Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Questions, comments, concerns, & fixes
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

Nodoka Hanamura wrote:
I remember AAAAAGES Ago, when I tried my hand at making a Japan Map (Think 2012, 2011), I had this same problem. I never found a solution.
The shapefile or the elevation grid?

RE Shapefile:
ConvexyWhateverItsCalled/Triangulation worked quite well, just took a while.

RE Elevation Grid
I guess the only real solution would be to divide the elevation grid up into smaller segments, say 300x300px, and then stitch it back together in Scenery Editor, but it'd still make a big map file (and it'd be a lot of work).

A nice script that'd convert a DEM to a .ter would be nice... Like Grigor's Elevation Grid Generator, but capable of converting GeoTiff Digital Elevation Models, or even .ASC files to .ters with the correct elevation...Would be even better if it did that, then split it into smaller grids, and combined them into a child scenery....
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Nodoka Hanamura »

Skipper wrote:
Nodoka Hanamura wrote:
I remember AAAAAGES Ago, when I tried my hand at making a Japan Map (Think 2012, 2011), I had this same problem. I never found a solution.
The shapefile or the elevation grid?

RE Shapefile:
ConvexyWhateverItsCalled/Triangulation worked quite well, just took a while.

RE Elevation Grid
I guess the only real solution would be to divide the elevation grid up into smaller segments, say 300x300px, and then stitch it back together in Scenery Editor, but it'd still make a big map file (and it'd be a lot of work).

A nice script that'd convert a DEM to a .ter would be nice... Like Grigor's Elevation Grid Generator, but capable of converting GeoTiff Digital Elevation Models, or even .ASC files to .ters with the correct elevation...Would be even better if it did that, then split it into smaller grids, and combined them into a child scenery....
The Shapefile I believe, it was a outline just like you showed.
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Turbofan »

Just as a pointer, most of the questions being asked here have already been answered in the "Help" menu in Scenery Editor. Not saying you can't ask those questions here but I have found it to be quite helpful when making maps.

Anyway, if it hasn't been answered already, essentially what protect polygons do is make the selected polygons perfectly horizontal. Then you can not only import and raise airports to the level of the protect polygons by the method Soji has suggested, you can also create and raise text to that particular level (that's how I did the "ABEL JETS" on the flight ops center in Mandiola and the "ABEL JETS [H]Q" on the HQ building).

The only downside to that is since those polygons become transparent, you are able to see through them and if there is any map element that is in the line-of-sight (roads, buildings, polygons, etc), it will be visible through those polygons. This happens in OGL and OGL2 as far as I know. I am going to do an experiment in my next map where I put a "dummy" elevation grid which does not have any transparent polygons adjacent to the EG that has the protect polygons (so it acts like a "barrier" that prevents the "see-through" effect), and see if that works. Yeah, that only adds to the work the computer has to do but we'll see how it works I guess.
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

Nodoka Hanamura wrote: The Shapefile I believe, it was a outline just like you showed.
Yea, doing the convex...whatever thing seems to solve it. I think it's because there is invalid geometry (one of the lines bisects another, or more than one perhaps). The convexy thing triangulates all the polygons, so you can identify exactly which one is invalid as it is the one that is still just an outline.
Only downside, if you've got a polygon with 2000 vertexes, it takes a little while...
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Barr »

Skipper wrote:
Nodoka Hanamura wrote:
I remember AAAAAGES Ago, when I tried my hand at making a Japan Map (Think 2012, 2011), I had this same problem. I never found a solution.
The shapefile or the elevation grid?

RE Shapefile:
ConvexyWhateverItsCalled/Triangulation worked quite well, just took a while.

RE Elevation Grid
I guess the only real solution would be to divide the elevation grid up into smaller segments, say 300x300px, and then stitch it back together in Scenery Editor, but it'd still make a big map file (and it'd be a lot of work).

A nice script that'd convert a DEM to a .ter would be nice... Like Grigor's Elevation Grid Generator, but capable of converting GeoTiff Digital Elevation Models, or even .ASC files to .ters with the correct elevation...Would be even better if it did that, then split it into smaller grids, and combined them into a child scenery....

