High-resolution 76-m (LOD9) Terrain Mesh and Scenery Enhancements for Southeastern British Columbia, Canada
File Name: bcmesh9d.zip
Author: Holger Sandmann
Date of Release: October 2003
Version: 1.00
The files in this package contain a high-resolution terrain mesh and scenery enhancements for the mountain ranges of southeastern British Columbia and parts of the Alberta Rocky Mountains. Coverage extends from Penticton to Creston, and McBride to Hinton, Alberta (N48.9-53.4 W116.3-120.2). The mesh source data are 3-arcsec (~90-m) Shuttle Radar (SRTM) files, compiled and edited in MicroDEM and resampled to LOD9 (76 meters resolution). All lake elevations (!) have been adjusted to eliminate the problems with the default lake data and to better fit the new terrain mesh. In addition, the Columbia/Kootenay/Pend Oreille River corridor between Nelson, Castlegar, and the US border has been partially re-made, with new shorelines, hydroelectric dams, transportation network, and landclass updates based on satellite imagery. The western edge of this terrain mesh coincides with the eastern boundaries of my previous LOD9 mesh files of southwestern B.C., bcmesh9a.zip and bcmesh9c.zip (Note that bcmesh9b.zip is being replaced by this new and extended file).
Castlegar (CYCG), Nelson (CZNL), and Trail (CAD4) are the three airfields in the special 'enhanced' area; other places to start scenic flights from in the mesh coverage area are Kelowna (CYLW), Salmon Arm (CZAM), Revelstoke (CYRV), Blue River (CYCP), Valemount (CAH4), and Jasper (CYJA).
FS2002 users!!! Due to significant changes in FS2004 to vector layering and autogen features, the special scenery enhancements cannot be used with FS2002. However, mesh files, lake elevation corrections, and landclass replacements will work well in FS2002. In my opinion, anyone interested in VFR/low-level flying should not hesitate to upgrade to FS2004, no matter what system - see my system specs at the end of this file! And no, I don't work for MS ;-)
The following sections provide information on installation, known technical issues, procedures used, and future updates.
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Installation in FS2004 (FS2002 users see next section instead!):
1) Extract the zipped files to a temporary directory, making sure that the "use folder names" option is enabled.
2) Move the "BC-AB LOD9 terrain mesh" folder into your "FS9/Addon Scenery" folder. If you already have other parts of my mesh series installed, you can combine all of them into one folder. I do not recommend placing mesh files from *different* authors into the same folder, as this can result in undesired mesh display conflicts.
3) If you have my bcmesh9b.zip installed (LOD9 mesh of the Monashee-Selkirk Region), please remove the "L9_4951_117118-5.bgl" file; the new files in this package replace and improve on this area.
4) If you have my bcmeshp1.zip installed (patch package), please remove or deactivate the following files; these flatten switches are no longer needed and may, in fact, interfere with the new set of lake elevation corrections.
You can deactivate any .bgl file by giving it a different or additional suffix, e.g., "L9_4951_117118-5.bgo" or "L9_4951_117118-5.bgl.org".
3) Move the "BC-AB scenery upgrades FS2004" folder into your "FS9/Addon Scenery" folder.
4) Open your "FS9\Scenery\Namw\Scenery" folder and rename (do not delete!) the following two files:
HP916130.bgl to HP916130.bgl.org
HP916140.bgl to HP916140.bgl.org
The step above is optional but it is the only way to disable the flattened areas of the default FS lakes (take a flight around Castlegar (CYCG) before deactivating the HP9*.bgl files and you'll see what I mean). It also prevents the appearance of 'spikes' or 'holes' along some lakeshores, which are due to slight discrepancies between the FS2004 shorelines and the FS2002 data I used for the elevation corrections. My files fully replace the data in these files, so you will not lose any lakes elsewhere.
