RELEASED: HD Mesh Scenery v4 for X-Plane 11

[alpilotx]

The wait is over, and HD Mesh Scenery v4 for X-Plane 11 is now officially released!

HD Mesh Scenery v4 can be seen as a vastly improved version of the default scenery shipping with XP11. It is using/referencing the exact same set of artwork files (textures, object, autogens, forests) which ship with XP11, so you do not need other art assets to be installed while HD Mesh Scenery v4 will also benefit from any artwork improvements (autogen, texture) coming with future XP11 versions.


The most important advantages of HD Mesh Scenery v4 are

• The triangle mesh resolution is far higher than in the default mesh and even a bit above the level of the previous HD Mesh Scenery v3:: this give – obviously – better DEM (elevation data) representation (slopes, mountains etc.) BUT this also vastly(!) improves the landclass data representation (which in X-Plane is very closely coupled with the triangle size in the mesh). This is most obvious with forest detail.
  
• The vector data simplification is less aggressive than in the default mesh (where Laminar needed to do that to limit the overall size of the global scenery). Thus road / railroad bendings are more accurate and the same is true for rivers, shorelines (but where the OSM raw data is bad, this can’t help much either)
  
• HD Mesh Scenery v4 also has the new “high buildings” feature included, which I introduced with Laminar in XP11. This puts all (well, with some filtering of not reasonable stuff from OSM) buildings > 20m “height” or > 5 “building:levels” as some “high building” object (with a more or less correct height – as defined in OSM) in the scenery (“building:levels” are simply multiplied by 4m to get an approximate height). This usually gives most cities a much better look (New York is a great example, where in OSM almost all buildings already have a height defined). This same approach also “imports” antennas / masts from OSM (as antenna obstacles)
  
• OSM data is updated (its “date stamp” is 1st October 2017) . Which makes it newer than current XP11 default mesh data and of course much, much newer than the data in HD Mesh Scenery v3.
  
• Most of the Landclass data has seen an update (which already happened with my work for the XP11 default scenery … but HD Mesh Scenery v4 can represent the high res landclass data much better)

Coverage

• Europe (from the Canaries and Iceland in the west up to Moscow an and most parts of Israel in the East)
  
• North America (USA, Alaska, Canada)
  
• South / Central America
  
• Australia
  
• Japan
  
• Hawaii and most of the tiny Pacific Islands
  
• Himalaya

(Coverage to the north ends at 73 N !)

And a Warning!

The scenery requires at least X-Plane 11.00 !!! IT WILL NOT WORK WITH X-Plane 10.xx!

Screenshots

Here are the official screenshots accompanying the release of HD Mesh Scenery v4. Just follow the links to my albums:

• The gallery on my website will bring you to the Albums as direct links to the google albums are removed by the steam forum (the top two of the albums) : http://www.alpilotx.net/gallery/

Official Site

All other (continuously updated) information, download links and important instructions can be found on the official HD Mesh Scenery v4 Site:

• http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-11-hd-mesh-scenery-v4/

[alpilotx]

WAIT. .. User "opjose" is writing some important things, but also mixed up a few things.

For first, technically HD Mesh Scenery v4 is a 1-to-1 drop-in replacement for the default scenery. Technically they are identical. They also have a very common root. Many might not know (whereas some might know) that I have a very long, sometimes closer, sometime looser affiliation with Laminar and have worked on and contributed to the default scenery ever since XP10 (effectively, the complete overhaul of the XP10 default scenery - compared to XP9 - came from me and a few other guys).

The raw data basis on which both default and HD Mesh (and even UHD Mesh) is effectively identical. Sometimes the one, sometimes the other is ahead by some newest OSM data updates or improvements in landclass data etc ... But nevertheless they share tha base data (as I usually contribute my data updates back to Laminar). They also use the same, Laminar internal scenery generator (the big, ugly cousin of the "official" MeshTool) ... just some important parameters are changed / tweaked in the scenery generation achieve the HD or UHD density (and a few other tweaks of course too). So, thats why I mean that they are very closely related.

