I think he meant the urban areas, all buildings look flat. And J van E is right here of course.
But this is my roadmap pushing IPACS 
After geoconvert has been released we may sort out all questions around usage.
Let's get airports into aerofly.
How's about the xref library and the 'autogen' buildings?
It's clear, we cannot reach the target tomorrow, it will take time and I accept that kind of progress.
I know how hard all of the guys do work at IPACS.
Rodeo
You have been faster, J van E!
No problem with your opinion.
I think only few people will actually use geoconvert.
For me it is fun instead of flying around I love to fiddle about with the program.
I added my home area and other interesting points with high resolution, accepting the image quality, especially as I don't use VR.
The USGS images are much more consistent than the earth services.
And having the entire Alps in aerofly is far from flat photoreal.
Rodeo
Bill featured my old bird (N6948K) in his Piper Pacer release. His models are always a delight in the sim.
Hey, that's interesting to know. It must be fun to fly your own aircraft in the sim.
Lionheart has provided some source material to IPACS for improving the SDK and the documentation. So there is still a chance to see his aircrafts once in aerofly. But this is not a short term process and strongly depends on the workload of IPACS and Lionheart's time management.
Rodeo
Yes,
and you can do this at any time later. This is one of the examples which I did:
A large area of NAS Whidbey from FSET 4, representing levels 9 and 11 in aerofly.
Later I downloaded the USGS images with a resolution of 1m and added them, representing the levels 12-14.
Visible edges? This depends on the image quality like colors and fitting.
Rodeo
Hi pilots,
while you are waiting for geoconvert I want to show you some results of my tests. During several nightshifts I converted seamlessly central europe from low res images , FSET 4. Since this is huge and all done with FSET it will not be published. Also I do not know whether the image quality is good enough for VR, but definitely suitable as base layer for aerofly FS 2.
See this virtual flight of Blue Angels over europe.
Taking off at Aeroporto Friuli at the mediterranean sea in Italy.
Venice, the city of love.
Cortina, the famous winter sports location in the Italian Dolomites.
Passing Grossglockner, the highest mountain of Austria.
Leaving the northern Alps at Salzburg, Austria.
Ingolstadt, home of Audi in Bavaria, Germany.
Berlin, capital city of Germany, is the northern turning point of the flight.
Frankfurt, largest airport of Germany.
Nice ridges in the western Alps in France.
Reaching the end of the trip in Nice, France.
Hope you enjoyed the flight.
Rodeo
Hi,
the wiki was done with many details for beginners, who are not familiar with the FSET tool.
This is a short version of the process:
I don't know anything about OrthoXP, but Geoconvert is not limited to FSET.
It works for any aerial image with a coordinate system, so it is a rather universal tool.
And aerofly uses a system of level tiles which need a long conversion process. The advantage is the fast access during game play.
Rodeo
While we're patiently waiting (
If I have 3 areas of resolution (.5 for the airport, 1m for the surrounding city, and 2m for a large area around the airport and city), then should I have 3 sets of information (one for each different set of resolution tiles), or up to 15 different blocks of code in total with lon/lat information? Not sure I'm understanding this correctly...
Hope my question makes sense.
Ken,
your question makes a lot of sense and I think, soon we will have several people experimenting with this.
Try to run just one geoconversion and define different areas and the different levels in your config-region.tmc.
Otherwise you may run geoconvert 3 times, specifying different areas and different levels in 3 config-region.tmc.
Rodeo
Coming soon:
NAS Whidbey update
Aspen Colorado
Sorry, our beta testers are a little picky, so we delayed it until next week.
Who's that picky beta tester???
Let me give you some recommendations for your first run of geoconvert:
64bit Windows is fine, 16 MB RAM are better than 8 MB RAM.
Do a restart before running the tool to provide as much pc performance as possible.
Do not start with a 10 GB scenery before you are familiar with the tool.
If you have high res images of 1m or even more, define a small area (just an airport) and run the full set from level 9 to 14.
You can already prepare your content-region.tmc following the aerofly FS 2 wiki.
Having done many different conversions all over the world I have mixed feelings:
FSET is great, geoconvert is great, but the earth services reveal weakness in image quality.
Especially in mountain areas there is often a tile mosaic of extremely different colors and even different seasons.
Many regions are covered by clouds and water surfaces look like a cracked mirror.
Additionally there is a legal problem with publishing these data.
I now prefer the 1m USGS images. Much more consistent image quality and public domain.
There is a bulk download tool available, which is also great and very fast.
I'm really impressed by this US authority.
Please, if anybody of you have a similar source of other countries, publish this link!
Rodeo
Edit:
Of course I meant 16 GB instead of 8 GB RAM, as our IPACS admin stated below
Looking for automation processes:
Can we deduce the top left coordinate from the file name?
I did not yet find enough information about the USGS quadrangle naming convention.
Can we read the pixel counts from the files?
I did not yet find the information in the xml files.
The extent of an 1m NAIP image is fixed to 3.75 x 3.75 minutes, but the image height is depending on the latitude, so the number of pixels may vary.
Ideas are always welcome.
Rodeo
Hi pilots,
I will share everything which is legal and worth to be published.
But during the development and test phase I did a ton of conversions, which are not reasonable for aerofly users.
I concentrate now more on the USGS data, since I think they can be published without legal problems.
It's more difficult with earth services, but I will publish the ini, setups, tmc, tsc files, so an interested user can convert it for himself.
If you check my previous posts, you will see, that I published everything I found out, often combined with a tutorial:
How to create aircraft liveries and convert them, how to add buildings, runways, lightings and so on.