If you chose NOT to deactivate the two HP9*.bgl files, you need to copy the following three files from the "BC-AB scenery upgrades FS2002" folder into your "BC-AB scenery upgrades FS2004" folder:
5) Start up FS2004 and add and activate the two new folders with the Settings > Scenery Library > Add Scenery function. Level of priority is not of importance as long as the mesh folder sits below (i.e., lower priority) than the scenery upgrades folder and both folders have a higher priority than the default mesh and scenery. On my system, I keep mesh add-on folders together in a group (Layer > 38) and scenery add-ons, sorted by region and/or author, above the mesh folder group.
6) That's all! Time to enjoy the scenery!
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Installation in FS2002:
1) Extract the zipped files to a temporary directory, making sure that the "use folder names" option is enabled.
2) Move the "BC-AB LOD9 terrain mesh" folder into your "FS2002/Addon Scenery" folder. If you already have other parts of my mesh series installed, you can combine all of them into one folder. I do not recommend placing mesh files from *different* authors into the same folder, as this can result in undesired mesh display conflicts.
3) If you have my bcmesh9b.zip installed (LOD9 mesh of the Monashee-Selkirk Region), please remove the "L9_4951_117118-5.bgl" file; the new files in this package replace and improve on this area.
4) If you have my bcmeshp1.zip installed (patch package), please remove or deactivate the following files; these flatten switches are no longer needed and may, in fact, interfere with the new set of lake elevation corrections.
You can deactivate any .bgl file by giving it a different or additional suffix, e.g., "L9_4951_117118-5.bgo" or "L9_4951_117118-5.bgl.org".
5) Move the "BC-AB scenery upgrades FS2002" folder into your "FS2002/Addon Scenery" folder.
6) Start up FS2002 and add and activate the two new folders with the Settings > Scenery Library > Add Scenery function. Level of priority is not of importance as long as the mesh folder sits below (i.e., lower priority) than the scenery upgrades folder and both folders have a higher priority than the default mesh and scenery. On my system, I keep mesh add-on folders together in a group below the default city sceneries, i.e., below Hongkong) and scenery add-ons, sorted by region and/or author, above the default city sceneries.
7) That's all! Time to enjoy the scenery!
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Known Issues:
I believe that you will enjoy these scenery enhancements. However, for the perfectionists among us, including myself, there are always 'faults' to complain about and possible or impossible improvements to dream of. Here's a list of visual and technical problems with SRTM terrain mesh that I am aware of:
1) Strange looking mountains: The Shuttle Radar (SRTM) data are a vast improvement over any previously available free elevation data for Canada. However, they do have their problems. Currently, the data are distributed in a "preliminary" state, particularly: "No editing has been performed on the data, and the elevation data in particular contain numerous voids and other spurious points such as anomalously high (spike) or low (well) values" (source: SRTM documentation, available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/pub_dist.htm). The missing data can be filled by merging with other available (low-resolution) elevation data or by interpolation algorithms. Unfortunately, the missing data problem most commonly occurs in steep terrain or over ice-covered surfaces, both of which characterize big parts of the Canadian mountain ranges. For example, Mount Robson, one of Canada's highest and best-known peaks (N53.1 W119.2), is half-missing in the SRTM data. Given its prominence, I have attempted to reconstruct the peak with a "crown" based on my LOD7 (250-m) terrain mesh, compiled at LOD11 ("mesh5_L11_mt_robson.bgl"); it's an improvement but definitely not perfect. Hopefully, one day we will have a corrected version of SRTM data. In the meantime, if you see rounded mountains in an otherwise sharp-edged terrain it's probably a place where we had to fill in missing data.