What can confuse X-Plane users quite often, is the versatility of the DSF scenery system. Like all this Mesh / Overlay thingy. The interesting thing is (and many don't understand this from the beginning on) ... that even though the DSF scenery system knows about a lot of different types of scenery primitives or "data layers" (like the base triangle-mesh-patchwork and all the "overlay" elements like the road network, forest polygons, autogen polys / lines / points, single point based object placement, facade objects etc. etc.) there is now explicit rule which says which of these have to be separated(!) in different DSFs! You can put any of those "data layers" in separate DSFs or all of them in one single DSF.

And the latter is happening with the default Scenery (and HD or UHD Mesh Scenery) DSFs! They are all in one DSF files. They do not only contain just a base mesh data information, but already have included all the overlay data encoded in them by the scenery generator we use! They have the base mesh, but also the road network, forest polys, all the autogen annotations, single object polygons, facades ... all in on DSF. Thus they are "self contained" and are enough to create by themselves a more or less "full" landscape! And just as an important side note (because you might have missed it in my "lists"): all water features re NOT overlay but part of the triangle mesh ... like a very special (ie. water) terrain type assigned to a bunch of triangles.

SO, FIRST important observation: HD Meshes DOES NOT provide overlay files based upon OSM data! All that overlay data is IN the DSFs ... no extras.

SECOND: there is also a big(!) confusion about what exactly HD Mesh Scenery v4 takes from OSM and what not. And its less - far less - than many might imagine. For example forests are absolutely NOT from OSM! Exaclty because OSM in this respect is lacking in many many areas! Instead forests are "induced" by the quite high resolution (it depends on world regions) landclass data used for scenery generation (and neither does that landclass data come from OSM - or to be correct ... a very tiny fraction of OSM info is already "transcoded" into the landclass data ... but its a small minority until now). So, if you want to understand more (better) about all that forest things .... Head over toX-Plane.org, there I have a more extensive write up on that:

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/124771-know-how-where-forests-do-come-from-in-x-plane/

THIRD (still talking about what comes from OSM): what else I get from OSM are (a bit simplified) ... all the water features (coastlines, lakes, rivers) and road, railroad, power line vector data. Thats it (well mostly :-) )! So, cities (the autogen + object overlays) are effectively NOT generated directly by some OSM building locations ... Instead the scenery generator uses the road / railroad network as a skeleton and then fills it in with autogen when (and how) the landclass data tells it to do so. Again ... this helps to get villages even in quite remote regions where OSM is very "basic".
Well, there is - already -one little exception to the OSM story ... Since XP11 I decided to "induce" high buildings in the city scenery (to get the skylines a bit better). This new "features" works by getting all high building locations (> 20m or > 5 levels) and putting halfway correctly sized generic (!) objects at the right place in the scenery (on top of the already placed autogen stuff).

The short form of HD Mesh Scenery v4 is described here:
http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-11-hd-mesh-scenery-v4/#Features

And if you want to know how much different data sources are put together (in default, HD, UHD Mesh) you can check out the quite complete data source list:
http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-11-hd-mesh-scenery-v4/#Data_Sources_Acknowledgments

Then about Ortho4XP (even if I do not use it, I know quite a bit about it):
Ortho4XP is NOT GENERATING ITS OWN OVERLAY! SO, Ortho4XP can never be responsible of "wrongly placed" autogen, roads, forest. Ortho4XP is always(!) relying on a third source (if the user tells it to do so) to get its overlay information (roads, autogen, objects, forests). Which usually either the default mesh or quite often my HD Mesh Scenery ... WHY this can quite often mismatch? Read the first link about the forests ... it tells it in a lot of details.
Usually you can get the best results with Ortho4XP if you use a 3rd party fully OSM based overlay scenery (usually W2XP is / was a toll which was good at achieving it). WHEN, the underlying OSM data is good and highly detailed THEN you can get fantastic results. If OSM is not so good ... then you are out of luck . This also highlights - just like with all of my defaul / HD / UHD Mesh work - that whether you like it or not, we all are highly depending on the source data quality (in all areas). Because at the scale these sceneries are created, manual work is completely impossible (just too much work ... by a lot of magnitudes) and it needs to rely on automated processes based on - if possible - good source data.

