Having trouble with the new geoconvert tool; Please Read

1st Official Post
    • Official Post

    Hello all,


    for anyone trying to use the new geoconvert tool but are getting confused with the tutorial, here are the basic core steps needed to successfully make your scenery. I will fine tune the tutorial to make it a bit simpler to read shortly.


    1) obtain your FSET files (you will only need the image files and inf files for the tool)

    2) place the image files and inf files into the 'input_aerial_images' folder (disregard all other files produced by FSET, you don't need them). Do NOT rename any of the files made by FSET.

    3) use the inf2tfw application; point to the 'input_aerial_images' folder where you have the image and inf files located.

    4) make your TMC file: Use the sample as a grid for your project, make your levels (example: levels 9-14), use the long/lat coordinates shown within the FSET tool, this gives you the corner coordinates needed for the TMC file. You must convert the coordinates by following the wiki here (going to the conversion site shown), only use the coordinates left of the decimal and the next 2 after the decimal (example: -118.36). Note: the same lines you have for your first level you can copy/paste for all levels thereafter.

    5) either run the tool by using command line or you can make a batch file to do this step. Either way works the same and is simple to do.

    6) when the tool completes, make a folder for the resulting files custom for your project and place it into the your 'Documents\Aerofly FS 2\scenery\images' folder

    7) run Aerofly and locate your new scenery on the map

    8) choose an elevation you wish to start at (or make an airport file for starting points), ENJOY your new scenery.


    I hope you have success.


    If the tool crashes;


    for now, make sure that you have enough memory for your project and make sure that nothing else is running that takes up resources.


    There may be a bug that was somehow missed that crashes the tool but we tested this a lot with no issues at all. If there is a bug, it will be certainly worked on.


    Note: if the tool completes with no files, your TMC file likely has an error in it. The most common one is using more than 2 numbers after the decimal point for your coordinates.


    I hope this helps a little bit.

    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

    Like 1 Thanks 1

    I had trouble with the co-ords. If they're back to front you can spend an hour watching a geoconvert and get no files. I also found the conversion to decimal a faff. That's why I made this (NB: not all steps explained. It's mainly about making the TMC file)


    http://ndgrad.co.uk/fs2/fset2tmc/

    Jeff,


    First, a big thank you to IPACS, you, Rodeo and anyone else who has worked diligently on this tool for the masses. I can't say enough how much this tool is appreciated by me and I'm sure many others.


    After a couple of hiccups which I won't go into detail about I have successfully converted scenery using FSET; but, I have an anomaly in my scenery I just cannot figure out or fix. I get some squares or sections of scenery of the default low res scenery that my new scenery will not replace, and I have re d/led my scenery area at a couple of different resolutions with FSET to try and rectify this issue, with no success.


    I'm attaching a screenshot of what I'm seeing; perhaps the team has already ran into this during testing and can tell me what I'm doing wrong or what is causing the problem. If you have no answers I may try the USGS files instead.


    Thanks for any help or suggestions you can give...


    What you can't see because of the angle of the screenshot is that ahead of the plane is converted scenery that looks like it should. Hope you guys can help me solve this.

    • Official Post

    Lol. Sorry about that.

    For the coordinate handling, just read FSET to get your corners of the entire project



    Then head on over to the site noted in the tutorial to convers them to decimal, and take those (results from the site) to use for your TMC.

    Cut down the result to 2 units after the decimal, and make sure you place them as longlat.

    The top set in TMC is the upper left corner and the bottom set is lower right corner. It will look like this when done:


    <[tmcolormap_region][element][0]

    <[uint32] [level] [10]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_min] [-81.84 24.79]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_max] [-80.88 24.51]>

    >


    Now, make each level the exact same (only changing the level of course)


    There you have it.

    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

    Quote from drhotwing1

    You must convert the coordinates by following the wiki here (going to the conversion site shown), only use the coordinates left of the decimal and the next 2 after the decimal (example: -118.36). Note: the same lines you have for your first level you can copy/paste for all levels thereafter.

    Quote from drhotwing1

    Note: if the tool completes with no files, your TMC file likely has an error in it. The most common one is using more than 2 numbers after the decimal point for your coordinates.

    The example in wiki shows more numbers:


    [-118.826528 39.503078]

    [-118.623283 39.328606]


    Is this incorrect and can lead to "error"?

    As said - all the coordinates can easily lead to misunderstandings .. :/

    Unless I've missed something I think that your long version wiki instructions are incorrect in saying that use of the inf2tfw application is optional. I tried not using it and kept getting an error when trying to run geoconvert that said no images were found in the input folder. You may want to change that part of the tutorial.

    • Official Post

    The use of the inf2tfw application is optional if you wish to make your own tfw files. Making your own also works.


    I'm going to update the wiki soon to make things a bit easier for users.

    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

    While I would have appreciated some help with the problem I posted above, I finally succeeded in solving my issues myself and am happy to report my scenery area is completed and functioning as it should!


    I started from scratch and made two changes from what I had been doing: first, I changed the lon/lat coordinates to just two decimals vs the six or more I had been using (example -85.40 38.20); second, I placed the completed files in it's own directory under scenery/images in the documents folder. Previously I had been placing the files directly in the scenery/images folder. And, as it's been posted numerous times now in other threads one needs to run the inf2tfw conversion program as geoconvert does not do this automatically as the wiki states. Perhaps it is going to at some point but right now it does not.


