Re: [Flightgear-users] Where can I get better scenery for FlightGear, 1-arcsec SRTM.

[Nathaniel H. <nat...@gm...>]

Curtis Olson wrote:
> On 5/22/07, *Nathaniel Homier* wrote:
> 
>     FlightGear uses 90m SRTM data and I assume this is the 3-arcsec SRTM
>     data.  I would like to have the whole world at 1-arcsec SRTM.  I tried
>     to build terragear but the wiki and GPC.README are a bit out of date and
>     the docs suggest it would take forever to build the world scenery on
>     anything less than a large cluster.  I was hoping that maybe someone
>     else already did the work for the entire world and has it up some where
>     for download or for sale on DVD.
> 
>     It would be awesome if http://cdrom.flightgear.org/ offered a no holds
>     barred DVD of the scenery for those with the computing power and who
>     don't want have to figure out Terragear and spends weeks building the
>     whole planet not to mention windows users.
> 
> 
> There are a couple things I can say in reply here.  First the 3 arcsec 
> data is *huge* and in and of itself will overwhelm your system's ability 
> to draw all that data.  We simplify the data ... probably 1000x to make 
> it renderable.  The 1 arcsec data is nice, but again, in order to make 
> it workable within FlightGear, we would have to simplify it down to 
> about the resolution we currently have, so the net gain would be 
> minimal, even if you started with the higher res data set.
> 
> The current scenery requires 3 DVD's.  A no holds barred DVD (singular) 
> would have to be lower res than what we have now.  If we increase the 
> resolution substantial, then maybe we are talking about a 6 or 20 DVD 
> set.  That would be very costly and time consuming to produce and 
> distribute!
> 
> As computers get faster and capacities increase, we will definitely 
> increase the resolution and accuracy of the scenery, but I feel that the 
> current scenery set strikes a pretty good balance between detail, render 
> speed and size manageabilty.
> 
> But I do se habla dinero if offered in sufficient quantities. :-) :-) :-)
> 
> Curt.

Oh, okay thanks for the answer.  I had no Idea about the true resolution 
of the source data.  I have the 7 DVD set for X-Plane and while it does 
look nice I still find myself preferring Flightgears scenery, dunno why 
just do.  Maybe if I win one of those Taco Bell contest for a million peso!