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New to SbuilderX; ESRI data for photoreal question

K

Kensei

Messages
10
Hi all,

I'm new to SbuilderX. I used FS Earth Tiles the last year and created a good part of W-Europe with it. It works nice, but the thing is...it takes sooooo much time to get a proper coastline. Making path files (KML files) in GE for let's say the UK isn't easy.

I noticed the www.gadm.org website where one can download KMZ files, ESRI SHP etc...
I decided to give SBuilderX (v3.13) a try since I read that a lot of ex-FSET user are using SbuilderX nowadays. I decided for Aruba (nice and small for a 1st try), downloaded & appended the ESRI SHP file, put the island as background in SbuilderX, but then?? I can't seem to get/do what you guys do: making it a layer of some sort.
Helpfiles into this area are scattered and didn't gave me any clue on how to proceed next.

This is what I have now:

Aruba as background
full.jpg


The ESRI SHP file
full.jpg


and both overlayed
full.jpg


and now I'm stuck on what to do next. I somehow need to tell SbuilderX that I only want the land to be photoreal (everything within the boundries of thhe ESHR SHP file) but I can't seem to find that option :confused:

Any help would be appreciated.
 
You don't use SBuilderX to specify which is photographic and which is default, you do that with the blend/watermask in resample.

You do need to specify in SBuilderX that the polygon you have created is a 'hole' in an hydro-poly which covers the whole of a QMid11 rectangle.
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
You don't use SBuilderX to specify which is photographic and which is default, you do that with the blend/watermask in resample.

You do need to specify in SBuilderX that the polygon you have created is a 'hole' in an hydro-poly which covers the whole of a QMid11 rectangle.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. But how do I specify that? I've seen screenshots where that 'hole' option is shown, but I can't find it. If I right click om the polygone I don't see that option.
 
Last edited:
Kensei said:
Thanks for your reply. But how do I specify that? I've seen screenshots where that 'hole' option is shown, but I can't find it. If I right click om the polygone I don't see that option.
Click to expand...

You first need to create another hydro-poly which covers the whole QMid11 rectangle. (This is the sea into which you will insert a hole).

Then, right-click on your 'island' and select "Make hole". Then, when is says "Select parent", click on the edge of the outer polygon.
 
Okay,

I made a waterpoly around my island (just 4 points on the grid around my island)

full.jpg

type: 4_pts_Exclude_All_Water_Polygons

Now...when I rightclick the island I still won't get a "make hole"

full.jpg


A mouse-over on the poly that was created by the ESRI SHP, SBX tells me it's a 'polygon imported from a shapefile'. Is that correct or is that the reason I can't create a hole?

EDIT: You told me 'hydro' so I'll try it again. Water and hydro aren't the same I guess :)
 
Last edited:
Kensei said:
A mouse-over on the poly that was created by the ESRI SHP, SBX tells me it's a 'polygon imported from a shapefile'. Is that correct or is that the reason I can't create a hole?

EDIT: You told me 'hydro' so I'll try it again. Water and hydro aren't the same I guess :)
Click to expand...

You need to set the property of the imported polygon to be the same as the surrounding one, ie. hydro/water. Obviously, since they will be come the same polygon once the inner has been defined as a hole.

You do NOT need an exclusion polygon unless there is a default island at that location.

In my terms, 'Hydro' and 'Water' are the same. Just be sure you pick one of the 'ocean' types for both polygons.
 
I'm sorry, but I can't get it to work :( Even though I select the ESRI SHP to be a generic Ocean file and do the same for the rectangular poly around the island, the poly of the ESRI keep on saying they are an imported shape file.

If needed I can give you the shape file so you can try it too.
 
It doesn't matter what it is called, that is defined on the "General" tab. The only important thing is the type.

Attach your file and I'll take a look.
 
It works fine, but there are a couple of extra things you need to know ;)

I need to go out now but I'll post a step-by-step guide this afternoon.

In the meanwhile, here is your island in TmfViewer

 
Are we sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

After appending the shape files, change the Name to something sensible:





You won't be able to select the polygon because there are too many points, so, zoom right in until you can see an edge, right-click and select "Properties"





The name should be present and the Vector Polys tab should be complete.


Set "View/QMid grid/11" and you will see that the island is present in two rectangles





Draw a polygon (the sea) around the two rectangles. In Properties, set the name, colour and type









You should see your island in dark blue on top of the just drawn polygon





Again, you will need to zoom right in to right-click on the edge of the island polygon. Select "Set as hole"





It will display a tooltip "Click to Select Parent Poly", however you won't be able to see the edge of the outer poly. Zoom-out until you can see the edge and left-click





et voila, you should see your island as a hole.





You now need to trim the polygon to the QMid boundaries. Right-click on the edge and select "Slice to QMid11"





I have missed out the next part since you do need to try something yourself ;)

Click on one of the pieces sticking into the adjacent QMid grid and press <Delete> after confirmation, that piece will disappear.

Do this for all of the edge polygons and you should end up with





ie. the sea covering two full QMid11 rectangles with a hole for the island.

You now need to create a bgl.

Select from the menu "Select all polygons", click on the "green arrow" button to compile the vector bgl.

That's all there is to it :D



NOTE. Don't think that you will be able to do the coastline for the whole of Europe, there will be far too many vertices. In fact I was able to input th Irish coast, but I couldn't do anything with it such as clip to QMid boundaries, SBX ran out of memory space.
 
Thanks George,
Unfortunatly I'm not able to test/try it until tomorrow evening, but I'll report back to you. Thanks again!
 
Hi George,

It worked but I still find SBX a difficult way to get my scenery when I compare it to FSET. The only downside of FSET is the creation of coastlines, but after that it's a walk in the park. If only there was a way to easily get coastlines into GE...that would make life easier :)

Although I really appreciate your help I won't continue with SBX and will continue with FSET.

Thanks again and have a nice weekend!
 
A couple of thoughts.

1. Your source data looks like it came from the SRTM-derived coastline data. I find it doesn't look that good in FSX. You can try "smoothing" but that doesn't work so good on this kind of "stair-step" data.

2. I don't always have success creating holes that lap over QMID 11 boundaries.

3. Don't forget the "make line from poly" to create the visual shoreline with surf.

scott s.
.
 
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