Berlin Scenery Generation

[tonywob 4,770]

I'm in the processing of creating a scenery generator tool for X-Plane. Below is an early preview of Berlin.

 

Height, wall, material and roof colors are read from OSM and correctly generated

 

 

In some areas in Berlin, buildings have lots of information. People seem to have started mapping 3D information for buildings all over the world, so we will be getting a lot of city scenery for free :-). Of course it's also easy to contribute yourself to OSM, even if you set the colour or height (number of stories) for buildings in your local area.

 

 

Complex forests and buildings with holes are supported. 

 

[jetsflier 87]

This looks really nice! X-Plane will probably be my next sim, given the beauty of it.

[manuthie 242]

Is it a modification/extension of OSM2XP or is it something completeley different. If it is something different then how does it differ from OSM2XP?

[Humpty 751]

Freaking great , are you using osm2xp ? or sketchup / model convertor with Overlay editor , hey would love have that scenery.

[tonywob 4,770]

 

 

Is it a modification/extension of OSM2XP or is it something completeley different. If it is something different then how does it differ from OSM2XP?

 

It's a completely new app I'm writing. It's does a similar thing to OSM2XP, but includes support for many things OSM2XP can't do, which basically means it can create nicer scenery. 

 

Technical details are here http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/6388-xp-scenery-generator-wip, but in summary:

 

1) Supports building and roof colors straight from OSM. If set, buildings will match the correct color, height and material

2) Support for complex forests and buildings with holes inside them. Also, super large forests joined together inside relations. In summary, all the forests that OSM2XP couldn't render

3) Advanced condition support. OSM2XP only allowed you to configure one object for one tag. This app lets you do multiple tags and advanced conditions. So, in summary you can do things like show different types of forests based on info in OSM, and also change the textures of buildings based on their areas.

4) Resume support. You can stop generation and continue later on without restarting

 

I want to also support the following:

 

1) Exclusions which fit tile boundaries exactly. Previously, if you generated two neighbouring countries separately, the exclusion zone of one would hide the buildings and forests in the other if they were on the same tile (gps coordinates). 

2) More advanced filters, e.g. Detecting if an object is round, or if it is inside a residential zone, etc..

[Humpty 751]

It's a completely new app I'm writing. It's does a similar thing to OSM2XP, but includes support for many things OSM2XP can't do, which basically means it can create nicer scenery. 

 

Technical details are here http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/6388-xp-scenery-generator-wip, but in summary:

 

1) Supports building and roof colors straight from OSM. If set, buildings will match the correct color, height and material

2) Support for complex forests and buildings with holes inside them. Also, super large forests joined together inside relations. In summary, all the forests that OSM2XP couldn't render

3) Advanced condition support. OSM2XP only allowed you to configure one object for one tag. This app lets you do multiple tags and advanced conditions. So, in summary you can do things like show different types of forests based on info in OSM, and also change the textures of buildings based on their areas.

4) Resume support. You can stop generation and continue later on without restarting

 

I want to also support the following:

 

1) Exclusions which fit tile boundaries exactly. Previously, if you generated two neighbouring countries separately, the exclusion zone of one would hide the buildings and forests in the other if they were on the same tile (gps coordinates). 

2) More advanced filters, e.g. Detecting if an object is round, or if it is inside a residential zone, etc..

 

 

Cool stuff sir, is this utility available ? HEHEHHEE free i hope.

 

I would love to try it of course when free.

[tonywob 4,770]

 

 

Cool stuff sir, is this utility available ? HEHEHHEE free i hope.

 

It's not yet available, as it's command-line only, being not very user friendly at the moment and alpha quality. I'll be looking for people to help test it shortly and if anyone is good and can contribute some models or facades then please let me know, the more objects and facades, the prettier and more varied the scenery will look.

 

Of course, when it's ready, it will be free, in the spirit of OpenStreetMaps :-)

[Humpty 751]

It's not yet available, as it's command-line only, being not very user friendly at the moment and alpha quality. I'll be looking for people to help test it shortly and if anyone is good and can contribute some models or facades then please let me know, the more objects and facades, the prettier and more varied the scenery will look.