Everything is available 'somewhere' 
here in this forum.
Enjoy aerofly FS 2
Rodeo
I see what you are getting at with the source xmls. I'm using .3m imagery. I see the lat longs on the extents.
Another question, are you importing multiple files for an area or do you mosaic them into a single large image and import that? if you had all the required files could you import a ~10gb imagery chunk (like something dozens of miles or more on a side)?
Geoconvert works with a bunch of files, so there is no need to create a single large image.
I tried several sets with 10GB in total. It worked, but this is clearly a job during the night
I don't exactly know which data you are using.
The 1m NAIP files have an extension of 3.75 x 3.75 minutes per image:
The related xml file specifies the coordinates in lonlat, which is perfect for geoconvert.
Just pick up the westbc northbc for the upper left corner, the eastbc southbc for the lower right corner:
Last step is calculation of resolution:
3.75 minutes / 60 = 0.0625 degrees extension per image.
0.0625 degrees / 6963 pixels = 0.0000089760160.... degrees/pixel horizontal resolution
0.0625 degrees / 10513 pixels = 0.0000059450204.... degrees/pixel vertical resolution
Full tutorial is already in work. But it will be good to have an automatic tool for the TFW.
It's not complicated but routine piece of work if we use many images.
Rodeo
Oh,
since you are already so far, I suggest to use irfanview.
It is freeware and it runs batch conversions.
Make sure, you download 64bit version (or 32 if necessary) plus the 64 bit plugins.
Rodeo
Phil,
most probably the start area is too large. I tried just a part of it and ended up with 20 results.
But since the images fit seamlessly to the adjacent images, you can download them in separate bulks.
The file format JP2 is all right, I will show how to convert this in a batch job to TIF or BMP, and how to create the TFW coordinate files for them. I even may ask my son again to program another tool for automatic TFW creation.
Great service of the USGS! Happy 4th of July!
Good morning,
no, in this case FSET is not used. You can directly download from the viewer.
1. Start the viewer and select Download GIS Data:
https://viewer.nationalmap.gov
2. Use the map, draw a box of your desired area.
3. Select imagery 1meter NAIP and press Find Products
4. Show footprints, select the images and download them.
Rodeo
Hi there,
the US Geological Survey offers a map service with aerial imagery: https://viewer.nationalmap.gov
I made a test by downloading images of 1m NAIP. Creating TFW coordinate files was easy with the given information about edge coordinates and resolution.
Geoconvert can work with these data, the positional fitting is excellent. The big advantage of these NAIP images is the consistent image coloring and quality.
Default scenery:
USGS scenery:
Default scenery:
USGS scenery:
Of course the scenery is flat, but how to add buildings is already solved and can be done subsequently.
If you are interested, check out the nationalmap viewer.
Rodeo
USGS is a fantastic organization.
I just copied these lines from the metadata of an 1m-image:
<accconst>There are no limitations for access.</accconst>
<useconst>None. The USDA-FSA Aerial Photography Field office asks to be credited in derived products.</useconst>
Of course I'm happy to give them the credits they deserve!
You may try this link to the map viewer, where you can select NAIP imagery:
https://viewer.nationalmap.gov
Rodeo
Hi HerveF,
I did not yet finish the job, but I will do so.
We will shortly see, how we can share these data.
Greetings from the large canton.
This is approximately the region plus some adjacent areas.
Must be funny for Americans: This small part of the Alps touches 5 different countries:
Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany.
I digitized the polygon in Google Earth and imported it into FSET.
Hi colleagues,
let me start with Hartman first, since I have done the same calculation before.
If you use the landmark coordinates for the TMC frame, the outer area will be cut away.
To avoid this we have to calculate the extension of your whole image (and we still have to find out the 'real' resolution').
Measure a distance along a horizontal line between 2 landmarks and note both coordinates as well.
Do the same along a vertical line between 2 landmarks.
Find the position in your image and note the pixel counts.
Now we can calculate the x resolution per pixel and the y resolution per pixel.
In many cases they are not equal. But with these values we can estimate the coordinate for any pixel position.
This is not 100 percent, but enough for a first shot.
Phil,
these are already very detailed questions of an expert, I will try to answer them.
If you have an aerial image of high resolution, you will run the full level set of levels in your configuration TMC.
Example: Your image is FSET 0, resolution 0.5m, please edit the configuration TMC from level 9 to 14.
Geoconvert will create your scenery area in different LODs.
So aerofly decides, which level it will display (probably as a pure function of altitude, but I do not know this exactly).
Other example: I downloaded low res images FSET 4, 4minutes/Pixel resolution.
I only ran geoconvert for level 9 and 11. It doesn't make sense, to create a higher LOD without having a better image.
So the maximum display quality in all altitudes is level 11.
Btw, I was impressed by these low res images in aerofly. They look so much better than the default and you can cover large areas, e.g. entire Iceland!
Small high res image in larger low res area:
If you want to add an airport with higher quality imagery, save an image with FSET 0, resolution 0.5m.
You may convert it for all levels, so it replaces the existing image tiles just in this area.
Something more for you expert:
Having high res images downloaded you can do a fast conversion for level 9, 11. See the result immediately in aerofly.
You can geoconvert the same image later again specifying only the higher levels 12-14 and add these tiles.
If you plan to add adjacent areas, please specify your TMC frame with straight coordinates as I have shown above with the yellow frame.
I do this now even for full degrees, this makes it so easy to attach the neighboring area.
So many possibilities, it's fun to experiment with.
Rodeo
