Using TerraGear: Difference between revisions

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Note ogr-decode => poly-decode
(Note ogr-decode => poly-decode)
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The [[TerraGear]] software project supports [[FlightGear]] by creating the files used by FlightGear to represent the elevation and texture of the earth, including airports, cities, fields, forests, rivers, roads and so on. The TerraGear software reads data files containing ground elevation, airport locations and layouts, geographical land-cover data, and more, and produces the scenery files used by FlightGear to represent the terrain of the world.
The [[TerraGear]] software project supports [[FlightGear]] by creating the files used by FlightGear to represent the elevation and texture of the earth, including airports, cities, fields, forests, rivers, roads and so on. The TerraGear software reads data files containing ground elevation, airport locations and layouts, geographical land-cover data, and more, and produces the scenery files used by FlightGear to represent the terrain of the world.


For simplicity and convenience, most FlightGear users simply download the plug-and-play scenery files from the FlightGear scenery server, or use [[TerraSync]] to automatically download scenery as needed. But there is a variety of reasons you might want to use TerraGear to produce your own terrain files, rather than downloading the standard FlightGear scenery.  
For simplicity and convenience, most FlightGear users simply download the plug-and-play scenery files from the FlightGear scenery server, or use [[TerraSync]] to automatically download scenery as needed. But there is a variety of reasons you might want to use TerraGogrear to produce your own terrain files, rather than downloading the standard FlightGear scenery.  


For instance, if you use [[WorldEditor]] to modify/improve information about an [[:Category:Airports|airport]]'s taxiway/apron layout, you might wish to see how that modified airport would look in the scenery before deciding you're happy with the results. Maybe the official scenery is too detailed for your slow machine, and you'd like to build terrain using a digital elevation model (DEM) with poorer resolution, to decrease the number of polygons and thus improve your framerates. Or maybe you've got a fantastically fast machine, and you want to build your own terrain using higher-resolution vector data (vmap1, Tiger, osm) to get better roads/streams. For all these reasons, learning how to use TerraGear is a good idea.
For instance, if you use [[WorldEditor]] to modify/improve information about an [[:Category:Airports|airport]]'s taxiway/apron layout, you might wish to see how that modified airport would look in the scenery before deciding you're happy with the results. Maybe the official scenery is too detailed for your slow machine, and you'd like to build terrain using a digital elevation model (DEM) with poorer resolution, to decrease the number of polygons and thus improve your framerates. Or maybe you've got a fantastically fast machine, and you want to build your own terrain using higher-resolution vector data (vmap1, Tiger, osm) to get better roads/streams. For all these reasons, learning how to use TerraGear is a good idea.
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You can load these shapefiles into a GIS editor such as [[QGIS]] or GRASS to view and edit. This is a good idea to verify you have the correct files! Later on, you can experiment with replacing various shapefiles with other versions (GSHHS for coastline, OSM for roads etc.).
You can load these shapefiles into a GIS editor such as [[QGIS]] or GRASS to view and edit. This is a good idea to verify you have the correct files! Later on, you can experiment with replacing various shapefiles with other versions (GSHHS for coastline, OSM for roads etc.).


The next step is to decode the shape-files into TerraGear format using the '''ogr-decode''' command.  
The next step is to decode the shape-files into TerraGear format using the '''ogr-decode''' command (renamed to '''poly-decode''' in recent versions of TerraGear).  


There are three important command-line arguments for ogr-decode:
There are three important command-line arguments for ogr-decode:

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