    For Rodeo, here are two screenshots of my finished work:



    I have used 2m res for the entire area (146x75) as an experiment to see if 2m res is acceptable and I believe it is, though my future endeavors are going to be 1m res projects. I wanted a large amount of my home area to fly in to start and decided to make it 2m res so it would be more manageable. At 2m I can easily spot my home and other local buildings, landmarks, etc. I have already d/led a smaller 20x20 or so smaller area of the city proper at 1m res which I am going to attempt to convert and then place in a new folder in my documents/scenery/images folder. Then, I will see if the higher resolution 1m area takes precedence over the 2m area. I do not want to place the 1m scenery in the same folder as my 2m scenery as I am afraid it will cause issues such as that I had earlier.


    Sorry for the long winded post, my intent is to show that geoconvert does work and works great. Again, thank you IPACS and all involved with this tool. If you're having issues, hang in there: just follow the steps and it will come.

    Ken

    Edited once, last by KenR297 ().

    Quote from drhotwing1

    Thank you for your post, it makes us all feel good knowing that many are now getting this to work .

    You're more than welcome; I know you're working hard trying to help everyone get geoconvert working for themselves, and I think I speak for everyone when I say thanks again for your efforts.


    As an addendum to my last post above, I completed the 1m res scenery conversion, placed the files in a new folder in the scenery/images folder in my AFS2 documents folder, and am pleased to report that the 1m res scenery does indeed take precedence over the 2m res scenery. Now I need to enjoy my new scenery, add a few more areas, and begin learning how to add an airport while we wait for the additional tools that will allow us to add buildings to our newly created scenery. :)

    Ken

    Edited once, last by KenR297 ().

    • Official Post
    Quote from KenR297

    You're more than welcome; I know you're working hard trying to help everyone get geoconvert working for themselves, and I think I speak for everyone when I say thanks again for your efforts.


    As an addendum to my last post above, I completed the 1m res scenery conversion, placed the files in a new directory in the scenery/images folder in my AFS2 documents folder, and am pleased to report that the 1m res scenery does indeed take precedence over the 2m res scenery. Now I need to enjoy my new scenery, add a few more areas, and begin learning how to add an airport while we wait for the additional tools that will allow us to add buildings to our newly created scenery. :)

    Keep in mind that you don't have to build and model an airport to take off at one. You can just define the runway thresholds and convert that. You can then select the runways on the map and see the airport on the map as well. Not a lot of work more than using mygeoposition.com to find your coordinates.

    I'm glad you have it working now. I had to take a small break from being on the forum before and missed your requests for help.

    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

    Quote from KenR297

    You're more than welcome; I know you're working hard trying to help everyone get geoconvert working for themselves, and I think I speak for everyone when I say thanks again for your efforts.

    Yes, agreed. Thank you for all the good support.


    Quote from drhotwing1

    Keep in mind that you don't have to build and model an airport to take off at one. You can just define the runway thresholds and convert that.

    This is interesting. Can you explain more closely, please. Do you mean the "Dummy" (threshold) in 3d studio max?

    Ken,


    many thanks for your detailed reporting.

    You did the problems solve by yourself, excellent workflow!


    In the past, I used the \images directory and long coordinates. I must admit, modification of this did not arrive at me.

    Putting all the users' experience together we will modify the tutorial in several points.


    Thanks again, great job

    Rodeo

    When using FSET, you can look at the bottom lines in the generated TXT file to find the decimal version of the corners. They are also in the INF file. Of course, if you want to use a smaller area than the BMP provides, you need to do your conversion. I like to use GoogleEarth to find my corners and use the decimal option for the printout at the bottom - and I usually place bookmarks there so I can copy/paste from the Bookmark Properties popups.

    "one needs to run the inf2tfw conversion program as geoconvert does not do this automatically as the wiki states"


    That's what I thought and unless the FSET produced inf files (relating to the bmps) are exactly the same name then geoconvert doesn't work as has been stated elsewhere and not in the wiki. The FSET bmp and ini file names are NOT the same and you have to manually rename them for something to supposedly work.


    Even soooo.... the result doesn't seem to "properly" work and seems to produce effects like that which is shown by other users above (blurred tiles, misplaced tiles etc etc). Is the auto feature in geoconvert actually doing the same job as inf2tfw - are you sure?


    Soooooooo YES as the man says, I'll go back and run inf2tfw independently and don't rename them inf files (leave well alone).


    Plus I think whoever said just use 2 decimal places for the co-ords is also likely right too.


    I've had a complete failure of a day with my Lake District convert and it's probably because I'd changed to the auto-convert (file renaming) method which seems flawed (could be me). First attempt without this i.e. just using inf2tfw was cool and then I tried masks, failure! as the auto "system of operation" actually didn't seem to pick up the mask files correctly. Then, after 2 "large" glasses of Baileys and ice I simply had to give up as ALL tiles were alcohol blurred. I simply probably need the right spanner for the right nut but I never expected to be working "under the hood" on this. I'll get this car going, you'll see.


    Also - masking via GIMP, no no noooo please. How about an example in Photoshop as "who uses GIMP".


    :)


    BG2518-Bob

    • Official Post

    Yes to both using the inf2tfw application and the limit of 2 decimal places.

    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 Jeff,

    Thanks so much for all your great work. I've been looking forward to the geoconvert tool and have tried my best to get it working, I'm just stuck on one thing - I've followed all the steps, run the tool (which then converts successfuly) but I can't find the files under the scenery-images file. Can you help me in any way? What am I doing wrong? Any help is much appreciated.

    Tim

    tpowellau,


    can you please publish your config...TMC and one of the TFW files?

    Most probably some coordinate might be inverted, when the converter runs through and no images are done.


    Rodeo


    I forgot:

    Please create a folder \scenery\images_raw in your converter directory.

    I have set the write raw images to true, so you can see the tile content.