Hawaii Photoreal Development

[x-plane 123]

Already looks great Colin! 

[Colin S]

Lanai 0.9 has been released, it will be visible soon in the File Library. Please read the description carefully.

[Colin S]

An update will be released to Lanai to repair the following issues that were brought to my attention by two members of the community who contacted us through facebook (please like us to receive updates):

 

1. Airport elevation was set to 0.0ASL - meaning that if you had "Runways Follow Terrain Contours" disabled in X-Plane 10.40 (or any other previous versions), your runway would appear as a massive crater in the middle of the island. Those who fly with runway contours enabled - that is, allowing sloped runways - would not have noticed any issues, but I will repair this anyways.

2. There were no startup positions at PHNY Lanai Airport - a real bummer for those who wanted to fly online with networks which forbid runway startups. I have added eight startups, including the four gates and four tie-down options, which will also aid AI aircraft in the use of this airport.

 

One issue not yet addressed but is being dealt with is the ability for AI planes to taxi effectively without bottle-necking at one end of the runway. Finally, I must address a question that I have had five people ask me already: 

 

Will the Society Islands be released for X-Plane? 

 

Here is my answer:

 

Will users consider providing feedback to the Hawaii Photoreal people (three of us now, two platforms and soon expanding to three) so that alongside work and university we feel some motivation other than personal interest in the project?

I hate to answer with a question - actually, no I don't - but we haven't exactly seen much in the feedback world, let alone the donation world, in any way about Hawaii Photoreal other than one certain user who knows who they are who I love for posting their screenshots in a thread about Lanai (thank you, beer's on me).

 

I'm a little torn about the lack of enthusiasm from the community in general regarding this project, and I'm not talking about donations alone. I mean feedback. We like hearing what you love, what you hate, what you think we should do differently, especially on the facebook page. Anyways, Niihau is being pushed out by two or three weeks as moving in hasn't been very smooth to my new home of Victoria, BC.

 

On a lighter note, thank you kindly to those who have taken the time to give feedback through both facebook and X-Pilot PM. 

 

Cheers! The update will hopefully be up tonight

[Colin S]

Niihau is going slow. Messing with some USGS high-resolution mesh information through meshtool, haven't accomplished anything yet. Anyone with any experience with the tool would be welcome for some input on basic pointers. 

 

[scubajuan_new]

Niihau is looking good, and is one step closer to Kauai I've downloaded all the islands so far and they are awesome. I really enjoy flying in the archipelago low and slow. Sorry for not posting many pics, is not my thing. 

[Colin S]

Niihau is looking good, and is one step closer to Kauai I've downloaded all the islands so far and they are awesome. I really enjoy flying in the archipelago low and slow. Sorry for not posting many pics, is not my thing. 

 

No worries - if you ever do happen to spot a nice place to get a shot, post it over in the What Did You Fly Today thread. Cheers

[luckyx]

The islands are really cool. Great work.

Waiting for O'ahu!

[Colin S]

The islands are really cool. Great work.

Waiting for O'ahu!

 

You'll be waiting for a while As a heads up, I haven't been very impressed with donations or even feedback since Lanai was released, not too motivated to get Niihau and Molokai done. School takes precedence.

[AeroPictor]

It is wise to give precedence to school … Personally I havez too little time to use X-Plane right now. 

[Colin S]

 

My partner and I are having fun adventures with MeshTool, learning that data has to be super-manipulated before it's even introduced to the program. So far it is seeming like more trouble than it is worth... I hope it's worth it. 

Edited September 20, 2015 by Colin S

[Colin S]

My partner in crime notifies me that HD DEM for all of the islands will be sent to me in the next few days, expect to hear a lot of ranting from me soon on the usability of command line tools in the upcoming weeks. Still have no idea what the script.txt is supposed to do, but whatever. I just kind of threw some random stuff from the manual into it. I don't care what land ends up under the orthophotos, as long as it's hard (terrain vs water). As far as I remember this is a 10m mesh, and I will be possibly creating two versions of all the islands from this point on, one for those with computers better than mine (capable or more than capable of running the 10m mesh if it works) and one for those with a worse machine than mine (all the other computers. Mine sits on the fine line of being able to render the larger islands at about 25FPS at full rendering options - not ideal but not too bad).

 

I've also been contemplating making the Hawaii Photoreal project my last involvement with X-Plane, killing all other dormant projects so I can pursue the other goals I have in life without that nagging knowledge of something else needing to be done. 

 

In the way of getting anything done in immediate future (like the next month), university has proven to be more interesting this year than I had hoped (never thought I would say that) and that means I actually enjoy spending excess amounts of time reading my textbooks and writing my research papers... You know, how university is supposed to be. 

 

Cheers!

[Colin S]

I'm still alive guys. Tomorrow is last midterm and I hand in my last term paper.