2) Raised or sunken airports: The default scenery components, such as lakes, shorelines, and airports, are optimized for the default terrain mesh and fixed in location and elevation. Add-on terrain mesh often disrupts this 'balance' and, even if more accurate, may result in poor scenery visuals in some places: lakes or airports sit on 'plateaus' or in 'sinkholes', and strange cliffs show up in unexpected places. We know how to adjust lake elevations, and this file package includes all necessary fixes, but this approach doesn't work with airports, as the elevation of its infrastructure (runways, buildings, etc.) are hard-coded in the default files. In some places, local flatten switches (using Steve Greenwood's FSTflatten utility) can help with 'landscaping' the surrounding terrain to improve the situation; I have used this approach for Trail (CAD4) and other airfields.
3) Inaccurate lake shorelines: I am always amazed how complete the lake database in the FS world is, considering the millions of lakes on this planet. However, most lake shorelines stem from ESRI's 1:1 Mio scale Digital Chart of the World Data, which result in very crude shape and placement of the lakes (and rivers modeled as polygons). With accurate terrain mesh in mountainous areas, this shoreline generalization becomes more visible, mostly in the form of steep cliffs in places where there shouldn't be any. The only remedy we have at this point is to replace (i.e., 'redraw') the existing shorelines with more accurate ones, with the help of such great utilities like Ground2K. Hopefully, one day someone will provide us with a tool that automatically translates existing, more accurate vector data into FS format.
4) Incorrect stream and transportation network. Again, it's neat to see how much of these 'vectors' are there but the same problems exist as with the shorelines. Other than tedious manual replacement of rivers, roads, railroads, etc. for small areas (as I have done for this file package), we're stuck with the default dataset.
5) Incompatibility with 3rd-party scenery add-ons: Any add-on terrain mesh can negatively impact scenery add-ons outside of default airports. In some cases, adding or adjusting a flatten switch will work, in others the scenery itself might have to be changed. I apologize for the inconvenience! Hopefully, the authors will like this new mesh and post updates to their scenery add-ons in the future. I will gladly assist with any such updates if the problem can best be fixed by editing the mesh itself.
6) Impact on frame rates: High-resolution terrain meshes do need reasonable CPU power for acceptable frame rates, though the impact is generally much less noticeable than those of detailed scenery add-ons or many AI aircraft (Note that the lake elevation patches, new transportation network, and landclass files have no or very little impact on frame rates). If you experience frame rate drops that are clearly due to the terrain mesh (i.e., while flying out of sight of airports, scenery add-ons, AI aircraft), try reducing the terrain mesh quality slider to 80% or less, autogen density to normal or less, and perhaps the water effects slider as well. Reducing visibility to 20 miles or less helps but is not necessarily desirable for sightseeing. Finally, I keep the target frame rate locked to around 20, which helps with texture and terrain refreshing when flying faster planes.
The 3-arcsec (approx. 90-meter) digital elevation files for this area are available for free download at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/pub_dist.htm. For the scenery enhancements with Ground2K4, I used free Landsat 7-ETM satellite imagery as basemaps (the images needed to be pre-processed and re-projected with GIS software), available at http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/clf/en.
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Outline of my Terrain Mesh Design Procedures:
1) Setting up an EXCEL spreadsheet to calculate the Level of Detail (LOD) grid boundaries that need to be used for a seamless display of terrain mesh tiles. The spreadsheet also allows me to calculate the input parameters required by the Microsoft Terrain Maker SDK utilities.
2) Importing the SRTM elevation tiles into MicroDEM. Merging, filling holes, and subsetting to the desired extent.
3) Exporting the final elevation raster in 16-bit BSQ format.
4) Using MicroDEM's Calculate > Map Window Corners and Analyze > Header features to transfer tile boundaries, rows, and columns into the EXCEL spreadsheet.
5) Setting up the .inf files for each tile as required by MS Terrain SDK's resample.exe.
6) Using resample.exe, tmfcompress.exe, and tmf2bgl.exe utilities (MS Terrain SDK), in sequence, to convert the mesh tiles from .bsq to .bgl format.
1) MicroDEM 6.0 and 7.0.1 freeware GIS, by Professor Peter Guth of the Oceanography Department, U.S. Naval Academy: http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm
2) Ground2K4 V5.0, by Christian Fumey, for adding lakes, roads, railroads, bridges, hydro dams, as well as shoreline and landclass replacements. Available at SurClaro.com and other FS file servers.
