16 replies to this topic

[geobas]

Season's Greeting to All

l am comfortable with AFCAD and want to start a new airport at a location
with some trees and building which l wish to exclude .

FSSC won't work , and a couple of tools l've seen are rather complicated,

Which is the best and easiest way to do it ?

Thanks and Happy New Year

George

[IBtheSarge]

geobas, on Dec 31 2006, 05:40 AM, said:

FSSC won't work , and a couple of tools l've seen are rather complicated,

3rd Party utility ..... ExcBuilder
My tutorial in the Knowledge Base (Accepted Tutorials) on writing an exclusion

[geobas]

Thanks Sarge,

Unfortunetely l haven't managed to make a .bgl file out of the .xml and l l know
for a fact that as you have mentioned the slightest mistake won't make a .bgl
My code is as under which l have copied and pasted from your tutorial changing
only the coordinates. Wonder where is the mistake . l get the black glimse when
dragging the .xml over the bglcom.exe but not .bgl file is produced

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<FSData version="9.0" xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd" >
<ExclusionRectangle
     latitudeMinimum="N37 56.7100"
     latitudeMaximum="N37 57.2400"
     longitudeMinimum="E23 31.4900"
     longitudeMaximum="E23 33.6650"
     excludeAllObjects = "TRUE"/>

</FSData>

[IBtheSarge]

geobas, on Dec 31 2006, 12:49 PM, said:

Thanks Sarge,

Unfortunetely l haven't managed to make a .bgl file out of the .xml and l l know
for a fact that as you have mentioned the slightest mistake won't make a .bgl
My code is as under which l have copied and pasted from your tutorial changing
only the coordinates. Wonder where is the mistake . l get the black glimse when
dragging the .xml over the bglcom.exe but not .bgl file is produced

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<FSData version="9.0" xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd" >
<ExclusionRectangle
     latitudeMinimum="N37 56.7100"
     latitudeMaximum="N37 57.2400"
     longitudeMinimum="E23 31.4900"
     longitudeMaximum="E23 33.6650"
     excludeAllObjects = "TRUE"/>

</FSData>

Hmmmm .... coords look okay, header data looks okay; try geting rid of the blank line betwen the excludeAllObjects = "TRUE"/> and </FSData> lines.

[geobas]

Thanks Sarge and wish you a very happy new year .

OK that was it , produced the .BGL file and excluded allObjects.
However when designing the AFCAD at the excluded area strangely
enough only oneof the two runways that l placed appears , although
taxiways are present as well as Abacus scenery that l place at the airport .
Of course both runways are in the same altitude as the  apron polygon
of the airport .
l am experimenting but getting nowhere .

George

[IBtheSarge]

geobas, on Jan 1 2007, 11:06 AM, said:

However when designing the AFCAD at the excluded area strangely enough only oneof the two runways that l placed appears

Are you SURE that both runways are the same elevation as the airport area?  I know that isn't "real-world" all the time, but FS9 is a flat-Earth simulator.  I.E., there's no such thing as different elevations along the path of the runway; and, all runway, taxiway, and ramp surfaces must be the same elevation as the airport itself.  If one runway is even .1 feet lower than the surrounding terrain, it won't show up (it will be buried under the terrain).  You can correct that by creating a flatten zone along the runway that isn't showing up (FSTFlatten, or my tutorial); you will need SCASM to compile it to a .bgl file.

There is another possibility ..... does the airport reference point (ARP) sit INSIDE the excluded area?  Sometimes, that will also exclude AFCAD presentations.  If an exclude zone includes the ARP and one runway (but not the other), the one outside of the exclusion will show up normally, but the one inside the exclusion will also be excluded.  You may need to split your exclusion into two zones, one on either side of the ARP.

[geobas]

Doesn't work Sarge
Moving the APR outside the exclude area or splitting the area in two doesn't
have any effect . You see ONLY one runway .The one you inserted last
Have d/loaded three fstflatten from different sources . None of them works
propererly, lots of errors .
Cannot locate your tutorial . Where is it ?

[IBtheSarge]

geobas, on Jan 2 2007, 07:28 AM, said:

Doesn't work Sarge
Moving the APR outside the exclude area or splitting the area in two doesn't
have any effect . You see ONLY one runway .The one you inserted last
Have d/loaded three fstflatten from different sources . None of them works
propererly, lots of errors .
Cannot locate your tutorial . Where is it ?