PS: and no, HD Mesh Scenery v4 - nor UHD mesh, nor defult mes - does NOT introduce any exclusion zones on its own (neither does Ortho4XP as far as I know). Those are usually much often used either by hand made airports (there it is definitely reasonable and important) or also by W2XP .. IF you tell it to exclude some features from lower layers which it thinks to have better data for (like excluding autogen, where OSM provided enough real building data .... or "exclude" all forests to give room for its own, OSM based forests).

Thats my quick / short attempt to counter some false / half knowledge which is spreading on some forums (here too).

[Kosmozuikis]

opjose původně napsal:

The HD Meshes improve the "folding" of the ground so to speak.

The HD meshes increase the amount of triangles used to define the ground bumps and folds.

The effect can be hard to see or very subtle in some areas, or very dramatic around mountains and mountain peaks.

Forests are 3D objects controlled by one of the overlays you are using.

They are actually separate things.

HD Meshes ALSO provide overlay files based upon OSM data. You do NOT have to use the HD Overlays. In fact I would advise against using them outside of the EU.

Those HD Mesh Overlays (not meshes) are very sparse for areas outside of the EU, showing very few buildings in those areas.

If you want high 3D object density in areas outside of the EU, you are better off using the Ortho4XP overlays in addition to the ground textures.

For areas within the EU, excluding some areas such as Norway, the World2XP overlays do better.

Then there is the issue with "Exclusion Zones".

Think of each of these as a layers that when combined by the computer give you the 3D world you fly in.

Overlays are the 3D objects, buildings, roads, lights, etc.
Textures sit under the objects.
Meshes sit under everything

The computer blends them together. It gives higher priority to the layer above another.

In some cases, particularly around airports, you WANT an "exclusion" zone that prevents underlying layers and objects, meshes and/or textures from showing through. Normally these are good things.

However Exclusion Zones are also used by Ortho4XP, World2XP, HD Meshes, etc. and that may reduce what you see.

Ideally you want to see your add-on buildings take precedence over everything else.
If there is no add-on buildings in an area, you want the World2XP buildings to show up.

Since World2XP buildings can be sparse, you want the Ortho4XP buildings to show up where there are no World2XP buildings.

Where there are no Ortho4Xp nor World2XP buildings, you want default X11 and autogen scenery to show up.

However World2XP creates exclusion zones for everything. So NO buildings that sit "under" World2XP show up... ugh!

That makes areas outside the EU look like empty wastelands if you are using World2XP.

IMHO the OSM scenery used and filtered by Ortho4XP is better because it is far denser and DOES NOT have exclusion zones that prohibit autogen scenery from displaying. The difference is very dramatic.

But Ortho4XP's OSM scenery really screws up forests!

As an example the Indianapolis 500 Motor Speed shows up in World2Xp, but there are no houses around it. The Speedway is lacking many of the infield buildings and golf course.

In Ortho4XP overlays, the Speedway looks great, it has the infield buildings, the golf course, the green house. Gasoline Alley shows up... BUT there are TREES all over the TRACKS! Houses surrounding the Indianapolis 500 show up well.

Thanks for the informative answer.
But i think ortho doesn't have its own overlays. If you set to use ortho overlays it just uses default XP autogen which is horrible. That's why i'm using w2xp overlays which are great.
Now i understand what hd mesh does. It only affects mountains elevation data and if you don't have w2xp it just uses default autogen.
Thanks.

[alpilotx]

Kosmozuikis původně napsal:

Thanks for the informative answer.
But i think ortho doesn't have its own overlays. If you set to use ortho overlays it just uses default XP autogen which is horrible. That's why i'm using w2xp overlays which are great.
Now i understand what hd mesh does. It only affects mountains elevation data and if you don't have w2xp it just uses default autogen.
Thanks.

Our answers overlapped ... but please read my - more - extensive insights above your post, as user "opjose" had a few things mixed up.

[opjose]

Excellent, thanks for the clarifications.

You mention: " They have the base mesh, but also the road network, forest polys, all the autogen annotations, single object polygons, facades ... all in on DSF. Thus they are "self contained" and are enough to create by themselves a more or less... "

So what happen when a Overlay is placed above the HD scenery?

I gave the example of the Indianapolis 500 Motor Speedway, that if I use the World2XP overlays on top of the HD scenery, the surrounding areas are devoid of most 3D scenery and the track itself is missing many buildings.

