Apron and painted lines partly not showing

[Dimus]

I have the issue shown this shot:

Making an apron and painted lines, they stop showing east of this line, which is exactly a N-S line. If I go higher they show:

This happens to be a location relatively far from the airport so I wonder if this has anything to do with it. Any suggestion welcome.

 

[=rk=]

The terrain is not flat, the apron is. You can flatten the terrain, or use a projected mesh that will conform to geography.

 

[Dimus]

Thanks! Actually the same happens when I add a flatten. Aprons do follow the terrain as well. As I said the cut line is dead straight running from north to south so it is not an issue of cutting through terrain.

 

[GaryGB]

Hello:

Have you extended Airport Test Radius in MSFS SDK DevMode GUI or in ADE beyond the default value of Meters or Kilometers ?

It is possible Airport Test Radius extent impacts LOD switching along FS Terrain Grid axes, which are exactly N-S, E-W in alignment,

That may impact rendering of requested / anticipated terrain slopes and flattens, as well as terrain mesh-clinging 2D textured objects.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/where-are-airport-flatten-elevations-derived.455337/

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.fsdeveloper.com+MSFS+rhumbaflappy+Airport+"Test+Radius"&client=firefox-b-1-d&ei=Y7QVZMSkKeioqtsP6Jic-As&ved=0ahUKEwiE4pf-wuX9AhVolGoFHWgMB78Q4dUDCA8&oq=site:www.fsdeveloper.com+MSFS+rhumbaflappy+Airport+"Test+Radius"&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQDEoECEEYAVDCC1jCH2DdMGgBcAB4AIABRIgBfZIBATKYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz-serp


PS: Airport Test Radius infers rendering within a "circle" made up of aliased quads, so how we know where circle 'edges' are ?

IIUC, we may be working with a "diamond" of various LODs rendered around airports comparable to that surrounding user A/C.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/3-5cm-per-pixel.21121/

Note that LODs and associated texture MIPs "fall off" to lower resolutions with distance / Altitude from FS' user A/C camera.

And, AFAIK, we may assume such objects "fall off" in a quad sized / shaped pattern along Cardinal N-S, E-W axes of the FS 3D world terrain grid.


Perhaps the same applies to the MSFS implementation of the Airport Test Radius and 'flatten' / texturing LOD functionality ?

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/1024x1024-rock-textures.426477/page-2


GaryGB

 

[=rk=]

Aprons do follow the terrain as well.

If the transition of the slope of the terrain across the width of an apron exceeds the aprons ability to conform, terrain most definitely will bleed through. You don't have to believe me, simply place yourself a polygon and notice the enhanced terraform controls, that provide the fidelity to place the underlying terrain exactly where you want it in relation to your less adjustable apron.

 

[GaryGB]

I am curious if the ability of MSFS' Apron Polygons as 2D textured terrain mesh-clinging objects to "drape" properly, is impacted not only by Airport Test Radius, but also by moving the Terrain slider to a higher value, thus increasing the allowable terrain vertices as a function of enabling display of smaller quads in the underlying 3D world terrain grid ?

GaryGB

 

[=rk=]

Well let me put it this way, on my current project, I'm including a hangar with animated doors, which is to say, it will be subject to scrutiny. The underlying terrain is painted with projected mesh, built up with default Asobo aprons for the most part and fine tuned with polygons, by me. The resulting terrain is slightly sloped, or warped or wrinkled or whatever you want to call it, enough to make my separate floor model, dip underground at one end, similar to Dimus experience, even after I added an inch or two of "edge" to my floor, raising it commensurately. The solution, of course, was to add a polygon, terraform minimum falloff, to whatever the sim considers "perfectly flat" and then, I still had to tune my poly to match, but it was possible to do so this time.

So I believe the answer to your question is "yes," if I understand it correctly and I've read elsewhere that beta testers are experimenting with terraform controls that have an even higher level of fidelity including the ability to draw cross slope terrain, or what would be rudimentary contours. I don't know how to put it exactly, instead of drawing individual slope facets, they can be incorporated into some sort of curve.

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Does the apron cut-off appear when you compile, and place the package in the Community folder (and restart the sim)? I've had some issues with the project in the DevMode not displaying aprons and polys correctly.

 

[Dimus]

Thank you all for your replies!

@rk: I do agree that aprons may not follow steep changes in terrain but this is not the case and even the flatten did not help. I also tried to put a small projected mesh (that little arrow below) to check and it was clipped too:

@GaryGB: Airport Test Radius was the first thing I tried actually as the distance of the area from the airport is about the same as the default value. I even doubled the value but it made no difference. My terrain slider is also maxed out.

@rhumbaflappy: The behavior is the same in Dev and normal mode with the scenery compiled.

I don't think this may be cured this way so I'll try to create a separate package for this area as a POI. Thanks again, always good discussion here!

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Another issue can be caused by photogrammetry. Does the issue persist with it disabled in options?

 

[GaryGB]

What is the Geographic coordinates of the location shown in the OP screenshot ?

GaryGB

 

[rhumbaflappy]

If you attach the XML for the airport as a zip file, then we could try to debug the issue without guessing and wasting time...

 

[Dimus]

Thank you all again. I checked photogrammetry and it does not affect it. The location is at 39.136N 121.350W. It is the PAVE PAWS radar east of KBAB. I have concluded that the cause is certainly the distance so I have decided to make this as a separate package. It is quite far away from the airport anyway.

 

[GaryGB]

Thank you all again. I checked photogrammetry and it does not affect it. The location is at 39.136N 121.350W. It is the PAVE PAWS radar east of KBAB. I have concluded that the cause is certainly the distance so I have decided to make this as a separate package. It is quite far away from the airport anyway.

