NZCH Christchurch Airport Photo Scenery

[chris k]

GDay all,

As mentioned to Andy, here's some screenshots of my attempt at using WED, GeoTiffs, GraphicConverter, and a few other graphical processing utilities.

In no particular order. Some are earlier tests in the build to make sure things were working out. Many lines and taxiway features have been adjusted to be as accurate as possible. (Courtesy of LINZ/Land Information New Zealand for their recent 10 cm resolution orthos!)

Orthos were downsampled to 2k x 2k, still giving excellent quality. The screenshots were also downsampled from 1680x1050 PNGs to 1024x600 JPEG at 80% quality as to not fill up x-pilot's hard drives.

All shots in XPlane 10 Demo (as Im still waiting for my discs!). Buildings/Object Scenery is Roaloak's existing NZCH.

Note that I've been able to make the orthos go 'above' the taxiways, so lines, markings, lights, signs, and the like are all layed on top of the ortho, giving a really nice effect. (i.e. you still still get all the taxiway lights, hold points, etc...), while the taxiway is still there underneath the scenery, so you can still drive on it properly.

Happy new year to all.

- Chris.

Edited December 31, 2011 by chris k

[Simmo W]

Wow, looks great Chris! Happy new year to all as well, this'll be a big one I think!

[Gjalp]

Seems there are a few buildings/items missing based on the orthophotos....easy enough to put in. Getting rid of the planes on the ortho miight take longer but can also be done

Any chance of just getting the buildings without the orthophoto?

Slainte,

Andy

NZCH

[chris k]

The buildings are RoyalOak's NZCH scenery as mentioned. I have not adjusted his scenery in any way. (i.e. same buildings, same locations). My additions are all about proper ground texturing, relocating the taxiways to the correct locations, fix the taxi signs, etc. =)

I'm now working to get rid of silly-ness on the orthos (such as images of planes taxiing or sitting), so it'll be nice and clean.

- CK.

[chris k]

I now have a beta build ready for this.

PM me if you want to test. I'll send you a URL to download the 0.1 Beta. File size is 500 Mbytes.

- CK.

[chris k]

Beta 0.2 Build, with XP10 now installed in the area. (Yes I know Air Berlin doesn't fly there).

- CK.

[Gjalp]

Hey Chris.....lookin good buddy

Slainte,

Andy

NZCH

[chris k]

0.3 Build

Lines up very well with both XP9 OSM roads, and the XP10 OSM roads:

Fixed all taxiway lines, traced all roadways, taxi lines, 'picasso lines', etc..

Plus .PNG image optimization down to 273 Mb of VRAM now (very acceptable), also various fixes:

Hummin' along!

- CK.

Edited January 8, 2012 by chris k

[karingka]

wow, that looks awesome!

[Swashbuckler]

Two thumbs up!!!

Awesome work ...

[chris k]

Thanks for the support guys.! This is turning out to be a really fun project.

Hope to have some more pics up soon as we continue our development.

- CK.

[-TheoGregory]

Well done. I looked into doing this but LINZ had terrible imagery of Christchurch. Also just wondering how your going to approach the new airport? It looks like you've done it but its continuously getting redone. Are you going to put all the new domestic terminal in?

I love how the roads line up! Those roundabout are so much fun to drift around (Yes I've done it multiple times)

[chris k]

Thanks Theo,

Yeah - We're still chugging, since there's alot of cleanup work needed on the orthos, hence why we're doing betas for now. (There's a giant cloud right on the threshold of RWY 02, which is why I havent shown that side of the airport yet, as an example =)..)

Taxiway edges, Taxi lines, markings, lights, signs, etc.. didn't line up with the orthos either, neither did building positions, ramp starts and the like. It's taken a while to re-position everything properly (and all 'by hand' so to speak); such as re-drawing every bezier curve (the originals were mostly points...) for rendering optimization. Likewise, FlorianR is working w/Photoshop to remove some nasty graphical artifacts, and things like planes sitting on taxiways.

