Greetings,
I'm trying to use XML to create a "generic" airfield that I can place anywhere I want in a project I've been working on. Its purposely small (about 1km x 1km in size, or 3,000' x 3,000') with grass runways in an "X" pattern. I would like to create this airfield as generic as possible in order to use it pretty much anywhere I want with only a few changes for excludes, flattens, and general tweaking once imported into ADE. I'm trying to do as much as I can in XML so that all I really have to do is change the lat/lon for the ARP in XML and then do the least amount of work in ADE since all the airports are going to be basically the same. Call it a "cookie-cutter" design, if you will.
The reason I'm trying to do this as a square is because, in real life, pilots would take off and land in any direction depending on which way the wind was blowing. I was able to draw a field in GIMP at a scale of 1 pixel = 1 meter. My 1,000 x 1,000 pixel drawing allowed me to place things where I want them with bias numbers from the ARP which is located where the two runways intersect. Since FS9 AI requires you to include parking, taxi points, pathways, etc, I had to place these things in the airport as well. Once in the project I don't have to change anything since the bias works off the ARP.
With the taxi points and the objects I was able to do this via the "biasx" and "biasz" option without any issues. I got the distances from the drawing (i.e. the number of pixels from the center point ARP) and just placed things at my heart's content.
The issue I'm having now is trying to place an apron using the same commands on the vertex points for the apron as I did for the objects (i.e. the biasx and biasz). It appears that I can put a fuel box with the vertex bias in a scenery object area, but I can't put an apron in the facility data area with the vertex bias in the same way.
It's no big deal if I can't since most of the airports I'm going to drop into FS9 this way will be grass or dirt fields, but it would be nice to have a "generic slab" of concrete or asphalt on one of the sides with the buildings or objects. I can add it to the specific fields later in ADE, but was hoping not to have to. The more things I can do in XML by using the drawing I made, the better.
Does anyone have any idea what I may be doing wrong with the apron vertices and their bias numbers?
Here's the image:
The gray areas at the top are the "foundations" for the terminals, hangars, beacon tower, etc, as well as the ramps. By rotating the image I can have the area either at the bottom, right, or left, depending on the place I'm trying to place the field and how the surrounding area is (default roads, mostly).
The flatten and excludes are inserted in ADE with the top and bottom corners as usual. The four corner lat/lon coordinates for the flatten are used in SBuilder9 to create the background and the terrain items. I do this by making a txt file that goes with a bmp version of the image which contains the lat/lon info. That way everything matches.
As you can see, it would be easier if I didn't have to redo the ramps every single time. Again, I'm trying to make a template of a generic airport that I can place anywhere by changing the ARP and header info at the beginning of the <Airport section.
Thanks in advance for any input.
Jorge
I'm trying to use XML to create a "generic" airfield that I can place anywhere I want in a project I've been working on. Its purposely small (about 1km x 1km in size, or 3,000' x 3,000') with grass runways in an "X" pattern. I would like to create this airfield as generic as possible in order to use it pretty much anywhere I want with only a few changes for excludes, flattens, and general tweaking once imported into ADE. I'm trying to do as much as I can in XML so that all I really have to do is change the lat/lon for the ARP in XML and then do the least amount of work in ADE since all the airports are going to be basically the same. Call it a "cookie-cutter" design, if you will.
The reason I'm trying to do this as a square is because, in real life, pilots would take off and land in any direction depending on which way the wind was blowing. I was able to draw a field in GIMP at a scale of 1 pixel = 1 meter. My 1,000 x 1,000 pixel drawing allowed me to place things where I want them with bias numbers from the ARP which is located where the two runways intersect. Since FS9 AI requires you to include parking, taxi points, pathways, etc, I had to place these things in the airport as well. Once in the project I don't have to change anything since the bias works off the ARP.
With the taxi points and the objects I was able to do this via the "biasx" and "biasz" option without any issues. I got the distances from the drawing (i.e. the number of pixels from the center point ARP) and just placed things at my heart's content.
The issue I'm having now is trying to place an apron using the same commands on the vertex points for the apron as I did for the objects (i.e. the biasx and biasz). It appears that I can put a fuel box with the vertex bias in a scenery object area, but I can't put an apron in the facility data area with the vertex bias in the same way.
It's no big deal if I can't since most of the airports I'm going to drop into FS9 this way will be grass or dirt fields, but it would be nice to have a "generic slab" of concrete or asphalt on one of the sides with the buildings or objects. I can add it to the specific fields later in ADE, but was hoping not to have to. The more things I can do in XML by using the drawing I made, the better.
Does anyone have any idea what I may be doing wrong with the apron vertices and their bias numbers?
Here's the image:
The gray areas at the top are the "foundations" for the terminals, hangars, beacon tower, etc, as well as the ramps. By rotating the image I can have the area either at the bottom, right, or left, depending on the place I'm trying to place the field and how the surrounding area is (default roads, mostly).
The flatten and excludes are inserted in ADE with the top and bottom corners as usual. The four corner lat/lon coordinates for the flatten are used in SBuilder9 to create the background and the terrain items. I do this by making a txt file that goes with a bmp version of the image which contains the lat/lon info. That way everything matches.
As you can see, it would be easier if I didn't have to redo the ramps every single time. Again, I'm trying to make a template of a generic airport that I can place anywhere by changing the ARP and header info at the beginning of the <Airport section.
Thanks in advance for any input.
Jorge
Last edited: