Posts by nickhod

Quote from Unlikely Spider

This is great. However, I thought someone told me that the default Aerofly uses USGS imagery. I tried a test area in Yosemite, and it does not match at all. Maybe the images have been updated since the devs added their textures to the sim? The newly-converted USGS image is on the bottom/right, and default is on the top and left.

It's likely that IPACS edited USGS scenery to correct colours and boost contrast and saturation.

You can do this with AeroScenery too, but it'll take some trial and error.

Quote from TomSimMuc

Yes, sorry I have to confirm the black squares too.

It seems necessary Nick, that you check if the requested tiles are downloaded. In negative case request the tile again...

Yep, The next beta release will check that the USGS tile is a valid image and try again if not.

Quote from Jak61

"Fixed Grid Square Hex Names

Previous version got the hex names of grid squares wrong".

Can this, or something similar, be the reason for our problem of the misplaced "Grid Square"?

It shouldn't be. That issue was just the AeroScenery UI getting grid square names wrong. The coordinates of the scenery were still correct.

I'll do more testing with ArcGIS when I'm back from holiday.

Quote from pmb

This was made using ArcGis in the new AeroScenery

Can you confirm whether the generated scenery is in the right place? (As in, airports or features from OSM match the ground underneath).

There was a report that ArcGIS scenery was appearing in the wrong place and I'm trying to figure out what's happening there.

I think it's awful in VR and totally immersion killing. Ideally it should be something you can disable globally.

Quote from Jetjockey10

Can someone (Tom) suggest what to adjust to bring the Savannah image closer to the Jackson images?

In that part of the settings screen you can open an already downloaded image to use as the preview image, which will probably help.

(One feature I want to implement is a live before and after preview).

The Savannah image looks washed out so you'd be decreasing brightness and increasing contrast & saturation.

Quote from Jetjockey10

Using USGS source with the beta AS . . . .

The scenery looks OK when using TomSimMuc's settings but every grid so far has missing data. Just fuzzy squares where scenery should be located.

Thanks for testing.

Can you let me know what the stitched image looks like? Are there tiles missing causing areas of transparency?

There was an example earlier with grey squares being returned.

Seems like I'll need to test whether USGS tiles are valid and retry if required.

(I'm on holiday / vacation until the 5th Aug, so I'll be dropping into this thread sporadically).

Quote from IZ0JUB

I removed the old cloud covered tile and checked the scenery view in location in FS 2 just to make certain it was the correct one. To my surprise and horror the missing area is further south over Milford Haven not Fishguard Harbour?

Totally possible that coordinates aren't right, I'll look into it.

I'm very much crowdsourcing the testing on this as I just don't have time to go through each one

I'll update the post at the top with testing results as people try different sources.

Edit: In the stitched tiles directory for that tile, you'll see various aero files. You can check whether the coordinates in these are where you believe they should be.

Quote from Unlikely Spider

Any impressions? Is there enough substance over the default C172 to make it worth $42?

Well, it's a Cessna with the GNS 430 integrated, there's that to like about it.

Texture, model and systems work looks very good (I haven't bought it yet).

I've always felt that the generic GPS "thing" in the default IPACS planes made the simulation feel more like a casual flight game.

Great to see planes that look the part.

It'll take IPACS to do a rework or alternative version of the C172 with the Garmins as the knobs are part of the 3D model.

Quote from pmb

Would it be possible, to have further releases as .zip files instead of installers in general? As far as I recall, the previous version was an .msi which installed straight into c: without asking. Not a big deal, but I would prefer this, also for potentially moving AeroScenery to another drive post installation. What do the scenery pros think?

Yeah, I'll provide both in future.

Personally I always like installers as I forget where I put zipped utilities.

Quote from Unlikely Spider

Are we able to augment the default scenery, such as the US SW, seamlessly now with one of these sources?

Up to zoom level 16 or 2m per pixel with USGS.

The limitation here is USGS itself, which (AFAIK) only provides image tile services to that resolution. Anything higher requires manual download.

I'm looking at ways to semi-automate this, but there's no quick fix as it'll have to work quite differently to the normal AeroScenery process of download > stitch > GeoConvert.

ArcGIS, for the USA, appears to use USGS to zoom level 16, then switches or Bing or other sources as you zoom further.

Quote from IZ0JUB

I had a quick look at it and my observations are that selecting the "Map Type" view is restricted to GE and Bing and not the complete list available to download. This has the obvious problem of not seeing what you intend to download. Is it at all possible to add the other providers to the map view please?

Sadly not possible as the map viewer component that I use (GMap.NET) is limited to a few sources.

What I can do is give links to the web viewers for the additional sources, e.g. Linz would link to this

https://data.linz.govt.nz/set/4702-nz-aerial-imagery/

At least it would save people searching for them.

Edit: ArcGIS is available for the map component so I'll add that.

Testing Reports

ArcGIS: Possible issue with coordinates. Generated tiles not where they should be.

USGS: Issues with USGS failing to serve some tiles causing missing patches

A thread for AeroScenery beta releases, to keep the pinned thread somewhat clean.