Basically, I don't want this new NZCH to turn into a "slideshow". =P

I'm also concerned about VRAM usage - the "first pass" (0.1) took over 500Mbytes of VRAM by itself.. It's taken a while to get it down to 273. Also alpha-blending and edge work so that we don't draw useless parts of the scenery which XP itself could handle. (dont write the same pixel twice). In terms of buildings, the orthos are current as of Feb 2011, so whatever is there on those images is what I have to work with... if there's new buildings I'll try to work them in, where they;re not covered by RoyalOak's package.

I'm actually going to NZCH in a few weeks (Jan 26-29th) for a quick getaway from YSSY. I'll see about snapping a bunch-o-pictures to use for textures.

If you want to see how things are progressing, send me a PM, and I'll send you a URL to download the latest beta.

- CK.

[Gjalp]

Only 3 days? That should be enough to see what is left and still give you 2 days of rest and relaxation!

I did notice on the Canterbury Aeroclub part the grass edges are quite blurry and merge with the taxiways......but everything else is ok.

Slainte,

Andy

NZCH

[Simmo W]

Looks like the big smokes are coming on over to NZ! I'm over from 19-30th, but only on the south island for one day - I'm a chicken!

[chris k]

We got Grass! =) Courtesy of Simmo W's excellent example grass (.for) forests.

Ignore the Low-res. I'm just testing edge-of-runway/taxiway grass.

- CK.

Edited January 10, 2012 by chris k

[Gjalp]

AWESOME!!!!!!! Starrting to feel like NZCH now......

Slainte,

Andy

NZCH

PS. Simon, dont worry....there havent been any shakes for about 10 mins now?

[-TheoGregory]

Oh wait, there one goes again.

[Simmo W]

Hehe. Or was that just milking time at the sheep farms?!

[Gjalp]

ha, milking sheep.....that is so yesterday man! We milk cows now!!!!! Its much easier, they produce more milk, and its easy to tell them apart (no mix ups......)

Slainte,

Andy - mooooooooooooooo

NZCH

[Simmo W]

Good u can laugh, I know Theo takes any Nz jokes very seriously!

But seriously, on the weekend, I was talking to some farming relatives last week, they were raving about all the nz sheep shearers, how good and quick they were.

And they are so gentle on them, no nicks. Almost as though...nah I won't say it :-)

[chris k]

"Don't do that! That one is the Mayor's Sheep!"

- CK.

[tkyler]

Looking very good Chris. I'm curious..how many orthophoto tiles are you using? The resolution looks pretty good. Is that the reason for the original 500MB file size?

[chris k]

Hi Tom,

I'm using 76 tiles of varying resolution. Central ones (where your plane is on the ground, and you're likely to notice any pixelization) are 2048x2048, Tiles near the edge are are 1024x1024 or even 1024x512 depending on what I'm covering. (the original GeoTIFFs from LINZ were 4800x3600)

Some tiles are even smaller in size, as they just help blend the scenery into the autogen scenery via alpha blend. (tiny tiles on the very edge)

I'm now down to 171 Mb now, as I've removed unecessary alpha layers from tiles that dont have any transparency, and have DDS'ed the imagery for distribution. Still pretty big tho.

BTW, Im now looking through all your new OBJs and Facades in the XP10 library. I even found all the new "Airport Lego Bricks" (Modern_airports > Facades > Terminals etc..). There's some really great stuff in there! I may be able to completely redo the Terminal and jeways with the new XP10 objects. I also found all your XP10 pre-made lighting for the tarmac, parking lots, and the like. =) Looks fantastic with HDR on.

- CK.

Edited January 13, 2012 by chris k

[Gjalp]

Now that is very nice! The Terminal does need a redo as does the Aeroclubs terminal as its not quite right in a few places.

Looking forward to this once its done!!!!!

Slainte,

Andy

NZCH