OpenStreetMap, performance and more

In the next development release there are some interesting changes to the scenProc tool. These are the main changes:

  • You can now read data from the OpenStreetMap XML format. This makes it even easier to use OpenStreetMap data to create autogen objects for FSX. By reading the OSM XML format directly you can get even more features than in most Shapefile version that can be downloaded.
    The new step to import OSM data is called IMPORTOSM and it takes 3 additional arguments. The first is the OSM file you want to load. The second specifies the region you want to load (lonmin;lonmax;latmin;latmax) or use a * to load everything. The third argument is a list of tags that should be loaded, only features that have at least one of the tags listed will be imported. Or use a * to load all features.
    A good overview of the tags used in the OpenStreetMap data can be found here.
  • In the options you no longer have to set the XtoMDL, ModelDef.xml and Autogen SDK path. Instead you should now just set the FSX SDK path and the tool will find all the other files by itself. Also you get a folder selection dialogue now, making it even easier to select the right folder.
  • When processing the scenProc configuration file you will get more feedback in the event log now. For example the import steps will report how many features they have imported and the steps to create autogen objects will report how many they have made.
  • And last, but not least. I have made some changes to improve the performance of the SPLITGRID step. This step usually takes most of the time, especially for big areas. From now on this step uses multiple threads, so that should speed things up. Be aware that I use .NET 3.5 functionality now as well, so be sure you have that version of the framework installed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.