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Break in Edge Lights

If I save my layout to .ad4, "Compile" to BGL and XML, edit the XML as necessary, "Open Airport from XML", re-save to .ad4 (with a different name to be safe), do any further edits in ADE, "Save" and "Compile" to BGL, I will have ALL of the elements that were in the original ADE .ad4 file? That is all I (and possibly others) would be interested in knowing.


"Compiling an XML source file will provide a Bgl file containing all that information." - I assume ADE "Open Airport from XML" does this?

"However if you the choose to decompile the Bgl file back to XML then the accuracy of the result will depend on the accuracy of the decompiler." - I assume that you are talking about working outside of ADE to do this.
Click to expand...

1. When you open an airport from a bgl file then you are reliant on the accuracy of the decompiler to create 'source' data. Since MS never gave us any official information on the file format for bgl files then how faithful the decompiled information is to the original will depend on the decompiler. Since ADE has a decompiler then I cannot guarantee that what is in ADE is going to be exactly what is in the original bgl file. The same is true of any other decompiler such as BglAnalyze.

2. When you load XML into ADE it first compiles it to ensure that it is valid against the schema and then decompiles it so the caveat in point 1 above applies.

3. Once you have something in an ADE project then you can be sure that what gets compiled from that into the bgl file will faithfully match what is in ADE because we produce MS Compiler compliant XML source code.

4. There is a second set of inaccuracies that will arise if you repeatedly compile and decompile Bgl files - that is rounding errors on certain properties such as coordinates.

To answer the questions in the context of the above:

a. George points out that ADE uses several compilers. In the case of terrain and custom ground polys then these are not in the XML source you refer to so they would not be present in any recompiled Bgl file. In thje case of airport and scenery then you still have the potential inaccuracies introduced by the decompiler

b. No what I mean is that ADE generates XML source code from the project which faithfully represents the airport elements and if you compile that then you will get what you expect.

c. As mentioned above ADE makes extensive use of a decompiler so no I am talking about ADE or any other external decompiler.

On a practical level I believe that the chances of you finding a problem caused by decompiling in ADE is very small Although I cannot GUARANTEE that what you get after decompiling is exactly and totally what is in the bgl file we can say that for all practical purposes it is.
 
raymk, try to look at it this way: the simulator was created in such a way that most of the working parts of scenery are contained in files with the .bgl suffix. It is a unique and proprietary file system that the author gave only rudimentary instructions on how to use. It is as if we discovered an extinct alien civilization with a fantastic language but the translation key was lost forever in a garbled transmission. So developers like Jon and Arno have to reverse engineer their work; write a procedure, compile it, test it for consistent results and move on. If you intend to develop things for the simulator then you must understand these conditions and situations because otherwise you will not be able to relate.
 
Loading from the XML or BGL file will also not contain information about crosswind runways or orphaned ILS's in the listings.
 
OK - thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice on what I was asking.

If I ever need to 'break' any fences or edgelights in the future I will bear all of this in mind when deciding the easiest way of doing it. After all, I have only actually wanted to do this a few times since I started with ADE 5 years (or so) ago.
 
At the risk of infuriating someone, do you try my Edge Lights Processor mentioned in an earlier thread? It edits the .bgl, not the .xml

Don
 
gadgets said:
At the risk of infuriating someone, do you try my Edge Lights Processor mentioned in an earlier thread? It edits the .bgl, not the .xml

Don
Click to expand...
Hello Don,
I have just looked at your ELP program and done a quick test of the facilities. Yes I can change the light separations and get a uniformly spaced set of lights (on straight sections anyway) and I can change the colors.
The even separations aspect may be useful but this thread started as a question of being able to 'break' an existing 'string of lights' instead of going in and adding new strings that have a break where you don't want any lights. I don't see that we can do this with your ELP.
 
Also there is the matter of licensing. If I wish to consider using ADE for commercial work, I need only purchase that license which is plainly and clearly offered on the website and continue with what I am familiar. Part of my gaming experience is that I might actually make money with it someday. As useful as Edge Lights Processor may be, it is clear that it may not be used for profit but unclear how that might be changed. Personally I'd prefer to know what I was getting into before becoming dependent on a technique which I couldn't be sure I could support; but of course, thanks for your awesome contributions just the same, the software is great and sometimes I learn something from it.
 
raymk, Notwithstanding its title, this thread started with the statement
I have a completed airport that I would like to edit to add a new terminal that is placed between existing aprons, but in this circumstance the aprons are ringed with long sinusoidal chains of edge lights
Click to expand...
Then another user raised the issue of edge lights along a curve. Since I had run into the same difficulty several years ago, has explored (and abandoned) several XML solutions, and finally developed Edge Light Processor (ELP), I thought adding my own experience and mentioning ELP might be helpful.

Whether or not you use it is, of course, up to you.

Don
 
As useful as Edge Lights Processor may be, it is clear that it may not be used for profit but unclear how that might be changed.
Click to expand...
Rick (=rk=), thank you for reading and observing the EULA. (I suspect that may not be a common practice).

Regarding your concern, the EULA addresses that, as well.

Don
 
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