Howto:Make an airport

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For changing scenery and airports you needed TerraGear, which was always very hard to use and only for Linux. With the FlightGear Scenery Designer it is also possible to make custom airports or to change existing airports in FlightGear.

What you need:

• FlightGear Scenery Designer - ftp://ftp.ihg.uni-duisburg.de/FlightGear/Win32/fgsd-win32-20060423.zip
• TaxiDraw - ftp://ftp.ihg.uni-duisburg.de/FlightGear/Win32/taxidraw-win32-20061010.zip
• Runway layout data - either from the USA Airport & Scenery Database or from other free imagery
• other data about the airport you want to make
• shapes for the whole earth - ftp://ftp.ihg.uni-duisburg.de/FlightGear/TGShapes
  • But that's a lot of data, so there is a another possibility - http://mapserver.flightgear.org/download.psp
• Heightmaps - http://telascience.sdsc.edu/tela_data/SRTM/version2/SRTM3/Eurasia/ Link Broken
• Of course FlightGear - any version

Ubuntu users, can use the script in Ubuntu fg tools.

Let's start with making the runway layout- taxidraw

At first we have to define the runways and taxiways. So we use TaxiDraw. A tutorial about using TaxiDraw could be find here: http://taxidraw.sourceforge.net/taxidraw/tutorial.html

So if we have done the airport in TaxiDraw, we save it as "airport.dat". That's the X-plane-fileformat, which is used by FlightGear too. Now we unpack apt.dat.gz in the data folder of FlightGear and paste and copy our new "airport.dat" into it. Don't use any special character like "/" - it could causes a 2h long troubleshooting on your pc system ;-) Now we pack it again to apt.dat.gz. For user of Linux it is easy, windows user can use 7-zip.

Preparation for FGSD

1. We create a file for the shapefiles like ./shapefiles.
2. Now we download all the v0-layer and save them into the folder. Don't forget to unpack!
3. Now we create a folder for the heightmap like./heightmap and download the required data. Here we don't need to unpack!
4. Now we open FGSD and prepare it for our work "Tools" -> "Chop HGT-Files": Set the root to the file of the "heightmaps.zip" and change it to heightmaps.arr.gz by replacing ".zip" with ".arr.gz"
5. Now set the roots in "Tools"-> "Option": General: ./flightGear/scenery Our new tile will be find there later.
6. FlightGear: set the root to the data-file and the root for FlightGear Scenery to the file "shapefiles"

FGSD

We have now all what we need prepared for the work, so let's start: In "File" we look for our requested ".arr.gz" and open the requested tile. If we don't know the name, we can use the UFO and place any object at the spot we want to have the new airport. We have to look now in the generated .xml-file and we see something like 3531408.stg. So we open in our case here the tile with the name 3531408.arr.gz.

You should see now your tile. If not, play a little bit with the buttons in the scenery toolbar. "Option" and "Landcover-DB" and check the required layers. You don't need the layer "v0landmass"

Sometimes you could only see the standart-layers, but we want to have our downloaded layers. So unckeck all, exit the program and launch it again. We have to order the layer and define which texture matches to the layer. ( so as an example the v0railroads really have the right texture). We also define the weidth.

The larger textures are always above the smaller one like that:

[x]mixcrop - ein grooßes polygon, größer als urban

[x]urban

[x]drycrop - ein grooßes polygon, größer als road

[x]road

Play a litte bit with it, so you can see how it works. Now click "Simplify Terrain" in "Scenery" the heightmodel is now beeing simplified so we can use it in FlightGear. Click "embedded Curves" - the shapefiles will now being embedded and we can see our landclasses. Our airport is still missing - select "Tools" and "Select Airport" and choose our airport. You can see it now on the tile.

"Scenery"->"embeddes airports"

Ready!

Now we export it now: "File"->"Export"

We will find our airport in ./FlightGear/Scenery and copy this into ./data/scenery. If we have made a airport which was not yet existing in FlightGear, so put in the IACA-Code in ./application data/flightgear.org/fgrun into the list.Now we launch FlightGear and start from our new made airport!

next time

Your preparations are saved, so the next time you have just to do following things:

1. open "tile.arr.gz"
2. Import curves
3. simplify terrain
4. embedded curves
5. import airports
6. embedded airports
7. export!

Don't forget to send your new "airport.dat" to Robin Peel, so we all will benefit from!

Sources of errors and FAQ

• The new made airport has no lights, towers, beacons and windsocks?
  • That's right - in the moment it is only possible with terragear. But you can place in FGSD the towers, beacons and windsocks with the object editor.
• I don't see any roads and rivers?
  • You have to define the width: "Tools" - "landcover DB" -> "width" maybe. 10 for smaller ones and 20 for bigger ones.
• I only see the default-texture?
  • Uncheck v0-landmass
• I see only red-white chequered surfaces in FlightGear?
  • Look if you have used in taxidraw the textures: others- they don't work in FlightGear.
• I can't start FlightGear?
  • Look if you used special characters in apt.dat.gz - No use of special characters!

Thanks

Thanks to:

• Vadym who discovered this function in FGSD and showed it on the devel-list!
• Frederic Bouvier, who wrote FGSD!
• Martin Spott and Ralf Gerlich for the Landcover DB!