Very Basic Questions About Project Size and Management

    This is a question for everyone that has made Geoconvert scenery they are very happy with. Do you tend to break the scenery into smaller boxes, say 40nm X 40nm or smaller, or do you make much larger areas so that there is relatively less overlap and a smaller number of total scenery areas?

    Also, do you make areas that go down to level 14, even in large projects, or are you making large areas of let's say level 11 scenery and only doing small areas at high resolution?

    I'm always interested in what successful people have to teach!

    Thanks,

    Bill

    Hi Bill

    I've attached a spreadsheet image to show the way I work on scenery. The whole spreadsheet area is basically a Level 7 tile, the small squares are Level 12 tiles, and the intermediate-sized bold squares are level 10 tiles. The co-ordinates shown on the axes are for the SW corners of the Level 12 tiles.

    My procedure is as follows:

    1. Geoconvert the the whole spreadsheet area with Levels 9 & 11 using FSET resolution 4 (Virtual Earth).

    2. Mark in blue all the Level 12 tiles that are completely sea. I do this by going to the AF2 "Location" tab, clicking on places around the coast and reading off the co-ordinates from there.

    3. Geoconvert smaller areas (usually 4 x 5 = 20 small squares) with levels 12, 13, 14 & 15 using FSET resolution -1 (Virtual Earth). Before doing this I carefully check each area for clouds and colour casts by zooming in using the AF2 "Location" tab. Since I've already used Virtual Earth to geconvert the whole area, these defects will be defects in the VE images. Any Level 12 squares with defects are colour coded as shown. They will be geoconverted using Google Earth images (assuming the latter are better). For coastal tiles I use GIMP to colour in the white areas on the BMPs using a bluish-green sea colour, saving the images as TIFFs before geoconverting them.

    Whatever area I geoconvert I always add 0.01 deg all round so that I'm absolutely sure of having tiles filling the whole area. This is necessary because the co-ordinates shown are only approximate (to 2 dp) so you need a little overlap to be sure. I always set geoconvert to reject masked tiles.

    The letters "TA" etc are only relevant to cultivation in the UK using the Ordnance Survey. They mark the SW corners of the Ordnance Survey grid areas.

    Ian

    Quote from Oldar

    That is very impressive! I am printing out your image so I can study it.

    My approach has been very haphazard to this point. I am considering setting all of my previous efforts aside and starting with a more structured approach.

    Thanks Bill. It certainly works for me - though I appreciate that others may have different ideas about the resolution they feel they need!

    Wow - that's impressive, albeit labor-intense. Thanks for sharing.

    X-Plane's Ortho4XP has a nice config file setting where you can define an alternative ZL for usage around airports where you need higher accuracy. This certainly dosn't allow your fine-grained approach but does the job it does automatically. It would be great if Geoconvert could get such feature at a point, too. This obviously does require Geoconvert to know where airports are situated. I believe Ortho4XP takes these data from OSM (but not sure about that).

    Kind regards, Michael

    Intel i7-6700K 4.0 GHz / Asus MAXIMUS VIII RANGER / Kingston 32 GB DDR4 / Samsung SSD M.2 500 GB + Samsung SSD 1 TB + Intel SSD 500 GB (AeroflyFS2) + WD HD 6 TB / EVGA GTX 1080Ti 11 GB / LG 34UM95 3440 x 1440 / HP Reverb / Win 10/64

    Quote from pmb

    Wow - that's impressive, albeit labor-intense. Thanks for sharing.

    X-Plane's Ortho4XP has a nice config file setting where you can define an alternative ZL for usage around airports where you need higher accuracy. This certainly dosn't allow your fine-grained approach but does the job it does automatically. It would be great if Geoconvert could get such feature at a point, too. This obviously does require Geoconvert to know where airports are situated. I believe Ortho4XP takes these data from OSM (but not sure about that).

    Kind regards, Michael

    Thanks Michael. It is indeed labour intensive, but for me scenery creation is something that I'm happy to spend weeks on! (I would estimate about 50 days for a Level 7 tile consisting entirely of land.) I didn't know about the Ortho4XP config file - in fact this is the only scenery creation I've ever done.

    Quote from Oldar

    Wow, 50 days! I was going to ask you how long it takes you to complete an area like the one you showed. Now I know!!

    I am impressed with your work ethic and commitment to quality.

    I've got into a rhythm with it now. The FSET downloading is about 7 hours overnight. The geoconversion is about 5 hours while I'm out of the house during the day. I use use other odd times to nibble away at the coastline or the defective areas.

    There are probably about 12-15 areas such as the above needed to cover the entire UK - but a lot of them are mostly water, so they won't all take 50 days. I guess we're talking at least a year for the entire country and somewhere between 1 and 2 TB.

    Edited once, last by Ian C (February 15, 2018 at 11:59 PM).