Making Roads in Flight Simulator 2004

Archived from groups: alt.games.microsoft.flight-sim (More info?)

The people who really know this stuff are on the MSFS Scenery Design
forum at AVSIM
http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.ph [...] &forum=123

Or, if you don't care about the process and just want the roads, check
out one of the existing roads packages:

+ US$15 will get you roads, railroads, streams, and utilities for the
U.S. (including Hawaii and Alaska) from FSGenesis
http://www.fsgenesis.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

+ US$30 will get you roads, railroads, landclass, shorelines, and
improved nightlighting from Flight1
http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=utcan (that's for Canada
and Alaska; USA including Hawaii is coming out end of June; Europe to
follow in July or August). If you're really in a hurry, you can buy USA
Roads from the same place -- I did last summer and it was money well
spent. But if I were you I'd wait and get the package that's coming out
now.

+ Have seen some payware road packages for Europe, but if I were you
I'd wait and see what Flight1 comes up with in the next few months -- I
think you'll get more for your money.

+ R. Taburet has made a freeware road package for USA; it got pulled
from AVSIM, though, so I'm not sure where to find it.

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Archived from groups: alt.games.microsoft.flight-sim (More info?)

"Charles Newman" <charlesnewman1@comcast.spammers.go.away.net> wrote in
news:a5WdnWjKfY91qwDfRVn-2w@comcast.com:

>
> What programs are there to make roads in FS2002
> or FS2004. The way roads are represented are
> different in early version. Leung Software FS
> Scenery Creator creates roads in FS2002/FS2004
> that partway dissapear. Where can I get a utility
> for FS2004 that will create roads that will not
> partway dissapear.

Roads in FS2004 are created by "vector textured polys". These
are polygons which drape over the landclass and mesh (though in
FS2004 it is possible to flatten the polygons via the terain.cfg
settings). These polys also can have autogen objects assigned to
them (again by terrain.cfg). Terrain, including VTP, is rendered
at a 4.75m resolution, so there are limits to the possible detail.
These polys have layers assigned to them, so it is possible to
place polys on top of one another and control the draw order.

Some programs which can work with these VTPs are Ground2k4,
sbuilder, autoasm, and slartibartfast.

The first problem is getting accurate road data. For the US, both
the census (TIGER) and the USGS (DLG 24k) data can be used. In
Canada, geobase.ca has road data. For anywhere else, good luck.

Once you have the road data, you have to reproject it as necessary
to "unprojected" (geo or lat\long) using the WGS84 datum for it
to be compatible with FS2004 scenery. Then you can use it in one
of the tools. The choice of tool depends on the form the data are in.
I find that sbuilder is good for using shapefile vector data.
If the data are in a raster format, autoasm has the ability to find
and use color contrasts in the raster to create vector data. In
ground2k4, you use a raster image as background, and trace over the
roads (or other features) with the mouse.

If you need higher resolution than the 4.75m, you need a different
approach, by creating 3d objects on the ground using tools like
gmax or scasm.

An alternative is to use aerial photos, where the photo will represent
the road as raster data within the image. Again, you have the option
of using terrain tools with 4.75m resolution, or 3d object creation
tools for higher resolution.

In any of these methods, you have to deal with the problem that you
are working with a default world with many inaccuracies. Misplaced
coastlines, rivers, lakes, etc make it difficult to use highly
accurate roads without some "fixups".

scott s.
..

Archived from groups: alt.games.microsoft.flight-sim (More info?)

"Charles Newman" <charlesnewman1@comcast.spammers.go.away.net> wrote in
news:t9Gdnb0396PcfQLfRVn-uQ@comcast.com:

>
> I get longitude and lattitude data from online
> mapping services such as Maporama, MSN
> Maps, or Multimap, for each road segment,
> so I have no problem getting the data, its just
> getting a decent program to create the roads in
> FS2004.
> I would recommnd MSN maps, becuase
> the lattitude, and lattitude date is in decimal
> format, up to 8 places behind the decimal
> Maporama recently changed their system
> where you can only get the data to 3.6 seconds
> of arc (compared to 1 second previously), but it
> is a suitable alternative, if the coutnry you want to
> do does not have street level data in MSN
> Maps. Multimap has data down to 0.036 seconds
> of arc.
> All you need to do than is convert the decimal
> numbers into degrees, minutes, and seconds, which
> most scenery creator programs use.

If you are getting a raster image, and know the lat/long
of two points (preferable NW and SE) most programs can do
a 2 -point georeferencing. Either Sbuilder or Ground2k4
then can be used to trace over the image. In both once
you create lines, you assign road textures from the standard
default textures, or assign your own. Ground2k4 may have
a slight edge in texture assignment. Both provide texture
exclusion to exclude the default roads.


Also, get LWMViewer which will display default and addon
terrain, allow for taking of btimaps for use as background
images, and dissassembly of terrain bgl to allow hand edit of
the source code. With LWMViewer you can leave it open, recompile
your BGL, and LWMViewer will automatically re-read the file
for display which saves tons of time, compared to using FS9
to review your work (except for viewing the actual textures).

scott s.
..