[Colin S]

Adventures in HD Mesh Generation

 

I am a total idiot when it comes to anything without a full GUI that isn't designed for idiots to use. That being said, with the help my of my partner in crime, I finally got a workflow strategy for the UHD mesh on Niihau (and all other Hawaiian Islands). You can all laugh at how mickey-mousey this is, but at least it makes sense.

 

1. Acquire DEM data from the USGS
2. Create script file for MeshTool that starts with "BACKGROUND terrain_Water," so that you don't empty the Pacific Ocean.
3. Get QGIS (I'm not claiming I understand how to use it all, I promise).
4. Load your DEM into it. Vectorize the raster data and load the attributes table. Select everything that does not have a 0/null value. Save that as a shapefile.
5. Add a line to the scriptfile that declares that everything within the constraints of this newly created shapefile - which determines where the island ends and where the ocean starts - will be land. 
6. Execute MeshTool.

If anyone sees any flaws in this plan (other than that you won't theoretically have rivers and lakes generated as water) please let me know. All this because the US Census TIGER data for coastlines is incredibly inaccurate (it's detailed but really wrong) compared to the 10m DEM that I'm using. It cuts hills in half to put an ocean there instead, and the smaller islands (Kaula, for instance) are in the wrong place altogether, leading to a flattened island when in reality it's a steep sided dramatic thing.

[Colin S]

Anyone who downloaded Lanai, Molokini, or Kahoolawe, needs to follow those files immediately as major updates/total overhauls are coming to those scenery files in the next few months. Niihau will be released first, then updates will follow with the combination of Molokini into Kahoolawe and the re-release with HD Mesh, then finally Lanai, which will probably take quite a bit of extra time as it has an airport and lots of roads and whatnot.

 

Please check the new thread about the HD Mesh.

[Colin S]

A little special something coming your way later today...

 

[Colin S]

HD Mesh has been conquered... georeferencing custom orthophotos has been conquered... it's almost ready, folks. Next up: who knows. Still waiting for word from headquarters whether I need to rebuild Lanai for HD mesh or whether I should focus on Molokai.

 

 

 

 

[AeroPictor]

Impressive screenshots … so far away from Europe where I usually fly with X-Plane.  

[Colin S]

Impressive screenshots … so far away from Europe where I usually fly with X-Plane.  

 

Then you'll have to fly to Hawaii! Although we have no islands with major airports completed yet, after Molokai will be Maui, which has an airport that is certainly large enough for heavies. 

[boeingornotgoing]

may i ask why Maui and the big island are not on top of the list since they are more popular? and where is Oahu fitting in?

[AeroPictor]

Then you'll have to fly to Hawaii! Although we have no islands with major airports completed yet, after Molokai will be Maui, which has an airport that is certainly large enough for heavies. 

Those lovely islands need a more gentile approach, in general aviation aircraft or a helicopter…  

[Colin S]

may i ask why Maui and the big island are not on top of the list since they are more popular? and where is Oahu fitting in?

 

The first scenery project I tried starting when I joined the X-Plane community back in 2009 was Hawaii, because I was so obsessed with Hawaii (I still am). I was let down immediately by the lack of user friendly and GUI-controlled tools out there, as at that point my knowledge of computers was basically PowerPoint and Excel. Over the years I slowly figured out how to everything with the patient help of great community members like Chris, sometimes going right to the top, asking for help from Ben and Andras (who kindly obliged and helped me through my multiple vapourware stages). Two years ago I found Javier's (the guy who started the HP Project) original promotional video and I realized that, jackpot, I had finally found a starting point: a scenery conversion. I had no idea what it would involve. I was already extremely skilled with orthophotos - but that's pretty much it. So, I started with the easiest island: Kahoolawe. The smallest, without airports, and also likely not to destroy my reputation if I destroyed it - which I did, and I will be completely redoing it in a few months. Between university in the fall, winter and spring and work during the summer - one summer was spent in a park without internet connectivity, which stopped development entirely - I slowly learned some of the skills I needed. With Kahoolawe, I learned manual placement of orthophotos using Google Earth as a coordinate aid (not a source for imagery). With Lanai, I learned FSX airport conversion, scratch airport development (all the ground textures are 100% original to X-Plane), the ins and outs of how FSX orthoscenery is laid out, *.for files, and how to make water overlays look acceptable. Finally, Niihau, I've gone a step further and with the suggestion of Javier, I learned the basics of GIS work to modify DEM for HD Mesh, as well as georeferencing the non-georeferenced tiffs that I have to work with for X-Plane. Now that I have learned all these skills, I'm just about worthy of working on the most important islands of the chain, the ones with the big airports and the beautiful scenery. You can't start big. If you start big, you get an utterly mediocre product. I've worked my way up, essentially promoting myself as I go based on how well I am able to achieve certain goals, and then decide to move on to bigger and better things when I'm ready. 

There really wasn't a short answer, I'm sorry. 

[boeingornotgoing]

thanks for the answer. best of luck

[Colin S]

It's here...

 

 

 

 

 

[Colin S]

New livery available now!

 

[gunner]

How do you install this? I don't see a livery folder for this aircraft.