If place the Ortho scenery overlays above the HD scenery, then the track looks correct and autogen buildings appear around the track, but trees are all over the place.

I've also looked at the OSM maps to see what OSM has available as far as data.
It appears that for areas outside the EU whatever is being used to generate building placement is missing most of the buildings and objects that OSM does provide. Not withstanding the areas where OSM data is itself sparse.

Ultimately I would like to maximize buildings, roads and airports over the number of mesh triangles in some areas, and in other areas I would like the added mesh fidelity only if possible.

Cities should look like they have the correct number of buildings, instead of whole areas with nothing.

How do we best achieve this for areas outside the EU?

Also to your statement:

"Ortho does not generate it's own overlay"

Yes I understood it borrows from other sources, but the combination of those sources produces an overlay that does a better job than what the HD scenery DSF file produces in terms of building densities.

World2XP accurately places buildings, but in the areas I visit there are very few.
The HD Mesh scenery building placements are almost identical to what World2XP generates from OSM data.

[alpilotx]

Hi "opjose" ... well, still many of your theories are that ... theories.

But let me go trough your "questions" / Observations.

opjose původně napsal:

So what happen when a Overlay is placed above the HD scenery?
I gave the example of the Indianapolis 500 Motor Speedway, that if I use the World2XP overlays on top of the HD scenery, the surrounding areas are devoid of most 3D scenery and the track itself is missing many buildings.

It really depends on the overlay! For example W2XP has at least two possible ways to do its trick. The "pure" way, where it puts in a a full exclusion (a single exclusion area covering the entire tile), and completely relies on the OSM providedbuilding data. in this mode - of course - if there is no or scare OSM data, then you will get a quite empty scenery (where before either default, HD or UHD mesh filled the landscape with autogen). I suppose, that this is what kills your Indianapolis experience.
W2XP also has the "smart exclusion" mode ... in this case, it places much smaller - smart - exclusion where ever it thinks that you have got enough OSM based buildings, whereas it leaves (by not excluding it) in the autogen, where OSM has nothing to provide. In many cases, this latter scenery might be the better idea ... (by getting the best - mixture - of two worlds).
If you get w2xp based standard scenery, then - exactly as it says in the description - it should be mostly the smart exclusion version:
http://simheaven.com/simdownloads/w2xp-sceneries/

opjose původně napsal:

If place the Ortho scenery overlays above the HD scenery, then the track looks correct and autogen buildings appear around the track, but trees are all over the place.

You didn't read what i wrote under that link I pointed to, did you ;-) ? So, again ...READ:
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/124771-know-how-where-forests-do-come-from-in-x-plane/

opjose původně napsal:

I've also looked at the OSM maps to see what OSM has available as far as data. It appears that for areas outside the EU whatever is being used to generate building placement is missing most of the buildings and objects that OSM does provide. Not withstanding the areas where OSM data is itself sparse.

Please educate yourself about what the OSM project is, and how it works. It in very big part community based (a very big community - a little bit like Wikipedia), and thats where most of its content comes from. In some areas, there are already some government data contributions, but that is not the majority (a very good example of govt data is New York's building coverage ... which is almost perfect), So, to some extent you (as a potential part of the community) can edit and add to OSM (yes, building footprints and what every you like - just make sure, that you play to the rules of the OSM community).

opjose původně napsal:

Ultimately I would like to maximize buildings, roads and airports over the number of mesh triangles in some areas, and in other areas I would like the added mesh fidelity only if possible.

Cities should look like they have the correct number of buildings, instead of whole areas with nothing.

How do we best achieve this for areas outside the EU?

Again, as I pointed out above it is all about data! Where there is no data, or the data is bad, there is not much that can happen ... other than tedious, manual scenery creation. But what is still quite a bit better, when instead of scenery editing, you do OSM editing (improving) and then let w2xp (or what ever other tool uses that data) do the "magic" (well, there is no such ting as magic in IT ... only if someone doesn't understand some tech, then it might look like magic ;-) ).

opjose původně napsal:

"Ortho does not generate it's own overlay"

Yes I understood it borrows from other sources, but the combination of those sources produces an overlay that does a better job than what the HD scenery DSF file produces in terms of building densities.

