There IS a scenery tool to remove powerlines!!

[ozbeowulf]

Yesterday, while building the last... boy, it feels good to say that!.... airfield in the Air Transport Command South Atlantic ferry route, I got caught by those pesky MSFS power lines and telephone poles. They were marching through the newly created Dakar Eknes Field site on top of the VTP2 polygon and untouched by ExeBuilder bgls.

Many of you may already know and use Def Area 2.0 but it's new to me and I was very happy to find it. This little puppy is fantastic! Install the program, start FS9 and set up to fly (or slew) along the area you want to clean up. Start Def Area from the task bar (it pops up in a small window overlapping FS9), start it and begin the fly over. (I found slewing most practical.) When you're finished, stop Def Area. It then generates the bgl file in the Def Area folder and closes itself. Rename the "DefArea.bgl" to somethingelse.bgl and copy or move it into your scenery folder. (You can use multiple Def Area-generated bgls as long as each one has a different name.) Restart FS9. Done deal.

I've elaborated the details a bit here (more detail in my post below) because the info is a trifle sparse but the program is great for those bits and pieces that ExeBuilder won't touch.

I found it at FlightSim. The file name is defarea2.zip by Christian Fumey. It's probably on AvSim, too, but their database was a bit wonky after their server mods.

Well done, Christian! Trillions of electrons are singing your praises!

Cheers,

Glenn

(Edited later with additional info.)

[johnhinson]

Jan 2, 2009 21:07:00 GMT -5 ozbeowulf said:

I found it at FlightSim. The file name is defarea2.zip by Christian Fumey. It's probably on AvSim, too, but their database was a bit wonky after their server mods.

I have always used AFX for that. It will also remove (or move) those taxiway signs which I keep whacking my wheels on when taxying out. Nice to know there is a free true FS2004 alternative - most such utilities seem to really be FS2002 software (although they often claim otherwise) which is why they won't touch additional FS2004 features.

John

[ozbeowulf]

Hi, John...

Yes, this Def Area is a beauty!

I've been experimenting with it since my last post with better and better results. You can select the scenery layer you want to exclude, so it's easy to target exactly what is not wanted.

When Def Area opens, it defaults to layer 4, labeled "Rivers." That removes powerlines and telephone poles very nicely. Probably other things, too, but I don't know yet. No adverse side effects so far, at any rate.

Railways (layer 5), Roads (layer 6) Polys and Bridges (layer 7) and Shorelines (layer 8) are specifically labelled. The other scenery layers are accessible by number only.

One thing. It's impossible to set an exact beginning and end of the exclusion "strip" created by the flyover. AFAIK, this is because the program totally removes the offending item's layer from any LOD involved, so the edge of the relevant LOD sets the beginning and end. I assume that would also be true for any similar exclusion software.

I'm not familiar with AFX and I'm sure it's a good program, but I'm certainly entranced with Def Area. So far, I've been able to lift powerlines, a road and a railway off the VTP2 polygon I inserted for Eknes Field with no hassles.

(Grinning broadly, he wanders off to reduce modern Dakar GOOY to a 1943 airport construction site....) ;D

Glenn

[Wolfgang]

Hi,

something for the tips section ?

Wolfgang

[ozbeowulf]

Hi, Wolfgang...

That may be a good idea, but I'll let someone else decide. Besides, I don't know the protocol or procedure for adding to the tips section.

I found one more thing Def Area will do, btw, but I didn't want to belabor the point with another post. However, since I'm here.....

Using the Layer 7 - Polys and Bridges during a Def Area flyover will remove FS9 default airport polygons. So it's possible to remove a modern airport's runways, etc, etc, etc, AND remove the polygon, too. For example...

