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FSX - Photo Airport on a hill

thetford569

thetford569

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266
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unitedstates
Hello,

I am very new to designing scenery and I just started playing with SBuilderX last night. I also have ADE to use for creating my airport. First I followed the tutorial for adding a photo scenery tile of the airport and surrounding area into FSX using SBuilderX. I was able to get the photo scenery into FSX with no problem. I'm redesigning a small Naval Outlying Landing Field as my first project because it seems simple enough. Of course as expected the photo scenery and airport do not line up and in fact the default airport is located way off of the photo tile. The default airport is also on a plateau since I am using FSGenesis mesh. The photo tile I noticed is on a hill that is leading up to the plateau and therefore is not flat to place runways, buildings, taxiways, etc.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I've read about adjusting the mesh, using excludes, flattens, etc. and I don't know which one or combination of things I need to do. I am not opposed to just excluding the entire default airport and building a new one from scratch over the photo scenery and in fact would probably rather do that so I can try my hand at a custom runway. But, I don't know if that will fix the elevation problems of the photo scenery being on a hill and the old default airport being on a plateau? Any suggestions or pointers would be really appreciated. If I can get rid of the plateau by excluding the default airport and then flattening the photo scenery somehow I can then build the airport on top of that. Thanks for the help!

Brandon Thetford
 
Hi,

If in real life the airport is build on a slope you can get such trouble. FSX does not allow sloped airports, they always have to be flat. So that can cause the plateau you are seeing. I think the best you can do is try to minimize the effects.
 
The photo you have in SBuilderX should be saved in the "work" folder. There will also be a .txt file of the same name. That text file has the corner coordinates to use in adding the photo as a background in ADEX.

Once you have the airport and image in ADEX you are ready to work. There are two things you have to determine:

1. Do you have to move or rotate one or more runways. If you think the answer is "yes" go into "approach" mode and see if there are any approaches for the runway (and reciprocal) you want to move/rotate. If there are, then you have your work cut out for you, and you might want to reconsider moving/rotating the runway. If there isn't an approach, then moving/rotating a runway is not a big deal.

2. Is the airport elevation correct? If it's wrong it's probably either a) the elevation is actually right, but it's in the wrong location. After moving the elevation is good, or b) airport is in correct location but the elevation is wrong. I suppose both the elevation and location can be wrong, but that is not so common.

Fixing 1 or 2 requires modifying the terrain, then the airport. Typical is to create a triangle or rectangle polygon set the "exclude airport backgrounds" that includes the airport reference point (exact size and shape in not important). Then, using the image as a guide, trace a new terrain polygon in the correct location and set this to "airport background flatten maskclassmap excludeautogen" (an alternative is to create multiple polygons typical would be to have one set to flatten and the others some variation of maskclassmap and/or excludeautogen depending on what you want. Just make sure the flatten covers all ground objects.) The flatten must have an elevation. Default is to use the airport elevation, but you can edit this if you need to change the airport elevation.

Next, if you need to change the airport elevation, use the tool in ADEX. When you compile, ADE will create a second bgl and automatically place it in world/scenery for you (don't forget it if you publish your scenery).

Finally, drag and edit the airport elements you want moved. Tip: it might be easier to delete the runway starts and ILS and recreate them after moving/rotating the runways. Current version of ADE doesn't allow for group movement of objects, so you might have to work a bit to get all the taxisigns or multi-generic building models moved.

scott s.
.
 
Thanks for the reply. I have not had time to try this out but I'm going to now. I'll see how things work. I appreciate the help.

Brandon

scott967 said:
The photo you have in SBuilderX should be saved in the "work" folder. There will also be a .txt file of the same name. That text file has the corner coordinates to use in adding the photo as a background in ADEX.

Once you have the airport and image in ADEX you are ready to work. There are two things you have to determine:

1. Do you have to move or rotate one or more runways. If you think the answer is "yes" go into "approach" mode and see if there are any approaches for the runway (and reciprocal) you want to move/rotate. If there are, then you have your work cut out for you, and you might want to reconsider moving/rotating the runway. If there isn't an approach, then moving/rotating a runway is not a big deal.

2. Is the airport elevation correct? If it's wrong it's probably either a) the elevation is actually right, but it's in the wrong location. After moving the elevation is good, or b) airport is in correct location but the elevation is wrong. I suppose both the elevation and location can be wrong, but that is not so common.

Fixing 1 or 2 requires modifying the terrain, then the airport. Typical is to create a triangle or rectangle polygon set the "exclude airport backgrounds" that includes the airport reference point (exact size and shape in not important). Then, using the image as a guide, trace a new terrain polygon in the correct location and set this to "airport background flatten maskclassmap excludeautogen" (an alternative is to create multiple polygons typical would be to have one set to flatten and the others some variation of maskclassmap and/or excludeautogen depending on what you want. Just make sure the flatten covers all ground objects.) The flatten must have an elevation. Default is to use the airport elevation, but you can edit this if you need to change the airport elevation.

