How to remove terrain

[jgarnold]

After placing my bridge into the default MSFS scenery what appears to be rocks on the existing ground show through the deck of my bridge scenery object where it joins the land.
How do I remove this? I am assuming with an exclude polygon but I have tried some of the exclude parameters but they don't produce the desired effect.
The following is a screen shot with a red arrow pointing to the rock I want to remove?
Also is the a way to set the texture and color of the deck of the bridge to blend in with the existing roadway? A minor point as the deck of the bridge will usually be viewed from some altitude so not so important I guess.
Thanks

 

[superspud]

That's photogrammetry. You could either try excluding it by ticking the TIN option in a polygon's exclusions, but the effect might be a bit unpredictable since you want to keep the photogrammetry close to it that meets the bridge.

Or simply flatten that area with with a terraforming polygon set to the water level with a low falloff number. You'll have the same head ache with the terrain you need to keep though.

To match the surrounding texture I'd take a screen snip of the area in the sim and adjust the bridge texture in an imaging program.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks superspud. I have watched tutorials which included terraforming and falloff but I will try the TIN option first and make the polygon to match the 'footprint' of the end of the bridge.
Also will take a snap shot from the sim and play with matching the color better.

 

[jgarnold]

try excluding it by ticking the TIN option in a polygon's exclusions

I added a polygon, opened properties however (exclude) TIN did not display as an option. I did though try terraforming but had some trouble so would like to try the TIN option but why doesn't it display? Has it been 'moved' to a different Object Type?

 

[superspud]

Open the 'buildings' menu and TIN should be in there. I don't know if it differentiates between terrain and buidlings or squashes all photogrammetry.

Maybe flattening it with a terraform is better, but you'll have the same weird falloff problems as everywhere else.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks. You must be an early riser (7am?)
If TIN doesn't give me the required action I will try terraforming on a polygon just around the end of the bridge model and give falloff a value of 0.
Thanks again.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks again. Yes there it is (under buildings) and a few days ago 'buildings' was 'open' and as such I didn't notice that it had been 'closed'.
I have tried exclude TIN and it is almost ok for me so tried Terraform for the first time ever.
As soon as I selected it, all the scenery (on the land surrounding the polygon) 'dropped' to a lower altitude while the area where the polygon was remained stationary. I tried dragging the polygon higher and lower using the (green) vertical arrow without improvement of the surrounding landform. I then set the falloff to a very large value which made no difference. Not sure if I have understood youtube tutorials watched in the past (and now rewatched) and understood them correctly but in them where the area bounded by the polygon was 'dragged' higher and lower unlike what happens with my project.
Here is a screen shot showing how the surround area dropped in elevation as soon as I selected terraform in the polygon properties.

[added later] I tried a terraform polygon at the nearby airport and it worked the way I expected it so I am thinking that perhaps it might not work with photogrammetry. Is that correct?

 

[jgarnold]

Some more experimenting discloses that adding a terraform polygon near the edge of the water does exactly what is expected (see image below) BUT it drops the elevation of the land next to the water.

Does anyone have any ideas why this happens and if there is a method to prevent it?

 

[Areographer]

I totally sympathize! As a professional Cartographer who works with DEMs, TINs, Photogrammetry, LiDAR, and Landsat data daily, the Sim is extremely frustrating when working with terrain. However, I understand that it is a flight simulator and not one of my sophisticated mapping software suites. Our scenery creations are competing with a lot of stuff from the sim.....i.e. photogrammetry, TINs, and the underlying digital elevation model for the sim. What would be ideal would be to have the ability to control the elevation data directly.....i.e enter exact elevation values. But, like I said, it's an FS not a Geographic Information System (GIS). Particularly, working in photogrammetry areas is difficult. The terraforming tools work great in more "rural" areas, but when we get around urban areas, that's when our polys and rectangles compete with the sim's terrain algorithms and mesh resolution. It really is a trial by fire kind of thing.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks for your input. I do remember in FSX it was possible to change elevations to different values on each vertex of a polygon as I did it it correct incorrect land form at Sechelt BC Canada. Took a very long time though as I used at least 20 terrain polygons..
I feel that there is a bug in this (scenery) area (from inputs from others more knowledgeable than me regarding MSFS) as when photogrammetry is ON then there is no bridge displayed yet there are 'remnants' of satellite imagery showiing in the water, and road traffic continues across the water as if there was a bridge there (aquaboats?). And when photogrammetry is OFF then the 'stock' bridge appears with road traffic still crossing but UNDER the (stock) bridge AND the land elevation drops to around water level. I note atv other places where there is a stock) brisge it appears regardless of the photogrammetary setting).
All this happened with release of WU7 which included a 'rework' of the nearby YSHL airport (looks great) which probably had something to do with it.

Anyway I have since (almost) fixed the problem I had by increasing the length of my bridge object so that each end 'projects' further onto the land either side to better match the land elevation. Unfortunately though with photogrammetry OFF the end of my bridge are then higher than the land either side (as the land elevation drops). If I get around to releasing my bridge object (as freeware) I may have to have two versions, one for those who use photogrammetry ON and those who use it OFF (it would be really neat to be able to program to use one or the other automatically depending on what photogammetry is set).