 

Of course, when it's ready, it will be free, in the spirit of OpenStreetMaps :-)

 

 

if it's linux i can handle command line no issues.

 

Wow free make it fast very fast.

[manuthie 242]

It's a completely new app I'm writing. It's does a similar thing to OSM2XP, but includes support for many things OSM2XP can't do, which basically means it can create nicer scenery. 

 

Technical details are here http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/6388-xp-scenery-generator-wip, but in summary:

 

1) Supports building and roof colors straight from OSM. If set, buildings will match the correct color, height and material

2) Support for complex forests and buildings with holes inside them. Also, super large forests joined together inside relations. In summary, all the forests that OSM2XP couldn't render

3) Advanced condition support. OSM2XP only allowed you to configure one object for one tag. This app lets you do multiple tags and advanced conditions. So, in summary you can do things like show different types of forests based on info in OSM, and also change the textures of buildings based on their areas.

4) Resume support. You can stop generation and continue later on without restarting

 

I want to also support the following:

 

1) Exclusions which fit tile boundaries exactly. Previously, if you generated two neighbouring countries separately, the exclusion zone of one would hide the buildings and forests in the other if they were on the same tile (gps coordinates). 

2) More advanced filters, e.g. Detecting if an object is round, or if it is inside a residential zone, etc..

 

Sounds fantastic. When is it ready? *kidding*

[manuthie 242]

Sounds fantastic. When is it ready? *kidding*

 

Just for clarification - "kidding" refers to "when is it ready" - not to "Sounds fantastic" because it really looks very promising - could be misunderstood.

[tonywob 4,770]

No worries manuthie, I understood it as such :-). 

[wolke85 150]

This looks awesome!

Really impressive!

 

 

 

if anyone is good and can contribute some models or facades then please let me know, the more objects and facades, the prettier and more varied the scenery will look.

 

One question:

How can this be done?

Or - where should i look at to find a proper guide/manual of "how to do" regarding this matter (objects and facades) here?

 

 

[A320FAN 370]

Great pics!

[tonywob 4,770]

 

 

How can this be done?
Or - where should i look at to find a proper guide/manual of "how to do" regarding this matter (objects and facades) here?

 

It took me a while to get my head around the .fac file format, starting here http://wiki.x-plane.com/Facade_Creation and then reading the more advanced docs. 

 

Creating X-Plane objects is much easier, since you can use a tool such as Sketchup to do it. The only limitation is that an object can only have one texture file, which makes texturing more time consuming than actually creating the models. There are loads of tutorial on the web on how to do this. A good one is made by Simon from xsimreviews.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0burpyN0d8. He also has done some other videos

 

There is a discussion going on over at xpilot.com thread about using objects instead of facades when possible. The idea is to have a large library of objects which fit a specific building footprint, e.g. a 10x15 house, an 11x15 house, etc, etc. The program supports inserting objects into polygon footprints, so instead of using a facade, it will insert a real object and rotate it to fit into the area. But there is a serious lack of objects to use, and would it require a lot of buildings for it to be feasible. 

[wolke85 150]

It took me a while to get my head around the .fac file format, starting here http://wiki.x-plane.com/Facade_Creation and then reading the more advanced docs. 

 

Creating X-Plane objects is much easier, since you can use a tool such as Sketchup to do it. The only limitation is that an object can only have one texture file, which makes texturing more time consuming than actually creating the models. There are loads of tutorial on the web on how to do this. A good one is made by Simon from xsimreviews.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0burpyN0d8. He also has done some other videos

 

There is a discussion going on over at xpilot.com thread about using objects instead of facades when possible. The idea is to have a large library of objects which fit a specific building footprint, e.g. a 10x15 house, an 11x15 house, etc, etc. The program supports inserting objects into polygon footprints, so instead of using a facade, it will insert a real object and rotate it to fit into the area. But there is a serious lack of objects to use, and would it require a lot of buildings for it to be feasible. 

 

Hi Tony!

Thank You very much for Your detailed message!

Very much appreciated!

I will ertainly check it all out for sure - and who knows maybe even create some objects/facades!