[Flightgear-devel] WS30 Update - Coastlines, lochs and lakes

[Stuart B. <stu...@gm...>]

Hi Folks,

I've recently pushed some further changes for WS3.0.  In particular:
- Using OpenStreetMap data for more accurate coastlines.  This is an
overlay on top of the landclass mesh, and I'm hoping that with a little
shader magic we can get some nice beaches, waves etc.  This is an area that
a shader expert could make a big difference in.
- More accurate water bodies such as lakes, lochs and reservoirs, again
using OSM data.
- Finally found and fixed some image compression that was causing
interpolation of landclass information.
- Fixed normals for line features so rivers and roads are the correct
colour.
- Sample python scripts for generating the roads, rivers, lakes, coastlines
in fgmeta/ws30.  These are trivial scripts right now - using the OSM
OverPass API.  This likely won't scale, but at least provides a starting
point for anyone wanting to generate scenery for elsewhere.

Thanks to some 25m resolution landclass data from Scott, the scenery is
beginning to look pretty neat. See here:
https://wiki.flightgear.org/File:WS30_-_West_Lothian.png

I've put together an updated scenery package for Scotland here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18CfT_sVrfv6gkwp4QU7w0fHSiDabvUJk/view?usp=sharing

I'm also going to write up some better instructions on the wiki for
generating scenery for the rest of the world.

I think we're now at the stage where the WS30 underlying scenery is close
to "complete" - I don't think there are any missing scenery features - and
any issues remaining are ones that we can address at runtime (for example
trees on roads).  So I think we should set ourselves a goal of delivering a
full world build of WS30 via terrasync for a preview release in the
autumn.  That of course relies on fixing the osgText issue :).

-Stuart