Flatten Tutorial  You will need a copy of SCASM to compile the .sca file you create into a usable .bgl file.  Google "SCASM" and the first entry should be Manfred's main site so you can get the current version.

Hmmm .... strange, and I'm presuming that you DID verify that the field elevation and the elevation of both runways are the same?  I create dual runway airbases all the time; perhaps it is simply a flatten issue.

[geobas]

Of course the elevations match. l've made quite a few airports mostly in
non-urban areas where an isolated tree or whatever could be covered
with an appropriate object from Abacus or Rwy12 , and Exlusions were
not necessary .
Now l don't know what got over me and l want to build an airport where
a lot of buildings and trees are present .
l've tried several utilities including a simple one FlatEx which produces
code to be added in the Scenery.cfg file .  Same result , one runway ONLY.

l'll give a go later on with your code and see what happens

[IBtheSarge]

geobas, on Jan 2 2007, 10:41 AM, said:

Of course the elevations match.

Okay; just had to confirm.  

geobas, on Jan 2 2007, 10:41 AM, said:

Now l don't know what got over me and l want to build an airport where a lot of buildings and trees are present .

Because that's the next logical step.    Same with me -- started out just modifying existing airports, then started reopening old airbases, and now doing custom "new" airports/airbases.  

geobas, on Jan 2 2007, 10:41 AM, said:

l've tried several utilities including a simple one FlatEx which produces code to be added in the Scenery.cfg file .  Same result , one runway ONLY.

Whoa!  The flatten zone doesn't work even when written for the scenery.cfg file?  That could indicate that you've got some of the data bass-ackwards somewhere.  Can you post the code you're using for the scenery.cfg flatten and let me take a look at it?

geobas, on Jan 2 2007, 10:41 AM, said:

l'll give a go later on with your code and see what happens

Okay; one thing to remember with flattens is that you write the coordinates in counterclockwise order.  I've had flattens with 21 different coordinates defining a highly customized zone .... but you have to run the coords counterclockwise.

Post up any results you get (along with that code for scenery.cfg flatten switch).

[geobas]

Hereunder the code produced by FlatEx to be inserted in the scenery.cfg
Flatten.0=12,N38 20.21,E23 43.56,N38 20.21,E23 44.20,N38 19.22,E23 44.20,N38 19.22,E23 43.56
Exclude=N38 20.21,E23 43.56,N38 19.22,E23 44.20,all

it works but the problem persist . One runway

Now, l have tried at a distant and remote area to built a new airport using
AFCAD WITHOUT flatten or exclusions . What do you know ?  ONE runway .
Just before l started messing up with flatten and exclusions l completed an
airport with three (3) runways . All there .

Since 1+1=2 most of the times , l have come to the conclusion that some sh...
from one of utilities and codes l used is still there causing the problem. Or not ?
l am going to uninstall FS9 incl all folders pertaining to FS9 in Documents and Settings and start a fresh install .
Sure l have saved all my sceneries aircraft etc .
We shall see . If  that brings no result , l am even prepared to do a format .
l've had it .

[geobas]

OK , this is what concluded the prob .

A fresh installation of FS9
A new airport design with AFCAD with two (2) runways
FlatEx ONLY Exclude worked NO flatten .
Perfect runways there . All buildings , trees and the rest out of the way

[IBtheSarge]

geobas, on Jan 4 2007, 04:40 PM, said:

OK , this is what concluded the prob .

A fresh installation of FS9
A new airport design with AFCAD with two (2) runways
FlatEx ONLY Exclude worked NO flatten .
Perfect runways there . All buildings , trees and the rest out of the way

Glad you got it working ..... if a fresh install did the trick, then you had a garbaged file in there somewhere.  As for the "no flatten" that's always a last resort; if you do it correctly, you should be able to set the airport elevation in the AFCAD.  As I said before, that's about 16,000 x 16,000 feet centered on the airport reference point.  If your new airport is wholly within that default area, you shouldn't neet a flatten.

Now, when do we get to see screenies of this "new" airport?  

[geobas]

Sorry Sarge , long weekend .
Sure l'll post screenies when finished although it might take sometime
since l had a bright !!! idea to combine the airport with an adjacent
seaport . So l have a lot of details l have to deal with , plus adding
AI traffic of aircraft and ships .
We shall see .

[king-air]

sounds like a great project. what is the location of this airport?

[geobas]

It's on an island off Pireus Greece .

[geobas]

It's in Salamina , an island off Piraeus , Greece .