There's a beta release of AeroScenery available here, which includes 10 new orthophoto sources.

This took longer than expected, but the good news is that I've coded a generic orthophoto provider that can handle almost any tiled image source.

Please read the notes below before trying it out. Thanks.

If you've tested a new orthophoto source, including running GeoConvert, and tested that it aligns correctly with an airport runway, please post here.

https://github.com/nickhod/aeroscenery/releases/download/1.1.1-beta/aeroscenery-1.1.1-beta.zip

Release Notes

- This is beta quality. There will be bugs. Use a previous release if you're in the middle of a project with AeroScenery.

- This release is a zip, you can keep your existing AeroScenery install and run this from the folder

- This release will read and write to your existing settings and AeroScenery database

- If you want to run older AeroScenery releases, you need to set the "Image Source" back to Google or Bing in this beta release before closing the app. Failure to do so will prevent older AeroScenery from starting.

- The new orhotphoto providers have had minimal testing. I've checked that it's generating a stitched image for the correct area. There may be issues with coordinates and therefore alignment

- For the above reason, don't use this release to start a scenery project with a new orthophoto provider until you've tested it with a small area

- The best way to test is to install an FSCloudPort airport for a new area. Generate a some scenery around that area and check that everything is aligned

- The settings for these new orthophoto sources are hardcoded in this release. I need to figure out a new config section for these with the possibility of an auto-update. I decided to deal with this later and get a release out.

pmb , could you confirm if this is fixed for you?

https://github.com/nickhod/aeroscenery/issues/7

Looks pretty nice. For the first time I have a backlog of stuff I want to buy for Aerofly!

https://www.justflight.com/product/c152-aerofly-fs-2

Quote from TomSimMuc

Yes you need a (free) account and have to use the Bulk Download Application.

Problem is that there's no API access to this that I know about unless you get a "special" type of account from USGS

AeroScenery is written to handle ortho tile servers.

Automating high res USGS would require a whole load of screen scraping / HTML DOM parsing / click faking etc.

A compromise might be to let the user download the high res images, select the zips in the app, then let the automation start from there.

Sorry, no idea about FSET, never used it.

Zoom level 16 is the same for Google, Bing, USGS tiles and in the AeroScenery UI, which is around 2m per pixel.

Zoom level 17 is ~1m per pixel.

Zoom level 18 is the highest you normally see for flight sim scenery at ~0.5m per pixel.

Quote from Jetjockey10

I’m looking forward to seeing something nearing this level of automation for USGS scenery for the USA.

A new release of AeroScenery that supports USGS is imminent, but I was disappointed to find that USGS only supplies tiles to zoom level 16.

https://basemap.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/se…pServer?f=jsapi

(Note how you can't zoom in that far. Ortho4XP uses this dataset and has the same limitation)

For anything higher res you need a USGS account and to download individual high res image packages, unzip them etc.

Their automated service requires additional account privileges, which I think they only give to educational / government institutions.

Considering the orhotphotos are "free", they really do everything they can to stop bulk downloads.

My bold prediction...

Scenery packs excluding orthophotos will start to become a thing.

I think John Venema of OrbX paid six figures to acquire imagery for TrueEarth GB and the quality is pretty low. When you take a look at the forums, plenty are talking about how they replaced it with Google imagery.

The value is in 3d modelling work now: airports, aircraft, custom POIs. That can't be commoditised. It'll still have value in the FS 2020 world.

That said, a commercial release like this, right now, when USGS is available for free, just seems lazy.

Quote from turman

- I'd like to apply the Antoine's hint but I don't see the "always overwrite" option in Aeroscenery > Settings > Geoconvert, is it in your todo list Nick ?

- Even if I check only AFS Level 12 in Aeroscenery, Geoconvert starts at level 14 and then do the level 15.

Always overwrite is forced to true by AeroScenery. I want to leave it that way or it could get confusing for users.

You can see why GeoConvert is doing what it's doing by looking at the TMC file generated in the {zoom_level}-stitched in the grid square directory that you're working on.

If you've only selected one level, it should only have one level in the TMC.

(Just tried a new square and only selecting a level 13 tile to generate. The TMC only contains one level, as expected).

If you have access to another Windows PC I'd recommend giving that a try to figure out if the slowness is machine specific.

Quote from MDIvey

I think that would be ok as far as anything I post here but always with Caveat that you use at own risk. Bare in mind though Nick this is for Aircraft specific development... might be better to have a separate thread for Scenery specific development stuff... otherwise could get confusing possibly?

Matt

Yeah, I'm not talking about scenery development, just need a domain to host the wiki. One doesn't exist currently.

Can do aircraftdevelopment.aeroscenery.com is that's clearer. Or someone can buy another domain

Count me in for the self help group.

Anyone mind if a put up a wiki on wiki.aeroscenery.com and add content from here once we've figured out answers?

There's so much knowledge about aircraft development already buried in threads in this forum and not on the IPACS wiki. Would be great to collate it all.

I noticed that the IPACS wiki is Creative Commons licensed so we augment content from that too.