Thats very unlikely (no magic here). As it does not merge or mix anything from the sources, but plain and simply takes what is there in the single source it is pointed at, it is not very likely that it can look better. What you might mix up is, that you might have some Ortho4XP scenery with what ever HD Mesh Scenery (v3 or v4) based overlay in it ... AND on top you have some w2xp (or other overlay scenery) ... then the end result is - of course - different than an original HD Mesh Scenery v3 or v4 (which again would look identical if you placed the same w2xp on top of that),

opjose původně napsal:

World2XP accurately places buildings, but in the areas I visit there are very few.
The HD Mesh scenery building placements are almost identical to what World2XP generates from OSM data.

Again: not so likely ... as their approaches are quite a bit different. The one is generating autogen (without taking real building locations - other than the high buildings since XP11) while the other is not doing any autogen and only placed buildings where OSM tells so.
(again, here you might have been looking at w2xp scenery with "smart exclusion" ... in an area with almost no OSM data ... in that case it didn#' exclude much from the underlying autogen ... thus you still look ad default / HD / UHD mesh based autogen and not at some real OSM data ... because there is non).

[alboon2000]

Thank you for these explanations... But I'm using W2XP, photosceneries taken from xitaly, Spain UHD, Zone photo, US orthophotos ... , HD and UHD scenery Mesh, and I'm pretty sure multiple conflicts might exist between all these customs sceneries :(

[alpilotx]

alboon2000 původně napsal:

Thank you for these explanations... But I'm using W2XP, photosceneries taken from xitaly, Spain UHD, Zone photo, US orthophotos ... , HD and UHD scenery Mesh, and I'm pretty sure multiple conflicts might exist between all these customs sceneries :(

Yes, maybe some conflict. But at least all the meshes you use are "exclusive" ... in that (as I often explained) X-Plane only and exclusively shows you the one with the highest priority (and never mixes / merges DSFs containing a mesh). What ever is below that mesh scenery (whether it is anothe mesh scenery, or any overlay, airport etc.9 will NOT even be loaded. So, the conflict will only arise above(!) the active mesh layer. And those conflicts in X-plane are relatively trivial
- either it just puts in all overlays from all the sceneries above
- or if any of those overlays (and airports are overlays too) contains an exclusion of some time, then it at least will "blend out" content of that type from lower layer overlays ...

Thats it.

[opjose]

alpilotx původně napsal:

W2XP also has the "smart exclusion" mode ... in this case, it places much smaller - smart - exclusion where ever it thinks that you have got enough OSM based buildings, whereas it leaves (by not excluding it) in the autogen, where OSM has nothing to provide. In many cases, this latter scenery might be the better idea ... (by getting the best - mixture - of two worlds).

So based upon what you said, what I should do is put the HD Mesh overlay over the W2XP smart exclusion overlay and omit the Ortho4XP overlay to get the autogen scenery and the default X11 scenery to kick in?

You mentioned that the DSF's for HD Mesh include buildings and roads?

alpilotx původně napsal:

You didn't read what i wrote under that link I pointed to, did you ;-) ? So, again ...READ:
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/124771-know-how-where-forests-do-come-from-in-x-plane/

I think you did not understand the nature of my question or comment.

What I’m referring to is that the scenery being generated from OSM data in W2XP and HD Scenery while both use the same OSM data sources, neither inserts replacements for the buildings that are available within the OSM data.

Which will bring up the logical comment from you about user created OSM building content, I am not actually talking about that.

Rather: The World2XP (not W2XP) scenery generation routines, utilize scenery libraries to substitute generic buildings for where there is no custom user created objects available. World2XP populates the overlays/DSF this way, and does a credible job for EU areas.

However even though the OSM data is available for the areas around the Indianapolis 500 and the Motorspeedway itself; World2XP, W2XP (from Simheaven) and HD Mesh Scenery do not substitute library objects to populate these areas.

That leaves the rest of the areas outside the EU with poor coverage even using the “fake” library buildings even when good OSM data is available.

I would like to fix or address this somehow.

alpilotx původně napsal:

Please educate yourself about what the OSM project is, and how it works. It in very big part community based (a very big community - a little bit like Wikipedia), and thats where most of its content comes from. In some areas, there are already some government data contributions, but that is not the majority (a very good example of govt data is New York's building coverage ...

