear that we have maybe two sets of users. Those with higher-end systems that can handle scenery enhancement & those that cannot, the latter missing out on realistic scenery representation. The former must abide by the lowest common denominator. I guess it boils down to what the guiding principles for the project originally were.
I will pass on making my own scenery after reading about whats involved :-) Maybe we need two sets of scenery tiles available, low resolution & higher. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list Flightgear-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users
