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BGL Terrain Format (CVX*.BGL)

Patrick Germain

Patrick Germain

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ca-quebec
Hi there

I have some documentation about the format of cvx*.bgl file (see attached file). Is there a way to publish it on a wiki page ?
Thanks
Patrick Germain.
 
Sure, the whole point of a wiki is that anyone can contribute! (Interesting fact: wiki comes from the word wiki in Hawaiian, which means fast or quick.) In fact, there's a page with dedicated instructions on how to create a new wiki article: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Creating_a_new_Wiki_article.

Also, it looks like your document was created in Office 2007 or newer -- there should be built in functionality to save as a PDF (and thus circumvent using Foxit, leaving your PDF watermark free).
 
Thanks ollyau !
Also for the tip about word->pdf
Note that the pdf document is totally messed-up. I will post a new version soon.
 
Hi Scruffyduck !

Since you're the admin, can you please delete the PDF files that I updated . They are fubar and I don't want take disk space unnecessarily. I will upload a correct version ASAP. Thanks !
 
Hi,

Interesting document. When I browse through it I see similarities with the bglcomp bgl format. Did you notice that as well?
 
Hi
uh no, for the simple reason that I never read that document :))) . Can you tell me where I can find it: maybe it will help me fill some holes that I still have in my document.
I just did some reverse engineering on TmfViewer to gather as much information as possible on the cvx format.
Thanks!
 
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Hi,

I think I downloaded these specs from AvSim before, they have been made by Winfried Orthmann. The way you have the sections and subsections in the BGL file is very similar and also things like ModelData and SceneryObject is more from the BGLComp BGL files I feel, but I also saw that in your specs. So it seems they might be similar or even the same.
 

Attachments

I never realized this before :). I just dropped some elevation BGL and a photo scenery BGL in ModelConverterX and the reader for the BGLComp files indeed understands these files. It's only that they contain different sections that are not supported by MCX. This is interesting to know though.
 
Ahh... those are made by resample. So resample-made, shp2vec-made and BGLComp made are alike?

Dick
 
Hi Dick,

Yes, file structure wise they are. I'm sure the imagery or elevation data is stored differently than a scenery placement record. But the overall structure of the file is the same.

It's funny that we can still learn new things like this after so many years :)
 
rhumbaflappy said:
Ahh... those are made by resample. So resample-made, shp2vec-made and BGLComp made are alike?

Dick
Click to expand...
Yep - The BGL file structure is just a big container where you can store all kind of different formats. That's why it is so hard to have a single document describing the structure of a BGL file provided with FSX because each BGL file is used to contain all kind of data : terrain, scenery, airports, etc.
 
Excellent information; many thanks for sharing your insights with the FS developer community ! :)


FYI: To review your decompilation output info with that of Alessandro Antonini 's "BGLXML" v1.80 (FS9) and v2.1 (FSX), those utilities are here:

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004util&DLID=75329

http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/18863/fsx-bglxml-21/


Hope this might possibly help supplement info derived from decompilation output by Winfried Orthmann and Jon Masterson (aka "Scruffyduck"). :idea:

GaryGB
 
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I guess I should own up that the most current decompiler for Bgl files created by BglComp is probably mine. It was originally based on Winfried's work but now includes the ability to handle stuff that is coming from the current P3D versions. currently it is updated whenever I find changes.

I am very interested in the CVX format since at the moment ADE does not decompile that and it would be useful if it could I think.

I agree that the blg format is pretty much an empty container and is not too dissimilar to other binary formats that I have worked with.

Patrick Germain said:
Never mind - I found out how to do it.
Click to expand...

OK :)
 
Question for you administrators guys.
The "FSX File structure.pdf" by Wilfried Orthmann, is kind of a sealed/static document. Do you think we could have it as a wiki page so it can be edited/updated.
The question is: do we need Wilfried's approval ? (it's his work after all).
 
Hi,

I would have to check what Winfred wrote in his read me, but in principle I think it would be nice to have it on the wiki so that we can all improve on it. Like we did with the mdl format.

Or maybe we can use Jon's documentation as starting point, since he says it is even more detailed. But I don't know if that is available somewhere already.
 
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