[born2beflyin]

New Version 1.3 at www.photosceneryx.com

Latest version will always be linked HERE!!! Current Version: 1.28.9

Limited Mac and Linux versions now available (ver. 1.29) - Not available at the moment (June 28, 2007)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PHOTOSCENERYX!!!

Download ImageToolX (by me) in the Download Manager to make creating photo-sceneries easier!

Latest fix: Fixed a small bug that would cause problem if using method 3 with an integer value as the western longitude or southern latitude (Your scenery border is exactly on the western or southern border of the dsf file).

(v1.28.9 and previous versions only) YOU MUST HAVE .NET FRAMEWORK 2.0 installed (Windows version only) to run PhotoSceneryX

!!! VIDEO !!!
Watch of a video of the results here! (ver. 1.26) Video - PhotoSceneryX scenery of KSTF

!!! SCREENSHOTS !!!
Check out some screenshots of the new (Feb. 2007) Draped Poly method here: Screenshots

Happy Flying!

born2beflyin

This post has been edited by born2beflyin: 04 August 2009 - 08:39 PM

[dad]

Please publish the OS versions and any other software required, DirectX etc.

Great work!

[born2beflyin]

Please publish the OS versions and any other software required, DirectX etc.

Great work!

As I've said a number of times, I'm not a programmer. With that in mind, I honestly don't know what OS versions this works with. I don't think it requires any DirectX as I don't believe I called any DirectX functions in the program. I believe most Windows OSes should work, but I'm pretty sure you will need to have the .NET framework installed (I'm not sure which version is required) as I DID call some functions that to my knowledge are specific to .NET. There is currently no version for Linux or Mac, but as this gets more testing in Windows and I make some other improvements, I'll try to get some help to port this to Linux and Mac.

Also, attached are some screenshots I made after I installed the same scenery found in the previous screenshots, only this time I used the terrain reading version.

If you look carefully around the bridges on the right side of screenshot_4, you can see the "separation" issue I mentioned previously. Nothing too bad, but it needs to be corrected. It's in the works.

Also, if you look at the building on the bottom of screenshot_4 (Wal-Mart), you can see the lake border that X-Plane puts around the lake it incorrectly placed (though not too badly placed). If anyone knows how to remove this border off-hand, drop a line here. I'm sure I'll figure out how, but it might save some time if some of you talented folk already know.

Enjoy, and let me know what problems you encounter.

Happy flying!

born2beflyin

Attached File(s)

•  screenshot_3.jpg (134.61K)
  Number of downloads: 1608
•  screenshot_4.jpg (161.54K)
  Number of downloads: 1727

This post has been edited by born2beflyin: 01 August 2006 - 08:52 PM

[MIKX]

At first glance you seem to really have something here, I am amazed.
Please keep this project going.

MIKX

[Asta]

This is very cool. Too bad its for Windoze only!

I have 0.5 meter resolution aerial photos of Martha's Vineyard, which I would like to turn into scenery -- perhaps this will allow me to?

[tkyler]

As I've said a number of times, I'm not a programmer.

Here! Here!....Let's hear it for the engineers who are NOT programmers, but doesn't mean we can't do a thing or two.... It is a promising work! I've been asking basic compiler related questions in other programmer specific forums while I get my IDE set up (not here on this forum BTW by x-planers) and having people tell me, if you're a programmer, you should know this stuff...oh the short-sightedness of it all!...*sigh*

There is quite a bit of z-buffer thrashing due to the Ortho patches not being co-planar to and/or replicating the original DSF mesh.

Couple of questions to maybe help sort this out, sorry I haven't used the tool yet...I'm full Linux now.

Sounds like you're reading boundary points and basically creating a new DSF set of patches, explicitly UVd and that is supposed to be identical to the terrain already in the DSF...then slap those back into the DSF?...now if the terrain defs are in the right order, that shouldn't be too much of an issue..are you seeing the kind of z-thrash that Michael (Voynik) is talking about in your own scenery?

