Richard Hill Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 My local airport KCKB has the taxiways on the wrong side the South East side , is there a graphical editor available to fix airports? This is only my real beef with Xplane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyGoldstein Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 WED (World EDitor) is the tool of choice. Accurate taxiways are supplied by users, since there is no online database that anyone is aware of. Airport updates should be sent to Robin Peel for inclusion in the master database. - Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbfloyd Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 I went ahead and did this one. Not only was the taxiway on the wrong side, but the GS was in the middle of the runway also. The current taxiway system is more developed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbfloyd Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 KCKB is done except for Guidance signs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spasm_dtc Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 Some of the apt.dat data in x-plane's default apt file are a mess and have a huge offset to reality . Does anybody have a clue if this offset is constant and therefore a fixed value i could use or if it's just random errors ? For scenery developpement i mostly use the master apt.dat file of XP9 and i try to find the airport as a FS freeware scenery. I often get quite accurate results from apt.dat from converted FS scenerys wich i then fuse with the data extracted from the x-plane apt.dat in WED. this works pretty good and gives me quite complete and realistic apt's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shiverin Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 Some of the apt.dat data in x-plane's default apt file are a mess and have a huge offset to reality . Does anybody have a clue if this offset is constant and therefore a fixed value i could use or if it's just random errors ? For scenery developpement i mostly use the master apt.dat file of XP9 and i try to find the airport as a FS freeware scenery. I often get quite accurate results from apt.dat from converted FS scenerys wich i then fuse with the data extracted from the x-plane apt.dat in WED. this works pretty good and gives me quite complete and realistic apt's. I ran into this before. Here is what I got in responses if this helps. http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showto...mp;#entry325400 I just edited the info manually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spasm_dtc Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 manually, you mean in the text editor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shiverin Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 Editing the Nav.dat and appropriate files needing changing in the text editor of choice. Robin was putting an offset to the files, due to the resource that he had, and it was causing the wrong DME information to show up for me at my airport that was in question. I found myself short of the runway by like 2.5nm, ouch . When I set it to "0" offset everything was good to go for that runway. The UK uses offset DME's and from what I have researched US doesn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cormac Posted January 26, 2008 Share Posted January 26, 2008 Some of the apt.dat data in x-plane's default apt file are a mess and have a huge offset to reality . Does anybody have a clue if this offset is constant and therefore a fixed value i could use or if it's just random errors ? Runways that were in the no-longer-available DAFIF database are postioned very accurately for the most part. This would cover most major airfields. Runways at other airports are derived from other sources including user positioning so their accuracy is hugely variable and I doubt there is any consistent offset or error. ALL taxiway systems are either user-created with accuracy depending on the effort of the designer or they consist of an auto-generated taxiway parallel to each runway in hich case any resemblance to the real airport's layout is coincidental. For scenery developpement i mostly use the master apt.dat file of XP9 and i try to find the airport as a FS freeware scenery. I often get quite accurate results from apt.dat from converted FS scenerys wich i then fuse with the data extracted from the x-plane apt.dat in WED. this works pretty good and gives me quite complete and realistic apt's. Be cautious with this approach and examine each case one by one. I've seen some quite complex MSFS packages with detailed but horrendously inaccurate taxiway and even runway positioning. This is quite common and seems to stem from the fact that the tool of choice for layout design in MSFS, AFCAD, doesn't particularly help the user to position items accurately and many seem to just rely on eyeballing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spasm_dtc Posted January 26, 2008 Share Posted January 26, 2008 thanks for the explanation:) Concerning the "fusion" of msfs converted apt.dat and those of x-plane, i'm very cautious with this and i thourouhgly use GoogleEarth and Geoportail.fr (for france only) to make my apt.dat's as close as possible to reality. But even these crappy .pol based taxiways you get out of an FS conversion are pretty helpfull to re-create taxiways and other details in WED, since you don't see everything in GoogleEarth, and it's a good way to interpolate x-plane and "real" info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard L Hill Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 I got X-Plane 10 for christmas and updated the DAT Files and so on. I notice whete the north east taxiway goes to Air Tech Center it slopes down hill and goes into a bunch of trees. Is there a way to flatten this area and remove the trees? Everything else looks great! Richard KCKB is done except for Guidance signs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propliner Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 Where did you get X-Plane 10? ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Brault Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 I got X-Plane 10 for christmas and updated the DAT Files and so on. I notice whete the north east taxiway goes to Air Tech Center it slopes down hill and goes into a bunch of trees. Is there a way to flatten this area and remove the trees? Everything else looks great! Richard Open the scenery in WED, import the apt.dat. Add a boundary around your airport, this should flatten the terrain. Do not forget to export the data to apt.dat before losing WED. Open the scenery in Overlay Editor, go to the airport and add forests exclusion zones where required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propliner Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 Hello everybody, I can't tell whether forest exclusio zones work for the airport I edit, since there are no forests existing, but: When I add the taxiyways as they really exist, the (autogen-) buildings from a nearby small city are standing on the taxiways (they were there before). Neither forest exclusion zones nor facade exclusion zones did solve that. What am I missing. @Jacques: what do you mean by flatten terrain by adding WED airport boundaries? Is this the reason why airport boundaries do exist? Why should I use them, since the global scenery terrain is like in the real world? Maybe to prevent Overlay building objects from hovering? How and where is the grass terrain under the runway (already existing for this already existing airport runway) defined? I cannot see it in WED, and I cannot move it in Overlay Editor? Can I resize it? Re-shape it? Can I even exchange it's texture? Thanks for your help in advance... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marginal Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 When I add the taxiyways as they really exist, the (autogen-) buildings from a nearby small city are standing on the taxiways (they were there before).Add Objects exlcusion region(s). what do you mean by flatten terrain by adding WED airport boundaries? Is this the reason why airport boundaries do exist? Why should I use them, since the global scenery terrain is like in the real world? Maybe to prevent Overlay building objects from hovering?Airport boundaries have the effect of flattening terrain (if you have "Allow Sloped Runways" turned off in your Rendering settings). Their primary use is for when you need to flatten terrain because your runway is too sloped. How and where is the grass terrain under the runway (already existing for this already existing airport runway) defined? I cannot see it in WED, and I cannot move it in Overlay Editor?They're burnt into the underlying terrain mesh, so you can't edit them in OverlayEditor or WED - you'd need to regenerate the terrain mesh. But you can use OverlayEditor to overlay a new grass area on top eg using the "pol/apt_wet_cold" draped polygon from the "g8" library. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propliner Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 Thanks, Marginal/Jonathan. I appreciate your help. One last question I forgot to ask in my post (I searched the .org-forums and found questions on this, but no answers I understood): How can I place a building (for example OpenSceneryX) exactly to the end of my taxiway without seeing the taxiway in overlay editor? Thanks in advance... Kind regards, Aykey25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Brault Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 Thanks, Marginal/Jonathan. I appreciate your help. One last question I forgot to ask in my post (I searched the .org-forums and found questions on this, but no answers I understood): How can I place a building (for example OpenSceneryX) exactly to the end of my taxiway without seeing the taxiway in overlay editor? Thanks in advance... Kind regards, Aykey25 If you built the taxiway in WED and exported the apt.dat then the taxiway will be visible OE. Make sure it is visible in WED before exporting the apt.dat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cormac Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 Airport boundaries have the effect of flattening terrain... ...