Conversion time estimate?

  • Hi All,

    i've been working to get the Belgium scenery in Aerofly. It took my computer about 22 hours to download all the images in 1m resolution.

    Now the converter is running for 24h+ with conversion level 13 at max. I'll try level 15 for a small local area here later on.

    I see that files are still beeing added in my scenery/images folder, even do the geo converter tool seems to be stuck showing

    'current level : 12' somewhere. My cpu usage is still +50% too;

    Is there a way to estimate how long this process could take (the area is about 170 x 80 nm) ?

  • I download at FSET -1/0.25 m and convert levels 12-15. I usually work on an area equal to the size of of a level 10 tile (i.e. about 14 x 14 nm). It takes me about 6 hours to download the images and about 4 hours to geoconvert them. Before I do that I put down a base layer of level 9 and 11 tiles over an area equal to the size of a level 7 tile (i.e. about 100 x 100 nm). For this first stage I use FSET resolution 4 - and the downloading and conversion take about 30 mins each.

    My impression is that geoconversion time is roughly proportional to the number of tiles produced, irrespective of their level. In a level 10 tile area there are 1360 level 12-15 tiles (i.e. 16+64+256+1024). So 1360 tiles are taking 4 hours, which is roughly 340 tiles per hour - or one every 10 seconds or so. (My computer is fairly well specified, but not the fastest currently available. CPU usage is well over 50%.)

  • Hey thanks for the answers,

    no the process is still running. In total (level 9,11,12 and partial 13) i have almost 4000 files.

    As far as i see it now, it's producing 130 tiles per hour, i don't have a super fast CPU (FX8350)

    The geoconverter tool is still stuck showing :

    Percentage Complete : 56.200%

    Num level : 3 of 4

    Current level : 12

    Num tiles : 217 of 875

    I guess it will show me a 'complete' when it's all done, but a decent progress status would make this geoconverter

    tool allot more fun. I haven't flown aerofly for 3 days now bc of this converting tool running and i'm getting serious

    withdrawals ! haha.

  • Sometimes the counter doesn't work and the only way to be sure it's finished is to monitor the number of tiles in the "images" folder. I may be wrong about this but I have a hunch it has something to do with moving the geoconvert window or fiddling about with something else on the computer while geoconvert is running.

  • Sometimes the counter doesn't work and the only way to be sure it's finished is to monitor the number of tiles in the "images" folder. I may be wrong about this but I have a hunch it has something to do with moving the geoconvert window or fiddling about with something else on the computer while geoconvert is running.

    Well i have moved this window to my second monitor, and now that you mention it, i don't think it changed since then.

    When i do the math, and about 3 square NM for a level 13 tile. In total i have about 14450 nm² to do, so i should have 4800 tiles of level 13...

    means i'm still only halfway :| (having 2900 tiles already)

  • Well i have moved this window to my second monitor, and now that you mention it, i don't think it changed since then.

    When i do the math, and about 3 square NM for a level 13 tile. In total i have about 14450 nm² to do, so i should have 4800 tiles of level 13...

    means i'm still only halfway :| (having 2900 tiles alread)

    Only another 15 hours to to go! If money was no object I'd have 2 computers!

  • As a rule of thumb, I never geoconvert more than 10-12 "area counts" in FS Earth Tiles. To achieve that, you should consider using lower resolution for general areas that cover all your airports, and geoconvert to 9 to 12 levels. Then consider using higher resolution for those specific small airport areas that only include your preferred airports (look at previous posts here on how to geoconvert and levels to use for those specific and overlaped airport areas). The geoconverted images could all be placed in the same folder of the general area.

    Hope this helps.

    Cheers, Ed

  • I do basically what Ed does too. I pick out a maximum of 12 "area counts" at FSET level 2, and geoconvert at levels 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Then, I go back later and pick small areas round the towns or airports I wish to fly in. The town might be grabbed at FSET level 0, and geoconverted at level 14 and level 15. Finally, the airport itself is grabbed again at FSET-1, and geoconverted at levels 14 and 15. This works for me.

    I just hope that the source location FSET is picking from never takes exception to this activity, for if they do, it will break the hearts of many hobbyists in the FSX/P3d, Xplane, and now AFS2 worlds.

    - Kenneth

  • Hi,

    this night somewhere the converting ended, the tool stayed at the screen as shown above.


    Since i don't have too much space on my C:\ SSD drive, i moved my scenery to another drive and pointed to it

    with the 'extra_user_folder' option in main.mcf.

    All worked pretty well and the scenery loads perfectly. Too bad it arent google earth images, allot of clouds are seen,

    Right now i started a small area at FSET resolution -1 that i'm going to convert to a level 15. Just 10x10 nm.

    should go allot faster (i hope !) :D

  • I recommend not to use a single level during the conversion of a very tiny area. Use several levels instead. There's a post from Rodeo showing its suggested settings in these cases. From memory, I think he recommended to use levels 11 to 14 (or to 15 in your case if you want to try, I've never used level 15 myself). That would prevent imperfections or very low resolution areas to show between the hi-res airport area and the rest of your bigger area, on the overlaping.

    Cheers, Ed