Preventing crossover

  • Hi guys,

    So after following a tutorial, I worked out how to create scenery with geoconvert and the helper tool, which works well.

    When I created a second set of scenery and went ahead to paste the files into the Aerofly folder, it came up saying there are duplicates (from the first geoconvert), would you like to replace them.

    Should you create sub-folders within the scenery > images folder each time you create scenery to avoid this? I of course don't want to overwrite previous scenery creations each time I make a new one.

    Thanks :)

  • Yes, just drop all files from each converted area into separate sub-folders and drop those into your Documents\Aerofly FS 2\scenery\images folder.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Hi,

    actually this is one of the very few topics where Jeff and I have different opinions.

    My theory:

    I fly to an area with duplicate tiles in different folders. aerofly has to load them and decide which one to take.

    Ok, aerofly manages it. But is it necessary?

    My suggestion:

    If you have adjacent areas

    If you have duplicate tiles without mask file.

    Copy them into a single folder and overwrite the duplicates, the content of the images is the same.

    It is another story if you have duplicate tiles with masks. They may show different content. But for this reason we added the option to geoconvert, create only tiles without mask.

    I did whole Europe on a low FSET4 level in about 2 dozen conversions. It saved me hundreds, if not thousands of tiles by combining them into a single folder.

    Rodeo

  • Gentlemen,

    I am at last getting to grips with making photo scenery, and it is addictive.

    So, if I decide to work on the prairies of Canada, for flying in the Cessna at say 3000 ft (AGL), here are some questions.

    1. What is the best FSET setting to give a compromise between file size, download/processing time and quality?

    2. If I set it at FSET 2, for instance, should I then convert it only at say 12 and 13 in geohelper, or include lower settings such as 9 and 11?

    3. What if I create a high-def section? (FSET 0 and then 14) Can it be placed in the same folder, and will it overwrite lower def when flown over?

    4. What about adjacent areas? Do you "draw" in FSET right to a specific line, or can you overlap slightly and place in a different subfolder in images?

    5. I have tried a 20nm x 20nm area. Should I be looking at bigger coverage

    And, last question..

    On my first attempt, I am seeing tiles which seem to take longer to load, or load only as I fly closer. How do I prevent this? I have not seen this happen in any default or DLC scenery. (See image)

    Thank you for your help.

    - Kenneth

    EDIT... I have now added a second 20nm x 20nm area, and the "missing tiles" continue. Is this a memory issue? They load in late, and sometimes almost not until the aircraft is right above the area. Is there a way to force the sim to hold more texture tiles in display? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

    Edited once, last by KJKsimmer (November 21, 2017 at 5:07 AM).

  • hi Kenneth,

    In what levels did you compile your orthophotos with Geoconverter?

    Your issue report sounds to me like you only compiled level 14, but no lower levels. If it's the case, then your scenery tiles only display when you're flying close.

    A same orthophoto should be compiled in levels 9, 11, 12, 13 and 14.

    If you have a very high resolution orthophoto you may even want to add level 15, but compilation will take more time and disk space...

    Hint: I always first compile new zones in levels 9 and 11 only and check the result. It's rather fast and shows most issues when there are any. When everything's fine I relaunch the geoconvert tool, this time with levels 9 up to 14...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

    Edited once, last by Trespassers (November 21, 2017 at 12:35 PM).

  • I've had the exact same issue when I geoconverted, but it was an area adjacent (and actually covering part of) DLC, and I attributed it to that since when I did Hawaii there was no problem. I haven't seen an answer about it yet, nor found a solution and yes it was geoconverted from 9 to 14 except 10.

    I don't think however the Canadian prairies are adjacent to DLC so ???

  • Hi guys

    I went back and resampled at FSET2, and then converted with Geohelper 9, 11, 12, 13. It is happening less, but still present to a degree. What I also find is at higher altitude, the coverage I have created is still not showing completely. I am wondering if there's a setting within AF2 configuration files that determines the range of a specific scenery in terms of how it is displayed.

    - Kenneth

  • I've tested many variations and found that converting levels 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 (15 if you want higher resolution) gives you the best results.