[Ground textures are] burnt into the underlying terrain mesh, so you can't edit them in OverlayEditor ... Note that when Laminar Research produce the next version's default scenery they will use any user-contributed airport boundaries to determine the correct coverage of that airport's ground texture. This was done for v9.00 after airport boundary editing was made available in late v8 and users updated some airport layouts (which can be submitted to the central database via http://data.x-plane.com). So laying out airport boundaries now has definite long-term benefits. Where an airport boundary is not defined, the extent of the airport ground texture is guesstimated based on the runway/taxiway layout by teh scenery-production process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propliner Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 Thanks, everybody. @Jacques: If you built the taxiway in WED and exported the apt.dat then the taxiway will be visible OE. Make sure it is visible in WED before exporting the apt.dat Sorry, it is not visible in my Layout, which is my problem. See attached files, please: - two files from OE, one with terrain display and one without - one file from WED - one file from X-Plane (where the taxiways are actually displayed) Thank you in advance. Kind regards, Aykey25 P.S.: to the admins - why is it not possible to upload *.KML files? (Google Earth shortcuts) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Brault Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 As far as I can see it is the whole airport that is not visible in OE, not only taxiways. I suppose you know already that saving in WED is a two step process. Saving the WED file AND exporting apt.dat to an Earth nav data directory INSIDE YOUR SCENERY. It looks to me as if the apt.dat was exported NOT to your scenery directory but somewhere else. Please note a big problem with WED that can cause this problem: Say that you exported some apt.dat to scenery XXX the last time you used WED. If you start WED and open scenery YYY, when you export apt.dat it will still export apt.dat to scenery XXX unless you specify to export to scenery YYY/Earth nav data/apt.dat I bet you your airport data actually replaced your apt.dat from another scenery somewhere else in your custom sceneries. Your airport data is not visible because your data is not present in this scenery package but it is obviously present in some other package since it is visible in X-Plane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marginal Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 Sorry, it is not visible in my Layout, which is my problem.So the airport is visible in WED and X-Plane, but not in OverlayEditor? Some questions: - Are you exporting the apt.dat from WED into the same scenery package that you're opening in OverlayEditor, or are you exporting apt.dat to another scenery package (either deliberately, or accidentally as Jacques warns)? - Does OverlayEditor display any warnings when you open your scenery package? - If you use the GoTo button in OverlayEditor to go to another airport, say KSBD, does it display the airport? - If you temporarily move all the other scenery packages out of your Custom Scenery folder and re-start OverlayEditor, does OverlayEditor still not display your airport? - What graphics card do you have? - What version of Windows, graphics driver and OverlayEditor are you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propliner Posted February 1, 2009 Share Posted February 1, 2009 Hi Jacques, hi Marginal, I always export to apt.dat into my local DEV folder. Then I copy the file manually into the scenery folder. I'm pretty sure, that I don't make errors here. One "proof" is, that X-Plane displays correctly. I found another "proof" for that, when I tried Marginals hint and went to KSBD in WED -> the same problem here (see attachment) - KSBD does not display runway, taxiways, etc... Overlay Editor does not display any warning and seems to work fine with both airports. When I temporarily move away all custom scenery, it remains the same - no airport runway, etc. visible. My graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 MB produced by HIS. Using the ATI driver 8.476.0.0. Seems to be a standard OEM driver. Sorry, I'm no hardware expert. Am I using an incorrect video driver? My windows version is Windows XP Version 2002 SP 3. Overlay Editor version is 2.01. Thanks for your time and help. Kind regards, Aykey25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marginal Posted February 1, 2009 Share Posted February 1, 2009 The problem is down to crappy ATI drivers again. The next release of OverlayEditor will have a fix for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Brault Posted February 1, 2009 Share Posted February 1, 2009 Hi Jacques, hi Marginal, I always export to apt.dat into my local DEV folder. Then I copy the file manually into the scenery folder. I'm pretty sure, that I don't make errors here. One "proof" is, that X-Plane displays correctly. Aykey25 Simply attempting to make things clearer. As long as the apt.dat appears inside ANY scenery, the airport layout will appear in X-Plane. Appearance is not proof that apt.dat is inside the proper scenery package. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propliner Posted February 1, 2009 Share Posted February 1, 2009 OK then, thank you all for your help. I appreciate it very much. WED and Overlay Editor are great tools as soon as you have a little practise with them. @Jacques: yes, when I think about it, you're right: Appearance isn't the proof for the correct package. Have a nice week... Regards, Aykey25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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