Using TerraGear: Difference between revisions

By far the easiest way to get this data is to download shape-files from the wonderful [http://mapserver.flightgear.org MapServer]. This provides access to a database of information, and allows you to download the specifi shapefiles for your scenery area. Click on the Download Shapefiles link (or go direct: http://mapserver.flightgear.org/download.psp). Enter in the bounding box of the scenery you want to generate, select the shapefiles you want, and click download. For your first scenery generation, you want all of the ones listed under VMap0 (with prefix v0_).  

Download each of them into a <tt>data/shapefiles/</tt> directory.

You now need to decode these into TerraGear format. This is done with the shape-decode command.  

There are three important command-line arguments to shape-decode:

* the filename of the shapefile (without the .shp extension) you want to decode

* the directory you want to write the data to

* the material type to use.

Each of the shapefiles maps onto one of the material types defined in your materials.xml files. The mapping is pretty obvious, e.g. v0_mixedcroppasturecover maps to MixedCropPastureCover. Note that the material types are case-sensitive, so it is a good idea to have your materials.xml file to hand so you can check. The exception is v0_landmass, which MUST be mapped onto the type Default.