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FSX Question about TerraBuilder features

tylerpilot

tylerpilot

Resource contributor
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unitedstates
Hi,

Does anyone know more details of what TerraBuilder can do? Can it add seasonal textures (Fall, winter, hard winter, spring, and summer textures), and night_LM textures?

Thanks,
Tyler
 
There's a downloadable manual on the Terrabuilder site. From a quick look, it can certainly handle seasonal and night textures. Since it creates INF files for resample.exe, I would imagine that you can do anything which you can do with a hand-made INF.

It looks like the main use is to handle smaller chunks of image, which are easier to work with, however it looks like it doesn't handle the cutting itself.

It also doesn't work with GeoTIFFs, just BMPs.

I would imagine that it would be very useful for some jobs, but it isn't a complete solution. I'll stick with GeoTIFFs and resample.exe.

I used to use Terrabuilder in the old (FS2002/4) days, but I already have enough tools to simplify the process.
 
Manual seems to be online now. I haven't seen this tool before, so maybe it has just been released. At least it seems well documented, I haven't tried it yet to see what functionality it has.

Personally I'll stick with GeoTIFF files and resample, since that is all I need. With GIS tool I can view and edit the GeoTIFF files and the compilation is so simple with GeoTIFF files that I don't need a special GUI for that.
 
arno said:
Manual seems to be online now. I haven't seen this tool before, so maybe it has just been released. At least it seems well documented, I haven't tried it yet to see what functionality it has.

Personally I'll stick with GeoTIFF files and resample, since that is all I need. With GIS tool I can view and edit the GeoTIFF files and the compilation is so simple with GeoTIFF files that I don't need a special GUI for that.
Click to expand...

Thanks :) Where can l download that tool?
 
Hi guys!

I'm the author of TerraBuilder FSX, fire away with the questions, criticism, wishlists... :) To answer some:

Yes, it is designed for smaller chunks, up to 2880x2880 pixels. The rationale is, it is easier to work on smaller individual chunks than the large ones, especially when creating masks. Also - smaller chunks are not neccessary to be re-projected because they are more granular.

Smaller chunks are also extremely handy if you are designing an airport and wanting to retain the default runways - smaller chunks can be precisely georeferenced/aligned with the default runway.

It definitely handles any and all temporal versions (seasons) - actually, most of the relevant INF file options are covered.

Big plus is that it loads and saves directly in the SDK INF format. You can also load in multiple, adjacent INF projects, or patition a large project into smaller INF chunks.

In the future, we intend to support small-scale terrain meshes, ideal for making sloped runways or small localized terrain corrections.

Cheers,
Misho
 
Hi Misho, long time no....

As I read this, I was thinking that if you added a re-projection tool, you would lift the value of your product hugely. Those of us that have the means, have mostly bought GIS tools, but for those folks without the means, they are stuck with the freeware tools. I tried the freeware approach but I found it very difficult to use. A terrabuilder that could reproject images from UTM to Geographic and potentially allow for changing the datum, would be very interesting to folks, IMHO.

Presently you compete with people willing to use the SDK and their own graphics tool (competing with "free" options). Add reprojection, you're competing with GIS tools (like Globalmapper) that demand a significant price point. Now you've defined a nice niche for your tool.

Cheers,
Bob
 
Hi Bob! Yes, long time :o

Thanks for the suggestion! I was considering that, however, the dev environment I used to put this together (Flash, if you'd believe it) doesn't allow anything larger than 2880x2880 pixels... A limitation Flash acknowledges. At that resolution, high-res photorealistic covers a small patch of ground, which doesn't really need re-projection.

If they remove that limitation, I will definitely release an update!

Cheers,
Misho
 
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