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MSFS20 Multimarking apron nodes

S

Sueede

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sweden
MSFS2020 airports are full of aprons, and these aprons have tons of nodes, sometimes even when there is no curve. I try to simplify and also rework aprons to make them fewer, but there are two problems with that:
1. It takes time to mark several nodes at a time one by on (to delete several of them at once), since the rectangle marking tool doesn't seem to work over parts of an apront using R+mouse. That command/tool works as were used to in earlier versions for FSX when marking several nodes at once in a part of a taxiway. Is there a workoraund or is this something you can insert in coming updates?
2. After marking a huge number of nodes manually and then deleting them with "Delete" it takes literally for ever for ADE20 to get the work done. In task manager I see the CPU working itself up for every node and the memory use expanding. It takes approximately 5-8 sec per node. With sixty or so nodes it takes time. On many aprons. Is this my computer and something I have to live with, or something that the current version of ADE causes and can be improved?
 
I am aware that there needs to be some tools to reduce the number and complexity of aprons. Asobo went mad and used them for everything. Performance is an issue and is partly to do with the excessive amount of work that ADE is doing. Right now the performance has not been optimized although it is on the list.
 
I'm beginning to be aware of the workload that all our requests and questions demand. But it would be helpful! 😉
 
It appears that the stock airports were created by AI from satellite imagery. Everything is made up of aprons with thousands of nodes. I see drainage ditches showing up as pavement. As yet, I haven't run into any problem with slowdown while performing tasks in ADE, including removing the nodes. But, I am using a fast computer with 32GB memory. However, I am running MSFS in the background. Interestingly, the only freezeups have occurred with FSX running in the background. In this case, FSX has to be closed for ADE to resume. Happened also with ADE 175.
 
I'm just now getting into a larger airport with more and larger aprons and now see how a large apron slows down the removal of the excessive nodes. Modifying stock airports certainly could use a tool for removing masses of nodes. I spent considerable time reworking aprons, taxi paths and parking only to have the compiled package not register any changes to the stock airport. I'm now starting over saving backups to try and find what made the compiled package ineffective. The stock airport itself creates an almost endless list of warnings when compiled.
 

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I have this on my list there is no immediately obvious automated method. One work around that occurred to me is that instead of editing an existing apron is to manually create an approximate simple one for one or more existing aprons and then move it slightly, delete the originals and mode the modified one back into place

Another possible method would be to walk through the vertices of an apron and if the next vertex is less than a given distance from the base then delete it. Once the distance exceeds the test then move to the next. This is simplistic in that it takes no account of the bearing between vertices.

There is one apron surface which is called CLEAR_SURFACE and is used quite regularly. My tests indicate that it allows the underlying surface to show though. I can't be sure but the only purpose might be to flatten. I would be interested in test around what value it represents and therefore whether they could be removed to reduce apron load a bir.
 
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scruffyduck said:
I have this on my list there is no immediately obvious automated method. One work around that occurred to me is that instead of editing an existing apron is to manually create an approximate simple one for one or more existing aprons and then move it slightly, delete the originals and mode the modified one back into place
Click to expand...

Hi Jon,

Thanks for the work you've done so far.

I have been doing this workaround. I usually have to make a judgement call which will take longer waiting for the extra vertices to be deleted, or just making a new apron. But in general that works for now, unless the airport is really large.

For the really detailed airports like KDFW its very difficult to even load it. It took over 30 minutes to create a stock project for KDFW, and when it finally did load, it was very very difficult to move anything the respond was so slow. Then it would trigger an error report, but it wouldn't let me send the report, it would just crash.

I did notice one apron in KDFW had over 2500 vertices, phew !
 
Thanks Ernie. I am hoping to do some performance profiling to see where the bottle necks are. I am surprised that the performance in sim is not hit by so many aprons. There are also too many taxi points and paths.
 
I have tried the method of drawing an apron on top of the default with fewer nodes, but in complex airports, well they don't have to be very big, ADE tells me there are too many aprons and won't allow me to draw any on top of the others.
 
Sueede said:
I have tried the method of drawing an apron on top of the default with fewer nodes, but in complex airports, well they don't have to be very big, ADE tells me there are too many aprons and won't allow me to draw any on top of the others.
Click to expand...
That sounds like a bug which I thought was fixed, Can you confirm the alpha version you are using?
 
OK I have removed the error of too many aprons so you will be able to add new aprons from Alpha 14
 
OK - I am hoping to release alpha 14 in the next day or two
 
Sueede said:
MSFS2020 airports are full of aprons, and these aprons have tons of nodes, sometimes even when there is no curve. I try to simplify and also rework aprons to make them fewer, but there are two problems with that:
1. It takes time to mark several nodes at a time one by on (to delete several of them at once), since the rectangle marking tool doesn't seem to work over parts of an apront using R+mouse. That command/tool works as were used to in earlier versions for FSX when marking several nodes at once in a part of a taxiway. Is there a workoraund or is this something you can insert in coming updates?
2. After marking a huge number of nodes manually and then deleting them with "Delete" it takes literally for ever for ADE20 to get the work done. In task manager I see the CPU working itself up for every node and the memory use expanding. It takes approximately 5-8 sec per node. With sixty or so nodes it takes time. On many aprons. Is this my computer and something I have to live with, or something that the current version of ADE causes and can be improved?
Click to expand...
Hi it's possible to mark nodes, do this: mark the apron first, than mark one of the apron points you like to remove, push the ctrl key and keep it pushed while you span the right angle with the left mouse button, keep pushing the ctrl key an continue selecting with as much right angles as you like until all what you like to change is selected. Release the ctrl key and do what you like to do with these points like delete them, or move them...it works fine
(that's the way it works in the SDK editor)
 
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I tried the CTRL combination at it doesn't work for me in ADE. R+mouse is the default combination.
 
Shift+Click? Ctrl+Click might be for the in sim editor?
 
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