CYKA Development Thread

[Colin S]

Hey Guys... I'm starting something that won't be 5GB of download: Kamloops Airport and the City of Kamloops. 

 

I found out that the city where I'm moving to has free, open source orthophotography. Thus, I began the airport. It will be about the same scale as KBLI, but hopefully will eventually include orthos and overlay for the city (which currently sucks). It's a tiny little airport in a beautiful valley, so it won't take me 6 months - then be deleted - like PHNL. 

I have one conflict with the orthoimagery: In true Canadian style, the othophotos measure, of all sizes, 15,000 x 12,000... I don't want quality loss, since it's a small airport and the imagery is about three times the resolution of KBLI. 

If anyone has some tips on splitting up orthophotos, please let me know. The last time I did it was in December for PHNL - and I spent over 50 hours just cutting them up, then about another 24 for placing them individually.

Any help will be appreciated, the sooner the better, I want this done before I'm done summer school. Seeing how fast I created KBLI, this one will be way better.

 

Colin S.

[Colin S]

New Problem: I can't develop with these Orthophotos until I can make them smaller. Wed 1.2 does NOT like having more than 3 15,000x12,000 orthos in action at one time. And, as you all know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I consider this to be my "play;" and right now all I'm doing is working.

[chris k]

If anyone has some tips on splitting up orthophotos, please let me know. The last time I did it was in December for PHNL - and I spent over 50 hours just cutting them up, then about another 24 for placing them individually.

 

Import as is

 

Line up the corners of the giant image

 

Make Polygon

 

Convert to PNG, and Re-project the imagery to 16000x16000

 

Select one side by the vertexes- hit Ctrl-E to Split the side preclisely in two

 

Repeat for all 4 sides

 

You now have a grid of 4 x 8000x8000 squares

 

Slice ortho into quarters

 

Import all 4 new PNGs, the corners are all now presented for you. Snap-to-Grid, the new 4 orthos will snap precisely to the correct location.

 

Repeat again in each quadrant (Ctrl-E slip trick, cut each quad into 4 again)

 

You will end up with 16 orthos at 4096 x 4096

 

Convert to DDS DXT1

 

Remove PNGs

 

??????

 

PROFIT! (Fly in X-Plane)

[Colin S]

Oh... my... god... Ctrl+E is now my best friend! Thanks for the introduction... haha. I didn't realize that this was a thing. Crunch time!

 

Expect great things........

[Colin S]

One of the reasons I love editing scenery is because you find the weirdest stuff sometimes........ Dear god, can this dude back off? I mean, I know you can stop close to another plane when you're in a small aircraft, but this is ridiculous.

 

I'll clarify - usually, when I go flying with my friend, we're about one and a half plane lengths behind the guy ahead of us if it's a prop. Maybe this is allowed, but it's weird.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Colin S

[Andyrooc]

Hmmm, I this it's the same aircraft from 2 photo's stitched together.

[Colin S]

That would be an awesome coincidence, since I've seen how these shots are taken. Thanks!

[chris k]

The shadows are slightly different too, meaning that there could easily be 2 images stitched, where they could have been taken either at:

 

1 - different angles, or

2 - at different times, or

3 - all of the above

 

- CK.

[Colin S]

Just so I can prove I've actually got something done. I may be able to release this airport tomorrow morning after university registration if I work hard.

 

If someone would like to create and airport flow for this, please let me know; I can't figure out how to make that stuff work.

 

[Colin S]

Chris K - 

 

I figured out an even simpler way than copying and pasting numbers. I created a polygon snapped to the middle points, and split it.

 

[chris k]

Aha I see what you did. Yep. A line between the midpoints , then splitting the line in two would yield the same point. (bah, now why didn't I think of that?! )

Nice.

Edited June 28, 2013 by chris k

[Colin S]

Beta 1 will be done uploading around midnight tonight, will upload screenshots shortly.

[Colin S]

Alright folks, here it is: 

 

 

[Mario Donick]

It's a very good airport, although the X-Plane default streets near the buildings are redundant.

[Colin S]

I don't like it either - the next update (Wednesday) will be fixing that and some line problems I discovered (what is the purpose of "Broken Wide Yellow?" It doesn't even work as a broken line)...

 

Cheers.

[commanderearth]

Colin S where do I get this?

[Colin S]

Colin S where do I get this?

 Head on over to the "File Library" tab. It's one of the most recent files added, it'll be in the "What's New" box.

[Thywillbedone]

Great work mate - I look forward to future developments as this quality is not easy to find! Thanks

[Colin S]

You'll like September 1st then. A LOT.

[Colin S]

Here's a preview of what September 1st will bring (Location is secret)

[Colin S]

Ok everyone... I got a weird questions. This airport, much like PHNL, has water between some of the features... and much like the default PHNL in X-Plane, that water is not there. Therefore, if anyone understands how to add water and modify terrain please let me know. I have read through the entire meshtool manual and the only thing that seems useful about it is the GeoTIFF function to add water @ alpha. However, as I would have to insert the alpha with Photoshop, the coordinates embedded in the *.tif file would be lost. 

Please... any suggestions? Even manually typing in the coordinates of the water would be fine... but I don't know where to do that.

[chris k]

Place the tiff first.

Then edit it.

Getting the TIFF imported and lined up in WED is the first step in the process, not the last.

Once you've "make draped polygon", WED now remembers where the image is supposed to go. You can now freely edit the image, convert it to PNG, convert to DDS etc.

Edited July 5, 2013 by chris k

[Colin S]

Place the tiff first.

Then edit it.

Getting the TIFF imported and lined up in WED is the first step in the process, not the last.

Once you've "make draped polygon", WED now remembers where the image is supposed to go. You can now freely edit the image, convert it to PNG, convert to DDS etc.

 

I'm talking about actually adding a missing body of water - WED doesn't do that. I understand what you say, I do that already - you originally suggested it to me back in January sometime, thank you. However, it's just awkward when the sun sets and the ocean reflects brilliant yellow while the lagoon between the runways remains matt and blue-green. 

 

Cheers and thanks

[Redfisher]

You're going to need to learn MeshTool.  No way that I know to get around it.

[Colin S]

Using the amazing knowledge Chris K has given me, I'm starting a huge project that was my original X-Plane scenery goal. At the same time, I'm starting work on a full City of Kamloops Orthophoto scenery to go along with airport. Cheers!