Yet another update ;D

Endless updates eh? Anyway the medical news last week is not good. This activity will certainly continue albeit in a haphazard way for the time being. I have the same round of radio therapy and surgery ahead in the coming months as I had the last time. So I anticipate some therapuetic time dabbling in the CFS3 scenery SDK in the coming months.

In the meantime I've spent time over the last 3 weeks working on completing water and terrain meshes for the ETO. The verdict's out on whether they'll use it at the time of writing. The problem is that the existing data in CFS3 is quite old and out of alignment with the SRTM terrain mesh. The terrain mesh is the bottom layer upon which all other data, water, vector and gsl sits. There's no way in a 1000 years that any new terrain would line up with any existing CFS3 data including water. The new water generally appears ok in the areas I've checked. The lower level lods of the terrain push out under the water mesh causing spikes which disappear as one moves closer.

I've been checking some of NIMA's vmap0 vector data against the SRTM terrain in Global Mapper, and in the UK, at least, most of the vector data is slightly north west of where it should be. The roads appear very similar to those in CFS3, thus MS probably used that or similar data. The only way one could create a new theatre without these problems is to create one from scratch.... a massive undertaking, and probably beyond the scope of the ETO enhancement project.

I'll be experimenting in global mapper with CSV files. There could possibly be a way to display CFS3 facility locations in GM. It's hopefully just a matter of changing CFS3 data to the appropriate format.

Aircraft building continues and no doubt some of my earlier terrain dabbles, such as Spanish rivers and water bodies will also continue. I've overused my sitting allowance for this morning. Back to my bunker...... ;)

Cheers

Rob

Another update

I seem to post nothing but updates here. Anyway the bottom line is that cancer is most likely back in my life again. New discomforting, and now painful symptoms came to my attention in April. They are gradually worsening and the doctors tell me it is most likely a re-occurrence and spread of liposarcoma. (I'm still hoping it's infection rather than sarcoma). Anyway with the likelihood that it's cancer which will involve some sort of treatment/surgery which may sideline me for a while, most of my efforts are presently devoted to surviving.

Creative efforts are focusing on getting my Sopwith Snipe ready for FSX before medical treatment begins. I probably won't have it complete by then but I'll give it a go anyway. Thus terrain for CFS3 will again have to take a back seat, with only a few minutes here and there to pursue. I'd like to post some pics and maybe more info on terrain creation, but no promises.

So if I disappear for a while... y'all know why. Hopefully I'll be back.

Cheers

Rob