This post has been edited by tkyler: 03 August 2006 - 05:59 AM

[Cormac]

One thing that is a problem. In order to use this along with an overlay DSF you must put the Ortho DSF into your regular/main \Resources\default scenery\DSF 820 Earth\Lat_Long folder and put the texture and terrain folders needed by the Ortho DSF into the \Resources\default scenery\DSF 820 Earth folder (or use the library system). The overlay system really should use a different file naming in my opinion.

Hang on. Something is definitely wrong here. Users should never, never have to install custom scenery into the default scenery folder. That's the whole point of having them seperate. Either the package is being put together incorrectly (the lack of a library.txt file sounds suspicious) or perhaps the user needs to be careful about the ordering of the packages in the custom scenery folder. The end result should be, IIRC, that you can use one Full DSF file with any number of Oeerlay DSFs for the same area, all installed in your Custom Scenery folder.

I may look into this further whne I get home tonight.


The z-buffer trashing also sounds disappointing. I haven't had a chance to play with the tool yet myself (three day weekend coming up though) but it may indeed not yet be ready for primetime. Early days yet.

[Marginal]

Hang on. Something is definitely wrong here. Users should never, never have to install custom scenery into the default scenery folder. That's the whole point of having them seperate.

Strongly agree. Updating will turn into (even more of) a nightmare if users are encouraged to screw around with stuff in the Resources folder.

Either the package is being put together incorrectly (the lack of a library.txt file sounds suspicious) or perhaps the user needs to be careful about the ordering of the packages in the custom scenery folder.

Probably the latter. I think that X-Plane stops looking for scenery once it finds a full DSF. So if you're making separate overlay and full DSFs then you need to put them in different scenery packages, and make sure that the overlay package comes alphabetically before the full DSF package.

[tkyler]

As for the z-buffer thrashing, I am almost certain it is due to the fact that the new Ortho patches are not accurate enough copies of the original DSF mesh. I believe born2beflyin acknowledged this in previous posts. This will have to be figured out for the tool to be truely useful in any situation where the ground isn't very flat, which happens to be the majority of the areas.

Quite right...I found that post..the overlay patch layout is independent of the original underlying DSF.

[born2beflyin]

OK, I'll try to answer everyone at the same time. My internet was out yesterday and I didn't get a chance to go somewhere to get online.

First, the z-buffer thrashing IS due to PhotoScenery-X NOT creating a good enough replica of the original DSF file, and yes, I get some z-buffer thrashing in my scenery too, depending on the viewing angle and altitude. However, I have attached an update, PhotoScenery-X ver. 1.2 which boasts a vastly improved terrain reading algorithm. However, it still is not perfect. There is still some z-thrashing. I've already begun thinking of ver. 1.3 and a way I can once again vastly improve the terrain reading. I'm pretty excited about the idea and it should give great results. Stay tuned for the updates.

Second, PhotoScenery-X does NOT create the library.txt file, but if this is required to make Overlay Editor work with what PhotoScenery-X generates, I'll write it in. Marginal, let me know what I can do to make the PhotoScenery-X stuff compatible. As for now, Voynik is correct, you have to move the new PhotoScenery-X scenery into your MAIN resources folder to get Overlay Editor to read them (because of the next point).

The PhotoScenery-X DSF files are FULL DSF files, not overlay DSF files. As I understand it, you can't have TERRAIN_DEF definitions in an overlay DSF. If this is the case, that means no photoscenery with an overlay DSF.

I believe that separating the overlay DSF and full DSF into completely separate scenery packages, as Voynik suggests, should work.

QUESTION: Is there a way to use the near and far LOD to make the photoscenery show all the time no matter what? That way the DSF mesh could be really close, though not perfect, and the photo scenery would always appear perfect.

EDIT: version 1.22 is attached in a post below

The terrain reading is greatly improved, but I've already thought of a way to make it better. I'm already working on the new terrain reading algorithm for versoin 1.3.

EDIT: Also, I made some optimizations that cut the processing time in half. Down to one minute on my machine with a 50mb .dsf file.

I hope I've addressed all the comments so far. Please keep it up. It's the only way to improve the program.

Happy Flying!

born2beflyin

This post has been edited by born2beflyin: 04 August 2006 - 10:47 AM