Intriguing; that is only 7.5 Kilometers from the ARP for KBAB's RWY axis, and well within even the MSFS default Airport Test Radius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAVE_PAWS

https://iw.toolforge.org/wp-world/earth.php?long=-121.436389&lat=39.136111&name=Beale_Air_Force_Base

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=39.136111,-121.436389&q=39.136111,-121.436389&hl=en&t=h&z=15


FYI: KBAB ARP is 32 Meters AMSL in Google Earth, whereas PAVE PAWS @ KBAB area is at 110 Meters AMSL.

That equates to: KBAB ARP is 106 Feet AMSL in Google Earth, whereas PAVE PAWS @ KBAB parking dropout transition area is at 356 Feet AMSL.


Is > 250 Feet a threshold for triangulated tile dropouts in draped textures under the deleterious influence of a Airport Test Radius flatten gremlin ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlin


IIUC, MSFS' Airport Test Radius 'flatten' engine for airports, by design, may not "flatten" all terrain across that range of Altitude values.


It will be Interesting to see whether it displays normally if / when rendered via a separate project package of a "non-airport" type.

Yet another nail in the coffin of the "manifest destiny" for dependency on 'airport' XML coding ?

GaryGB

 

[rhumbaflappy]

I think you've found a bug in the MSFS data. There is no fix we can apply. If you report it to Asobo, they might eventually make a repair to the data. The airport is messed up as well with either parking or the buildings misplaced at KBAB.
https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/index.html

 

[GaryGB]

It will be interesting as well, to see what Asobo might have to say regarding imagery tile dropouts along FS' LOD-20 terrain grid lines.

Here is the area in SBuilderX with a FS LOD-20 terrain grid displayed:

Perhaps one might resolve this rendering anomaly by using the original MSVE / Bing imagery tiles via this MSFS SDK Docs 'worked example' ?

SimpleAerial

docs.flightsimulator.com

[EDITED]

"IMPORTANT! When being rendered, painted lines are baked into the terrain textures along with the apron/runway that they are on. This helps reduce the polycount and permits the element to be terraformed. However, it also means that the texture quality won't be any greater than the resolution of the terrain textures themselves. In general, this resolution is around 4cm/pixel at the equator, with the best/highest resolution terrain textures reserved for higher LODs so we have a better quality for airports. For users, they will experience the best resolution possible setting the "Terrain level of detail" option to its maximum value."


Apparently, as seen in this thread, imagery tile draping fails on a MSFS' airport XML code "virtual G-Poly" flatten ...due to unknown causes.

So, perhaps a "work-around" is to use an Aerial Imagery work-flow, which IIUC, involves a "non-airport" (Terrain) sub-system work-flow.


LOD-20 quad = 9.6 Meters = 256 Area Points @ 3.75 cm / pixel = 960 pixels per each LOD-20 quad (minimum imagery resolution per quad)

IIUC, MSFS' rendering engine will 'down-sample' ex: 1024 x 1024 pixel imagery mapped onto LOD-20 quad sized areas of Aerial Imagery sources.


If one needs / wants greater imagery resolution, as in all prior FS versions, 3D models mapped with higher resolution texture imagery are used.

An example would be a Ground Polygon (aka "G-Poly") as a flat / level, or photogrammetry 3D / sloped object mapped with texture imagery.


Once the original MSVE / Bing imagery tiles have been tested for display and positioning, edited copies of those tiles with the same tile name having no less than the minimum required pixel dimensions ...can be substituted for the original MSVE / Bing imagery tiles, to render the custom parking area textures etc.

While it would perhaps be convenient for some to use MSFS' SDK DevMode GUI render of Painted Lines / Markings if rendered properly and directly as intended at run time, one may otherwise disable detail maps:

MSFS SDK DevMode Menu > Options > Ground > Un-check: Detail Maps

...and capture a high resolution ex: 1024 x 1024 zoomed-in screenshot of each LOD-20 sized quad tile area in Developer Camera Mode, then use a copy to edit original MSVE / Bing imagery tiles.

[END_EDIT]

GaryGB

 

[rhumbaflappy]

The distance shouldn't make a difference if the apron is within the airport radius... but perhaps it is not. I made a bogus airport (KBAB1) and placed the apron without any problem.

 

[Dimus]

Thank you all again for researching this. Dick, I checked your project and it confirms the way I wish to move forward. Your bogus airport location is at the radar site and the apron shows without a problem. My airport location is 7.5km to the west of the radar at KBAB. Even if it's an Asobo/MS bug, after I also tried to place an airport at the PAVE PAWS location I was able to draw a fine apron. So I will do a separate "airport" package for the radar and even throw a spawn point for a helicopter there.

Btw, the project is the KBAB I'm doing for Blackbird Simulations, just about the enter beta and this radar POI is the last piece of content I need to do for it.

 

[rhumbaflappy]

I posed some questions for Asobo, so we'll see what they say:

https://devsupport.flightsimulator....stance-from-the-airport-center-do-aprons.html
https://devsupport.flightsimulator....-is-the-purpose-of-the-airporttestradius.html

 

[=rk=]

You do not have to package the two separately, you can place as many individual airports into a scenery package as you have the patience for. The simplest way to combine them is to continue as you intend and before you publish, dovetail the packages together into one, keeping the relevant folder structures, use either manifest.json file and then use the tool, MSFS Layout Generator, which will rectify the contents of the layout.json to accurately reflect your edited file placements.

As a young man I stayed near Beale, along the Yuba River. I got to see the U2 in pattern and the SR-71. I also saw a plane that I am sure was the one called Tr-3b Black Manta. Not the levitating triangle spaceship, the Baby B2 that was never formally acknowledged to exist and is probably retired by now.