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Suggestion for test airport?

arno

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Hi,

I am looking for a nice airport to use as test-case while developing gPoly. In the end I will be using this tool for the next EHAM Schiphol scenery of the NL2000 team, but that airport is a bit too big to use for the first testing and help me in developing the tool further.

So I am looking for a smaller airport. Does anybody have good suggestions of a nice airport to use? As a side product I might finish a scenery of it as well in the end :).

My requirements are:
  • Not too complex, so probably only 1 runway and a few aprons and taxiways.
  • Also not too simple, it should still have some markings on the aprons and taxiways, since I want to test that functionality of gPoly as well.
  • It would be nice if free imagery of the airport is available, so I might end up making a US airport since the USGS has lots of nice data.

So does anybody have some good suggestions?
 
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How fine of detail might you be looking for, with respects to the imagery? As you say, there is a lot of available source in the U.S., some of which goes 30cm or better.


Back as a follow-up, if you'd like I can furnish 1m, 60cm and 30cm of the same airport? Imagery taken from different times, so it's not a matter of down or up sampling. Picture attached. Not a major airport, per se. More of a regional facility.
 

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Arno, as you say, the US airports have amazing photocoverage. Tacoma Narrows comes to mind (KTIW), one runway but enough of a runway for jet traffic. Of course, there is an infinite number of choices. I'd be happy to provide you 20cm/pixel imagery, although I suspect you can get it just as easily from www.usgs.gov. Maybe you can't get in from the Netherlands?

Probably 10000 airports available that fit your description. In my area alone, Thun Field in Puyallup, Auburn Muni, Renton Muni, Bowerman Field in Hoquim, ok...so the list is endless....these are just a few that come to mind.
 
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Hi Arno,

Good to see you getting around to testing gPOly. I have two suggestions for the airport: KSNA John Wayne/Orange County and KSAN San Diego. Both are major airports in California that have relatively simple layouts and compact dimensions (although they are larger that airports like KTIW as suggested by the previous poster).

A bit of trivia: KSNA actually has 2 runways, but the main one is one of the shortest of any major airport in the US. The full-thrust takeoff/ steep climb noise-abatement procedure is a lot of fun. KSAN also has a short runway with terrain at the end.

USGS has slightly dated but nice imagery for both.
 

arno

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Hi,

How fine of detail might you be looking for, with respects to the imagery? As you say, there is a lot of available source in the U.S., some of which goes 30cm or better.


Back as a follow-up, if you'd like I can furnish 1m, 60cm and 30cm of the same airport? Imagery taken from different times, so it's not a matter of down or up sampling. Picture attached. Not a major airport, per se. More of a regional facility.

Anything around 1 meter or better would work. I plan to mainly use it as reference to draw the ground layout, the polygons will get custom higher resolution textures, since when driving on it most photos tend to be not good enough.

On the other hand I will also be testing the feature to make photo textured polygons out of the photo, so for that some resolution is needed.
 

arno

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Hi,

Good to see you getting around to testing gPOly. I have two suggestions for the airport: KSNA John Wayne/Orange County and KSAN San Diego. Both are major airports in California that have relatively simple layouts and compact dimensions (although they are larger that airports like KTIW as suggested by the previous poster).

Thanks for the suggestions. I feel these airports are a little too complex, that makes them less suitable as a test airport. And if I ever wanted to finish the scenery after making the ground layout, there are also many buildings to model :). So they don't look like the best choice to me.
 

arno

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Hi Bob,

Arno, as you say, the US airports have amazing photocoverage. Tacoma Narrows comes to mind (KTIW), one runway but enough of a runway for jet traffic. Of course, there is an infinite number of choices. I'd be happy to provide you 20cm/pixel imagery, although I suspect you can get it just as easily from www.usgs.gov. Maybe you can't get in from the Netherlands?

Probably 10000 airports available that fit your description. In my area alone, Thun Field in Puyallup, Auburn Muni, Renton Muni, Bowerman Field in Hoquim, ok...so the list is endless....these are just a few that come to mind.

Yes, I can get imagery from USGS in the Netherlands as well, so that is no problem.

Is Tacoma Narrows not the airport you made before? I will also take a good look at the other suggestions. Some of them seem a bit big for my purpose already, although Bowerman Airport looks nice as well.

While looking around on Google Maps a bit yesterday I also came across KGHG Marshfield Municipal Airport in Massachusetts.
 
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Just looking at Key West in the Florida Keys, an international airport, one runway, some interesting markings and locations, not too many buildings...
 
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Hi Arno
Hi to all

My sugestion, since the title of the topic is "Sugestion for Airport test :D

Madeira - LPMA
0925103.jpg

0686856.jpg

3803308769_9b0781f1c2.jpg

lpfu05vor.gif

Photos copyright of the owners

Tricky one ;)

Regards
 

arno

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Hi,

My sugestion, since the title of the topic is "Sugestion for Airport test :D

Madeira - LPMA

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think a runway like that is a little too challenging to help me develop the tool at this moment. And I know other people are working on that airport already as well.
 

arno

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Everybody thanks for the suggestions. I enjoyed it a lot looking at all the different airport.

In the end I have decided to use Marshfield Municipal Airport (KGHG, former 3B2) as my test airport. It offers a couple of different surface types and different markings (including text written on the ground). Besides that I found 15 cm imagery of the airport at USGS, so that will be of great help.

And last it has only a couple of buildings, so once I finished the ground layout I should be able to finish the entire airport as well.

3b2.jpg


So, let me start developing gPoly further while trying to model this airport :).
 
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:) Great choice Arno!


I hope (and I'm also sure) we get a lot of status report from you. :)
 

arno

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You will. But at the moment I am working on the code of gPoly to actually export something. Once that is working, I can start adding the details of the airport. And I am sure I'll find issues in the tool while trying to do that :).
 

GHD

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15cm textures will be great. Google at zoom 19 shows the runway, taxiway and apron markings very well, but the surrounding colour is not particularly good.
 

arno

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Hi George,

I believe that is the same image as I got through the USGS website. It seems the image was made in autumn if I look at the colours of the surrounding landscape. I have put the airport part as a resample BGL into FSX already and that looks OK. Now I am drawing the detailed aprons and taxiways on top of it using gPoly.
 
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