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W2xp versus Ortho4xp overlays


catman915

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Hi.

Yes, i am fairly certain that you can combine them.

I only used the Ortho4XP tiles, which include the mesh / altitude information and you can extract the overlays / flat looking images of the buildings as seen from the space.

Being a RW pilot I think that the best combination is Ortho image and Objects set to Medium. Using that setup I can look down and recognize many of the buildings, areas..

If you cover them up with a lot of trees, houses, W2XP with Maximum Objects setting you may as well just use the default scenery and just add some mesh and a lot / Maximum objects W2XP objects and they will cover everything making the Ortho photos irrelevant / useless in my opinion. You will gain a better, in some cases, mesh but you lose all the other benefits from the orthos like the writing on some buildings the actual 2D shape of the buildings....

For US low level flight I use GO2 ZL17, 18 and likely the best option until you get familiar with Ortho is to get the free Forkboy2 tiles which I found very acceptable / good.

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Hi.

You are welcome, Merry Christmas to you also.

One more note, the ZL18 takes a lot of storage space, there are some tiles that I have around LAX that are over 50GB and takes about 5 times longer to generate, Try the ZL17 less than 10 GB, first and if you are not satisfied with the way it looks go foe ZL18, it takes about 17 min for my system for ZL17 and about 1Hr for ZL18.

Post here if you need more help.

For a better look around the mountains / steep slopes you may want to try this config:

apt_smoothing_pix=8

road_level=1

road_banking_limit=0.5

lane_width=5.0

max_levelled_segs=100000

water_simplification=0.0

min_area=0.001

max_area=200.0

clean_bad_geometries=True

mesh_zl=19

curvature_tol=0.5

apt_curv_tol=0.4

apt_curv_ext=0.5

coast_curv_tol=1.0

coast_curv_ext=0.5

limit_tris=0

hmin=0.0

min_angle=10.0

sea_smoothing_mode=zero

water_smoothing=10

iterate=0

mask_zl=14

masks_width=100

masking_mode=rocks

use_masks_for_inland=False

imprint_masks_to_dds=False

masks_use_DEM_too=False

masks_custom_extent=

cover_airports_with_highres=False

cover_extent=1.0

cover_zl=18

ratio_water=0.25

overlay_lod=25000.0

sea_texture_blur=0.0

add_low_res_sea_ovl=False

experimental_water=0

normal_map_strength=1.0

terrain_casts_shadows=True

use_decal_on_terrain=True

custom_dem=NED 1" (from USGS) - USA, Canada, Mexico

fill_nodata=True

default_website=GO2

default_zl=18

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Thanks. If you don't mind I had a couple of other Questions I forgot, does the zoom level in the preview affect the final zoom level of the tile or is it just for seeing what you're doing in setting the custom zoom areas? Finally can a finished tile be edited without going through the whole process and making a new tile ie; changing or adding zoom areas? If so is there a tutorial on doing it?
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Thanks. If you don't mind, I have a couple more questions. Does the preview zoom level affect the final tile or does it just aid in placing Zoom areas and visualizing the end result? Can a finished tile be edited in Ortho4 ie; changing or adding zoom areas?
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Thanks. If you don't mind, I have a couple more questions. Does the preview zoom level affect the final tile or does it just aid in placing Zoom areas and visualizing the end result? Can a finished tile be edited in Ortho4 ie; changing or adding zoom areas?

 

Hi.

No the Preview does not affect the finished tile, just the settings on the first page. I use ZL13 to preview.

Yes, a finished tile can be edited for zoom areas but. to the best of my knowledge, not completely Off line. O4XP saves the Altitude and Images in a separate Folders and makes things easier / faster if you try to edit certain things later.

Below is a quick Tutorial and some sources.

 

After installing and starting the program, it suffices to do the following steps.

· Select the Base folder on the main page. Just select your "Custom Scenery" folder. The program will put the output into that folder. It will create a single subdirectory for each tile that you create.

· Select BI as image source and 16 or 17 as zoom level.

· Select the "Global Scenery/X-Plane 11 Global Scenery" folder in the Settings / Tools as custom overlay folder.

· Open the world map by clicking on the world icon. You can move the map with the right mouse button. Double click somewhere to select a tile. Shift click to make it a target for the built.

· Check five boxes below "Batch build tiles" ("Assemble vector data", "Triangulate 3D mesh", "Draw water masks", "Build imagery/DSF", "Extract overlays").

· Click "Bach Build".

· Alternatively, you can also use the buttons in the main window.

· Check the output in the main window.

· Create a link to the overlay directory in the program directory from the "Custom Scenery" folder. In Windows, you can just copy and create a link with the right mouse button. Alternatively, you can of course simple copy the complete folder.

· Start X-Plane and close it.

· Edit "Custom Scenery/scenery_packs.ini" with Notepad++ or another simple text

 

Tutorial with less hassle:

Other tutorials for Ortho4XP (extend this comment to see more): How to improve the water appearance:
How to create multiple tiles at once:
How to get perfect and smooth runway slopes:
How to get sharper photoreal imagery when very close to the ground:
GERMAN/DEUTSCHE Version meiner Ortho4XP Tutorials:

 

 

Posts about Ortho

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/160109-naip-source-best-quality-usa-orthos/&tab=comments#comment-1525312

This tutorial will hopefully help you in getting NAIP setup for Ortho4XP. This source provides high-quality imagery for the United States of America with little to no clouds (except for areas like Alaska). NAIP Link: http://bit.ly/naiplink NAIP Coverage Map: http://bit.ly/arcmapnaip Thanks for watching! If you liked the video, leave a like to show that you did and want to see more and leave a comment down below! Other Media Outlets ---------------------------------------------- Discord: http://bit.ly/505discord Twitter: http://bit.ly/505twitt Twitch: http://bit.ly/505stream

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When I say a finished tile I mean one that's already been created with the procedure you've described. Can you somehow open it back up in O4xp and make changes or do you have to use other procedures not involving O4xp?

 

Hi.

It depends on the process you need. If you want to adjust the colors you do not need use Ortho, if you want to insert a higher resolution area, extract overlays.. you will need O4XP.

Typically the thinking would be, in most cases you need O4XP but if you have to repeat some of the operations some of the data is already saved for you and you do not have to redownload. O4XP is smart enough to go use it until you delete that data.

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Hi.

I know that it can be overwhelming at the beginning, but it is actually very easy after you do it once.

The best thing to do is do one tile with default setting, read the text I posted earlier, and do a tile, the worst that can happen is spend some time and have to delete some data that you do not want to keep.

Just use All at once, just make sure you set area up and the location for your finished tile and the Global scenery path for the Overlay extraction otherwise you will not building, cars...

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