Dont dem files have all that info in text within the file?
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Nodoka Hanamura »

Skipper wrote:
Nodoka Hanamura wrote: The Shapefile I believe, it was a outline just like you showed.
Yea, doing the convex...whatever thing seems to solve it. I think it's because there is invalid geometry (one of the lines bisects another, or more than one perhaps). The convexy thing triangulates all the polygons, so you can identify exactly which one is invalid as it is the one that is still just an outline.
Only downside, if you've got a polygon with 2000 vertexes, it takes a little while...
IIRC, that map was hella detailed, so yeah, that old Toshiba laptop would have caught fire trying to do that :lol:
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

Yea, the elevation is stored as the pixel value.
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Barr »

Skipper wrote:Yea, the elevation is stored as the pixel value.
No I mean those crazy dem files that work with geo tiff, qgis arcgis etc.
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

Yup, they're just bitmap images, but the pixel value is the elevation. So they're greyscale, and instead of it just being 0-255, it goes..well, whatever elevation you want
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Barr »

Skipper wrote:Yup, they're just bitmap images, but the pixel value is the elevation. So they're greyscale, and instead of it just being 0-255, it goes..well, whatever elevation you want
:?: I'm not talking about the elevation grid program. I'm talking about the raw files you get from his websites like here where you'll need a gis program to view or edit.?
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

I know what you're talking about :)
Geotiffs are just .tif files, so a regular bitmap image. They also have some extra attributes that tell GIS software where that image is located, but essentially they're normal bitmaps. You can edit them in Photoshop or even paint. Only difference really is that the pixel value is not 0-255, but the elevation (though of the elevation is outside of the 0-255 it will break your geotiff if you edit it in Photoshop or paint).
.asc files are the ASCII version, and have a lot of similarities to a .ter file
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by MrFunnybone »

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Does anyone know wth is going on here with my blender? This is what happens when i try to box select and do a bunch of other clicking/dragging related stuff I hadnt touched blender for a while and one day I decided to work on something and this happened. I tried restarting but I think it might be some kind of graphics glitch thats only happening in blender
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

Mine did that today!
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by MrFunnybone »

Do you have NVIDIA? the new blender doesnt have the glitch...
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

Yea. Do the YS scripts work with it?
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Barr »

Skipper wrote:I know what you're talking about :)
Geotiffs are just .tif files, so a regular bitmap image. They also have some extra attributes that tell GIS software where that image is located, but essentially they're normal bitmaps. You can edit them in Photoshop or even paint. Only difference really is that the pixel value is not 0-255, but the elevation (though of the elevation is outside of the 0-255 it will break your geotiff if you edit it in Photoshop or paint).
.asc files are the ASCII version, and have a lot of similarities to a .ter file

Ahh I see. Well that's weird. When I first read your blog a while back I tried opening different types of gis files with image editors. .tif files were recognized by gimp but always gave an image error.

I do remember you talking about ascii files I think .shp also come in ASCII format? I think I opened one in note pad and just copied the numerical values like you did never got anything but that's only because I'm an idiot
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Skipper »

No, there are 2 types of GIS file, Raster and Vector. Our modding in YS is vector based, points, lines and polygons.
Rasters are bitmap images, so a continuous grid of data, as opposed to discreet points of data.
Shapefile (.shp) are vector files, most similar to a .fld (flat, vector), except you can't read the file contents with notepad (they're stored in a .dbf file, rather in the shapefile itself)
There are different GIS vector formats, as each software company has its own...KML is googles, SHP is ESRI's, but SHP has become quite a standard one for GIS data.

GeoTiffs and ASC files (short for ASCII grid file I think) are rasters, so bitmap images. They show continuous data like elevation, rainfall, chemical levels, tree cover, aerial imagery, whatever you've got as continuous data... In this case, they're most simar to .ter files (elevation grid) as they too are a continuous grid. ASC files are most similar as the data is readable in notepad.

You probably struggled to open the geotiff in image software because the max/min values were over 0-255 range.
Software you want is QGIS (QGIS.org). Free GIS software that'll convert GeoTiffs (and shapefiles) to a useable, notepad readable, format (asc for rasters, and the best one I've found for vector files is CSV... I'm sure there are others though. Kml might even work.
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Barr »

BARRACUZ wrote:How do you make a "halfed" mesh a full one?

Tryin to paint this but it seems like it was mirrored? so theres only a mesh on one side of the tail?
Bump.
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by NightRaven »

Tab out of Edit Mode. The other side of the rudder is a separate object altogether, so you need to select the left rudder rather than the right rudder in order to paint it.
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Re: Random questions about anything NEAR and IN the realm of YSFlight

Post by Barr »

NightRaven wrote:Tab out of Edit Mode. The other side of the rudder is a separate object altogether, so you need to select the left rudder rather than the right rudder in order to paint it.
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