    I've run over 30 very large areas, and a couple covering entire states (Pennsylvania and Florida) all with the same amount of levels, and all at FSET level -1. Aside from time, they have all run successfully. It seems that some users have had problems when trying to make different areas with different resolutions and try to stitch them together. In my experience it's best to pick your sweet spot and keep everything uniform .

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • What is happening let's say if everything is at 10 or everything is at 15?

    I'm not fully relating as to what is happening between the resolution at which we download from FSET and these numbers.

    When we set a resolution in FSET (let's say, 1m) then we have 1m/pixel right?

    Then at level 9 we combine pizxels to a lesser resolution? For distance (or altitude or both) display?

    and at level 15 we keep the original resolution (1m/pixel)?

    So that if everything is at 10 we get lighter footprint, less loading but less details when close to the terrain?

    And if we load everything at 15 we are risking of slowing down the engine (and it takes a huge amount of storage, but on the other hand if we translate everything at 9, 10, and 15 it uses even more storage)? Is that it?

  • It is more of a problem of missing tiles than resolution. The best way to overcome this issue would be to add more consecutive levels in your projects.

    When testing scenarios with only one level converted there were missing tiles once reaching over a certain altitude.

    It really is best to at least convert with levels 10,11,12,13, and 14 to avoid issues.

    My personal collection (and subjective opinion), taking my IPACS hat off, I like making and flying over scenery of a very high resolution as my actual VR machine has a 25TB NAS fiber connected to it and I'm using a 1080ti GPU, so storage and performance is no issue for me.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • I've got to a similar stage - i.e. successfully made one 10' x 10' area of scenery in southern England (roughly 18 km x 12 km at this latitude). I'm using a resolution of -1 in FSET and levels 9, 11, 12, 13 & 14 for the whole area (as opposed to different areas for different levels). FSET seems to take a couple of hours to produce the .bmp images and geonconvert takes about 30 mins to do its job. I had previously created a small test area a few km away and, like the OP, I copied the new larger area into the same folder as the smaller area, choosing to replace files with the same name. When I selected "Location" in FS2 I could see the new larger area but not the old smaller one.

    Reading this thread it seems that I might be able to solve the problem by putting the different areas in different folders. I've noticed that many of the geoconverted files have another companion file with the same name, except for "_mask" at the end. What is the purpose of these mask files? Do I need them? Could I dump all tiles in the same folder if I got rid of the mask files? These mask files don't seem to exist in the default FS2 or DLC scenery.

    Many thanks BTW to all who have made the this possible - whoever wrote the Wiki, whoever produced the video I watched & the help tools I used.

    Edited once, last by Ian C (November 24, 2017 at 1:30 PM).

  • Hi Ian,

    ...I had previously created a small test area a few km away and, like the OP, I copied the new larger area into the same folder as the smaller area, choosing to replace files with the same name. When I selected "Location" in FS2 I could see the new larger area but not the old smaller one....

    This is fine. You have overwritten the area with the same tiles, so they only exist once in aerofly.

    This is an explanation of tile masks, and what happens during conversion:

    Same TTC file names

    The best strategy is to avoid masks by snapping to tile borders. This can be selected in the GeoconvertHelper tool by snap to Level 9 borders.

    But Level 9 tiles have an extension of rough 78 km, so in smaller areas you will get masks unavoidably.

    Rodeo

  • Since I wrote the above post I've read a bit more in the forum, and I think I now have some understanding of what the masked tiles are. (They're the ones at the edge of the area, so they're not full tiles?) If this is the case, would it be better to get rid of them altogether? If you did that I imagine you would need more overlap between areas. What would be a reasonable overlap for 2 adjacent 18 x 12 km areas containing levels 9, 11, 12, 13 & 14?

  • Many thanks for your reply Rodeo. I'll study it and try it out later today.

  • Not everyone in the flight sim community will have the time nor inclination to create scenery.

    Take Australia in FS2 as an example, there is no scenery (nothing) - it's going to take a lot of work (I for one don't have the time).

    I think it's a great platform, but they need to simplify the processes for the non-tech people.

    Handy cultivation tools

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    Edited once, last by Kloot (November 25, 2017 at 11:49 PM).