screwdriver wrote:I was thinking along the same lines. But on a different frontier.
Take a look at OpenStreetMap, and especially what the xml yields when the map is centered on an airport. Looks familiar, of course http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Fi ... at#apt.dat.
Technically converting from OpenStreetMap xml data to the apt.dat format is quite easy. I'm currently working on a python api for those files and their content and parsing xml is child's play.
I'm also still in touch with the people from OpenStreetMap to sort out the details. (The OpenStreetMap data is pretty basic, just a few points which are connected to shapes or lines, their meaning is added by tags, currently there's not enough tags for airport related data, like surface type and widths of runways and taxiways.)
So creating airports will be fairly easy, you draw the layout off the Satelite imagery available to the OpenStreetMap project, commit your work to OSM and then export and convert the airport layout to the apt.dat format and go the usual way from there. This way the two projects will profit at once.
screwdriver wrote:Buildings are well represented in OSM (their outline). If not, hit the edit button on the OSM page, and draw the building you're looking for into OSM using the areal imagery provided.
(That is another nice side effect: you actually use the OSM mapping tools to create FG scenery)
VaLeo wrote:Some weeks ago I've draw, extrude, and insert my neighborhood.
Thats works well.
All this looks really interresting, and promising ! I'll have to take a good look at the OSM environment. Now, the question is, is there an agreement on the FlightGear side that this kind of work done from within the OSM project is legitimate content for the scenery database ?