Next, if you need to change the airport elevation, use the tool in ADEX. When you compile, ADE will create a second bgl and automatically place it in world/scenery for you (don't forget it if you publish your scenery).

Finally, drag and edit the airport elements you want moved. Tip: it might be easier to delete the runway starts and ILS and recreate them after moving/rotating the runways. Current version of ADE doesn't allow for group movement of objects, so you might have to work a bit to get all the taxisigns or multi-generic building models moved.

scott s.
.
Click to expand...
 
ok after trying your suggestion here is the problem I have. I guess the airport is both in the wrong location and at the wrong elevation. The runway is East and South of where it should be by probably 1/4 mile. Also the published elevation is 102 ft. In FSX the elevation on the runway is 362.6 ft. so it is well above where it should be. From the airport as you slew into the photo scenery I generated (for the background), the ground slopes down to an elevation of 128.6 ft. which is still above the published elevation. I don't know what to do to get this to work, but it's both in the wrong location and wrong elevation and I don't know that your suggestion will work for this project.

Brandon
 
My expereince using SbuilderX and airport eleavations is that you go with what the elevation you have on published charts (usually FS has them as the charts do), and as Arno said try to minimize the effects by creating sloped polygons.

Unless you are ready to go and do a sloped airport and runway which SbuilderX can't do.
 
I don't want to do a sloped runway. This is my first ever scenery project. All I want to do is use the aerial photo I created in SBuilderX and build the new airport on top of it. The photo is at 128.6 ft. which is too high. It is in the correct location though and all roads line up as they should.

The default FSX airport is at 362.6 ft. which is WAY too high and it is also located off of the photo tile in the wrong location. I would like to just get rid of all of the default airport and start with building a new airport from scratch over the photo tile. Starting where the photo tile is all the way up to the default airport the terrain slopes upward so the photo tile is sitting on a sloped hill. Some other points around the airport are not sloped and are resulting in the plateau effect. Maybe this explains it a little better?

Brandon
 
OK, so you create a poly set to exclude airport background around the default airport. That should get rid of the 362 ft plateau and allow the FSG mesh to take over.

If you are saying that the FSG mesh under your photo of the airport reads as 129 ft, so as a first shot use ADEX to move all the airport elements to the correct place as per the photo, and then set the elevation to 129 ft. Then draw an airport background poly with flatten/masklandclass/excludeautogen set and set its elevation to 129 ft as well. Compile those and install the bgl files into fsx and then take a look. Chances are, the airport will be on a plateau (but in the right place), in a hole, or a hole on one side and plateau on the other. At that point, the best you can do is experiment with moving the airport and polygon up or down a little in elevation and see what works the best.

scott s.
.
 
Thanks for the help! I seem to have corrected the elevation of the airport without moving the airport elements yet...I'm going to delete them and start over and move the airport reference point. However right now I seem to have a small plateau of differing elevations around the Southern and Eastern parts of my exclude polygon. This was much worse before with a huge cliff and now it's smaller but I'd like to get rid of it. I also see the one square airport background texture just south of the runway that I don't want however my exclude for the old airport is not over that area? I've attached some screens that hopefully will show what I'm talking about.

Brandon

scott967 said:
OK, so you create a poly set to exclude airport background around the default airport. That should get rid of the 362 ft plateau and allow the FSG mesh to take over.

If you are saying that the FSG mesh under your photo of the airport reads as 129 ft, so as a first shot use ADEX to move all the airport elements to the correct place as per the photo, and then set the elevation to 129 ft. Then draw an airport background poly with flatten/masklandclass/excludeautogen set and set its elevation to 129 ft as well. Compile those and install the bgl files into fsx and then take a look. Chances are, the airport will be on a plateau (but in the right place), in a hole, or a hole on one side and plateau on the other. At that point, the best you can do is experiment with moving the airport and polygon up or down a little in elevation and see what works the best.

scott s.
.
Click to expand...
 
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Hello:

While Jon et al are working on the "Move Airport" feature in ADE9X, a temporary alternative is to use FSXPlanner to do a quick move of all selected airport features. :idea:


http://www.zbluesoftware.com/fsxplanner/index.cfm

http://www.zbluesoftware.com/fsxplanner/FSXPlanner.zip


Just identify existing and relocated ARP coordinates you're moving from / to; then click Options > Move Airport, enter the coordinates... and FSXPlanner does the move in a heartbeat. :wizard:


FYI: I don't believe that program moves "approach" data (yet ?) ;)



Hmmm... Can one ever have enough tools in ones "FS Tool Belt" ? :p


Hope this helps ! :)

GaryGB
 
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