I understand where the data comes from and that user created buildings and objects are not always available and that as a result not all buildings that appear in OSM data appear.

The World2XP “generator” substitutes 3D buildings from the libraries in place of missing 3D objects/buildings to make the scenery look fairly dense.
This works to great effect in the EU region.

I would like to see the same for other regions.

alpilotx původně napsal:

Again, as I pointed out above it is all about data! Where there is no data, or the data is bad, there is not much that can happen ... other than tedious, manual scenery creation. But what is still quite a bit better, when instead of scenery editing, you do OSM editing (improving) and then let w2xp (or what ever other tool uses that data) do the "magic" (well, there is no such ting as magic in IT ... only if someone doesn't understand some tech, then it might look like magic ;-) ).

There actually is good OSM data available for the areas I’m talking about. The tool’s definition/configuration files are not parsing it properly, that is the problem.
And the same routines (or something close) used by World2XP seem to be employed by the HD Mesh scenery and the Simheaven scenery as the results using both look similar.

I’ve poured through the World2XP definitions (configuration files).
The way they are structured prevents World2XP from using that data and substituting library buildings as it does in the EU.

However the World2XP program documentation lacks a lot of explanations and references to things that would make it possible to correct the definition files for the rest of the world.

Thanks.

[alpilotx]

Hi "opjose" ...

I do not have much time to go in even more details, but I try to answer with a shorter posting (than before):

Your idea about the scenery ordering seems to be still confused. But instead of going trough it myself, I point you to one of the detailed forum posts at Avsim about this issue:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/442579-understanding-scenery-order/

About OSM buildings .... I am not 100% sure, as i do not use w2xp myself, but I though(didn't know) that it also had an option to draw building facasdes directly(!) based on the OSM footprints. I thin w2xp is trying to be rather smart about this and only puts in facade (footprint absed) buildings for "big" buildings.

At least OSM2XP (and older tool, before w2xp came out) has definitely done that ... and killed loading time and FPS big time.

So this latter is the main reason why w2xp went away from putting in every(!) building by footprint, but rather try to place some more-or-less correct houses (from a library) over the OSM footprints (which is much much more efficient for X-Plane as here it can use some hardware object instancing supported by most modern 3D cards).

And w2xp does not have a fixed set of object libraries ... yes, it might have a pre-configured one, but to my knowledge its completely open and you can (if you know how) extend it to your likings.

BUT: if you have further, detailed questions about w2xp, I highly recommend you to join avsim or x-plane.org forums and ask your questions there. There you can usually even meet the w2xp developer himself (who might answer your questions). His forum name is Tonywob ...
(and also, because I am not an active w2xp user ... thus I might not be able to answer detailed, technical questions about the tool)

And one more thing: no HD Mesh Scenery does (even if you still think) NOT place the small buildings based on building position. That way we couldn't populate 90% of the worlds smaller cities or villages (because OSM is still lacking in many world regions). Instead we use an autogen approach which only plots down some "areas" (based on landclass and OSM road network info) which then X-Plane fills with objects "on-the-fly",

[opjose]

alpilotx původně napsal:

Hi "opjose" ...

I think w2xp is trying to be rather smart about this and only puts in facade (footprint absed) buildings for "big" buildings.

At least OSM2XP (and older tool, before w2xp came out) has definitely done that ... and killed loading time and FPS big time.

So this latter is the main reason why w2xp went away from putting in every(!) building by footprint, but rather try to place some more-or-less correct houses (from a library) over the OSM footprints (which is much much more efficient for X-Plane as here it can use some hardware object instancing supported by most modern 3D cards).

Yes, that is what I've seen in playing with all of this.

alpilotx původně napsal:

And w2xp does not have a fixed set of object libraries ... yes, it might have a pre-configured one, but to my knowledge its completely open and you can (if you know how) extend it to your likings.

Herein is the confusion (at least on my part...)

The Simheaven scenery is referred to as W2XP. The files are even titled that way.

The World2XP TOOL/Program has configuration files that permits the tool to create overlays that place buildings based up OSM data.

The results I see are very similiar to what I see with the Simheaven scenery and the HD Mesh scenery... sparesly populated areas.

I think you already answered this, so pardon my asking again...