3) DefArea V2.0, by Christian Fumey, for excluding incorrectly placed shorelines, roads, and rivers. Available at SurClaro.com and other FS file servers.
4) FSTflatten, by Steve Greenwood, for flatten switches at airfields and bridge pylons. Available at http://www.fs-traveler.com/flatten.shtml.
5) BGL Analyze 3.1, by Winfried Orthmann, for decompiling the FS2002 default lake elevation data. Available at http://www.scenery.org/design.htm.
6) TDFCalc2004 and CellGrid2004, by Richard Ludowise, for navigating the FS grid world. Available at SurClaro.com and other FS file servers.
7) LocBGL, by Chuck Dome, for identifying the correct FS2002 lake elevation files. Available at http://www.scenery.org/design.htm.
8) EZ-Landclass, by Russel Dirks, for final edits of the landclass files. Available at SurClaro.com and other FS file servers.
9) MS TMFViewer utility, for testing and quality-checking of terrain and lake data. Provided with the MS Custom Terrain Textures SDK, available at http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2002_downloads_sdk.asp.
10) Other FS2000/FS2002 MS Software Developer's Kit (SDK) utilities and documents: http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2002_downloads_sdk.asp.
In addition, I used MS Wordpad for text editing, MS EXCEL97 for the LOD spreadsheets, Photoshop 5 for image editing, PAMAP GIS (http://www.pcigeomatics.com/; no longer available) for changing data projections, and FS Screen for in-flight screenshots.
As with my previous mesh design projects, I found the following sources of information extremely useful:
1) Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2002 Terrain SDK documentation, available at http://zone.msn.com/flightsim/FS02DevDeskSDK15.asp
2) Steve Greenwood's (Flight-Sim Traveler) webpages, which are full of excellent information, tips, his own add-on meshes, and links to other resources: http://www.fs-traveler.com/welcome.shtml
3) Discussions on AVSIM's Scenery Design and Mesh Scenery Design conferences: http://forums.SurClaro.com/
4) John Childs' bottomless "Digital Terrain Modeling and Mapping Journal" webpages: http://www.terrainmap.com/
5) British Columbia's equivalent of the U.S. Terraserver, for online maps and orthophotos: http://www.em.gov.bc.ca/mining/Geolsurv/MapPlace/default.htm (requires free MapViewer browser plugin)
6) Excellent and free preview oblique (sideview) airphotos of many places in B.C. and other Canadian provinces: http://www.globalairphotos.com/
7) To navigate the vast areas of B.C., the following map book has been absolutely indispensable: British Columbia Recreational Atlas, 4th Edition, 1997. Published by Informap, Victoria, B.C., ISBN 0-9680772-1-8.
Obviously, any digital data would be worthless for FS enthusiasts without the wonderful free software tools to put them into Flight Simulator. I am very grateful to the authors of the software I used. A special thanks to Gilles Gauthier for pioneering an efficient method for lake elevation corrections. Also, many thanks to everyone in the active Flight Simulator community for providing such great and diverse freeware add-ons and active discussion forums. Finally, thanks to J for her blank but simpatico stare at my time-consuming 'hobby' ;-)
This scenery is released as Freeware. As an End User you can do whatever you want with these files. For redistribution on storage media or via the Internet (which I encourage), a number of conditions apply:
1) The archive must be distributed without modification to the contents of the archive. Redistributing this archive with any files added, removed, or modified is prohibited.
2) The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another archive without my prior permission is prohibited.
3) No charge may be made for this archive other than that to cover the cost of its distribution. If a fee is charged it must be made clear to the purchaser that the archive is freeware and that the fee is to cover the distributor's costs of providing the archive.
4) I request a brief email notifying me of the website and/or procedure used for redistribution.