Here's Dakar GOOY with the airport buildings, runways, etc, removed, but the MSFS airport polygon still in place. In other words, this is after an AFCAD edit and standard ExcBuilder exclusions:



Here's the Dakar peninsula after three passes with Def Area (perhaps three minutes):



I've also used it to shorten the runway sections of an MSFS airport polygon where, say, I've reduced a modern 10,000' runway to a WWII standard 6,000'. This can be unwieldy at times, though, because Def Area removes an entire LOD and LODs seem to be north-south oriented. If a runway is angled at, for example, 045 degrees, the cutoff line will be skewed and perhaps unusable.

Cheers,

Glenn

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

Sounds like a great idea. We use Ground2K4 for our VTP exclusions (like airport polygons), but it doesn't touch power lines. I'll have to try it for that. Once this thread has run it's course remind me to move it to the Tips forum.

Yes, VTP exclusions act on a predefined "square" of ground, you cannot specify an exact area.

Take care,

[Tom/CalClassic]

Used it, created the BGL file, but it didn't remove the power poles at LAX...

[ozbeowulf]

Hi, Tom...

Hmmm... I had a look at LAX (Southwest US 59) but I can't find any powerlines. Lots of radio station towers but no powerlines in my scenery. Of course, I might not be looking in the right places.

As a relative scenery newbie, I've used Ground2K4 to make polygons (thanks to your posted directions) but I didn't know you can exclude airport polygons with it. D'oh! Good to know, though. Thanks.

That makes sense. since I now see that Christian Fumey created Ground2K4 as well as DefArea.

Cheers,

Glenn

[Randy_Cain]

Hi,

Glenn, in looking for the powerlines at LAX, don't forget to turn your autogen up to "extreme". I think thats' the only level they show up on. (That's the standard powerlines and poles. High tension lines show up at far lower settings.)

Yours,

[ozbeowulf]

Hi, Randy... Good point! I had forgotten that. I keep the autogen dialled back to avoid stuff like that, but you're quite right. If I want to experiment with LAX powerlines, I'll have to find 'em first.

-------------------------- Later -------------------------------

Hi, Tom...

I found 'em!

Actually, Def Area did remove some, but not all, of the power poles in my LAX installation (CA59, not SWUS 59, as I mistakenly said earlier). With my autogen at normal, where I last left it, there were no poles showing, but when I tried higher autogen settings they sprouted like weeds.

I saved a test flight looking along the left side of Rwy 6 and checked the number of poles showing with and without a Def Area bgl in the LAX scenery folder at various autogen densities.

The heading is the autogen setting, the first entry is the number of poles with no Def Area bgl in use and the second entry is with the Def Area bgl in use.

Normal = 0,0

Dense = 2,1

Very Dense = 9,5

Extremely Dense =41,31

So a Def Area flyover cut the number of poles by about 25% or 40% or 50%, depending on autogen density, but it never removed them all.

Fwiw, the power poles I mentioned in my first post were encountered at a newly created airfield in Senegal. They were both the LAX-style small poles and the giant cross-country towers. They showed up with autogen at normal density, were removed by a Def Area flyover with Layer 4 and now do not re-appear even with autogen at extremely dense. I have no idea why the Def Area bgl is not equally effective at LAX.

What all this means, I'm not sure, except that everytime I turn around, MSFS has a new surprise for me.

Cheers,

Glenn

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi again Glenn,

Thanks for the exhaustive testing. My guess is that you have to find the "square" where the poles have their origin (i.e. reference point) to be able exclude them. Some of the ones at LAX had their origin in at the airport (and were removed),but some have it outside the airport and are not. I wonder if a HUGE exclude would get rid of all of them...

Thanks,

[Dennis the menace]

One single power line pole is the master pole. From this follows a string of poles which can be many miles in length. As far as I know there is no program which will identify the single master pole when clicking on a child pole of it's group.

Divide your scenery in half. Create a giant exclude bgl for one half. If the line of poles is gone, then you know that the master pole is in that exclude bgl. If not, then it must be in the other half. Once you have established which half the master pole is in, remove the giant exclude bgl you just made, then follow the string of poles and keep creating single exclude bgls for each pole until you have found the master pole. Once you have found the master and created an exclude bgl for it, the entire string will be gone.

Just be patient!

Mike