SBuilderX railroads

[arno]

Hi,

I was doing some experimentation with railroads in SBuilderX today and I have some questions.

1. Besides the type "railroad" there is also a "railroad bridges" type you can choose. For me they did not seem to do anything, but maybe I missed the point. What can they be used for?
2. Is there any easy way to make a single track railroad, now each line gets two tracks by default.

 

[BASys]

Hi Folks

Arno -

Besides the type "railroad" there is also a "railroad bridges" type you can choose.
For me they did not seem to do anything, but maybe I missed the point.
What can they be used for?

Could they be for extrusion railroad bridges ?

Is there any easy way to make a single track railroad, now each line gets two tracks by default.

Only related file I've found is railroadsu.bmp

In -
\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Scenery\World\Texture\

Contains only double-tracks.


HTH
ATB
Paul

 

[HolgerSandmann]

Hi Arno,

all the *bridge* entries in the default terrain.cfg refer to the FS9-style "autogen" bridges, which are no longer supported in FSX. Instead, FSX uses extrusions for generic bridges, which need to be coded manually - see http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxsd&DLID=115428 - unless you write a GIS app to do that for you.

As Paul points out correctly there's only one railroad line entry in the terrain.cfg and it has a double-track texture. You can edit that texture but the effect would be global.

The official (SDK) approach is to have your custom textures called by additional entries in the terrain.cfg but that has its own issues in terms of distribution and support. However, there's a work-around: you can give your own texture the name of the default texture, i.e., railroadsu.bmp, and place it in the texture subfolder of your scenery, and FSX will use it instead (if you want to do the same with land class textured polys you'll also need a land class file that covers your area but I don't think that's necessary for vectors).

Cheers, Holger

 

[arno]

Thanks guys, that confirms sort of what I thought already. At least I did not miss something obvious .

Instead, FSX uses extrusions for generic bridges, which need to be coded manually - see http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxsd&DLID=115428 - unless you write a GIS app to do that for you.

I have that tutorial already and writing a little tool to make my life easier is the next thing I am going to do. That should allow me to generate those bridges from the SHP data I have without too much trouble.

The official (SDK) approach is to have your custom textures called by additional entries in the terrain.cfg but that has its own issues in terms of distribution and support.

I am aware of that, we even discussed it on the DevCon last year . I think I will stay away from that for the moment.

 

[Timmo]

Arno- I realise you are a busy man but have you developed that shapefile to extrusion bridge tool yet?

I was just about to start writing a python script to do this but if you have already done it then that would be great!

Cheers

 

[arno]

Hi,

Yes, I made a sort of alpha test version. In the end I found out that the data would need some rework to give a good result and I did not find the time for that yet.

But I guess I can hand you some code if that help (or the test version).

 

[Timmo]

What language is it in? (Im pretty new to coding- only really know Python)

 

[arno]

C# and I would have to look again. I think I did not use shapefile, but the OpenStreetMap (OSM) XML format as input.

 

[sruddy]

...However, there's a work-around: you can give your own texture the name of the default texture, i.e., railroadsu.bmp, and place it in the texture subfolder of your scenery, and FSX will use it instead (if you want to do the same with land class textured polys you'll also need a land class file that covers your area but I don't think that's necessary for vectors).

Cheers, Holger

Hi Holger,
I just tested this work around on one of my system (fsx/acceleration) and and it does not work for me. I tested it with a custom texture I made with the same mips as the "railroadsu.bmp" and a similar texture from fsx utilitymask.bmp both end up wonky. Parts of the line disappear (as if there is no mip at that level?).
Did this workaround break for acceleration?
Thanks,
Sean

 

[HolgerSandmann]

Hi Sean,

I must admit I never tested this without also having a land class file of mine in the same scenery folder. Perhaps that is required to trigger FSX to read the texture from the parallel texture folder. Obviously, though, you also need a cvx file that calls the default railroad vectors.

I'm not sure what you mean by "... with a custom texture I made with the same mips as the "railroadsu.bmp"...". Do you mean the same format (DXT5) or did you re-use the mipmaps of the default texture?

Cheers, Holger

 

[sruddy]

Hi Sean,

"... with a custom texture I made with the same mips as the "railroadsu.bmp"...". Do you mean the same format (DXT5) or did you re-use the mipmaps of the default texture?

Cheers, Holger

Thanks Holder, Perhaps I can determine what the stock texture is and grab it to spoof the fsx engine into putting my custom one in...
Not sure about the nomenclature...
I made a texture the same size as the stock railroadsu.bmp in photoshop and imported it into the image tool which then made dtx5 mips for me...
I also used another stock texture that had similar mips and dtx5. Both popped in and out of view depending on the range from the plane (too close the disappear and to far they disappear.

 

[ollyau]

Sorry for the bump, but I was wondering if Arno's OSM to road/extrusion bridge tool has been furthered/made available.

I was considering playing with the OpenStreetMap data, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel making a tool if one's already working.

 

[arno]

Hi,

No, that tool never made it further than a quick prototype. But I think the people of the OSM based OpenVFR scenery have taken the concept further in their work.

 

[Markus Freyt]

Hi,

No, that tool never made it further than a quick prototype. But I think the people of the OSM based OpenVFR scenery have taken the concept further in their work.

Hi Arno,

yes, you are right. We indeed had the idea to take bridges from OSM to add them into our scenery openVFR.

The point we have noticed is, that its very(!) complex to render them. We found it easy to get two-ended bridges rendered. Also bridges with different layers could be generated quite easily. BUT, a lot of bridges have more than two ends. When looking more in detail to this issue bridges are very often even cascaded with their ramps. Think about such complex highway knots.

We ended up with a complex code to assemble those multi-ramp-bridges. We have not been statisfied yet with its result due to some stupid limitations of FSX supporting such complex bridges. So, we still need to dive in deeper.
ITS REALLY INTERESTING STUFF!

Finally, we think that the amount of bridges available in OSM will force down the FSX performance.

Would be interesting to know, if somebody else has ever tried to automatically render extrusion bridges based on external data?

Bye

Markus