Does the HD Scenery permit overlay or autogen scenery from underlying layers to appear where there are no buildings defined within the HD Scenery?

Thanks for all of your responses. Much appreciated!

[alpilotx]

Hi "opjose" ...

author původně napsal:

The Simheaven scenery is referred to as W2XP. The files are even titled that way.

The World2XP TOOL/Program has configuration files that permits the tool to create overlays that place buildings based up OSM data.

Yes, of course it is referred to as "w2xp" scenery, as it is completely created by using w2xp. The main work that Simheaven does (I know the guy behind it quite closely - we happen to live in the same city) is to invest time in his own config files and also to try to choose (or even create) the right artowrk (object) libraries to get decent results.

W2XP is really just a very open processing tool, which gives you a lot of freedom in how / which OSM elements you extract with it, and what objects (object libraries) you map them to.

author původně napsal:

The results I see are very similiar to what I see with the Simheaven scenery and the HD Mesh scenery... sparesly populated areas.

Nevertheless I repeat : the two are still very different technically! Exactlybecause - what I wrote a few times - one of them (w2xp) places the exact buildings from OSM (and ONLY those) while the other (default / HD / UHD Mesh Scenery) designate autogen zonings which get filled with more or less appropriate artwork by X-Plane on the fly.

BUT! I slowly suspect what is bewildering you!

SimHeavens w2xp scenery also usually uses the so called "smart exclusion" feature of the W2XP tool. "Smart exclusion" means two things:

• IF there is good - exact -building data in OSM, then take that data, place cool objects (from any of the libraries) AND put a more or less exact (they must be rectangular at the moment) EXCLUSION ZONE around this block of buildings to remove any autogen shining trough from default / HD / UHD Mesh placed below it!
  
• IF there is NO OSM data in a given area, then there are neither additional objects placed nor is there an exclusion zone, thus you simply see the default / original autogen coming from what ever base mesh you have below the w2p scenery ... Like default / HD / UHD Mesh Scenery ... or even most Ortho4XP sceneries have the original overlay (autogen / roads / forests) copied into them based on default , HD or UHD Mesh

So ... if you are flying in an area which has bad OSM building coverage AND you use Simheaven w2xp scenery with "smart exclusion" tech (very likely) then of course you will see the original autogen from the mesh scenery you have installed .

Thus "The results I see are very similiar to what I see with the Simheaven" ... is, because you see the autogen from the default / HD / UHD Mesh ;-)

author původně napsal:

Does the HD Scenery permit overlay or autogen scenery from underlying layers to appear where there are no buildings defined within the HD Scenery?

No, HD Mesh (or ANY other mesh!!) scenery always forms the basis and never ever loads anything positioned below it (by scenery_packs.ini ordering). But a smart exclusion w2xp scenery - just like described above - can leas to some nice mixing ;-)

[opjose]

I just got my USB keys in from FlightSimShop.

I hope you are making some money off of those sales.

[alpilotx]

opjose původně napsal:

I hope you are making some money off of those sales.

No, definitely not ... and that is absolutely "by design" ... as I clearly state on my website :-) (even though, I often get the feeling that not many really read that :-) )
http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-11-hd-mesh-scenery-v4/#Via_USB_delivery

alpilotx původně napsal:

The price in the shop is only there to cover the work / USB media / deilvery costs of FSPilotshop (and NONE of that money comes to me!), so it still remains freeware / donationware!

[opjose]

You got a donation from me!

BTW: Two of the Asia Zip files on the USB drives sent to me had errors.

I already retrieved working copies from the web sites. The downloaded versions are OK.
The files they used to create the first (128GB) drive have the errors.

Specifically these files

XP11_HD_Mesh_V4_+40+120-Asia.zip
XP11_HD_Mesh_V4_+40+030-Asia.zip

[alpilotx]

opjose původně napsal:

BTW: Two of the Asia Zip files on the USB drives sent to me had errors.

I already retrieved working copies from the web sites. The downloaded versions are OK.
The files they used to create the first (128GB) drive have the errors.

Specifically these files

XP11_HD_Mesh_V4_+40+120-Asia.zip
XP11_HD_Mesh_V4_+40+030-Asia.zip

Please address that with FSPilotshop directly, as I am not responsible for how they process their delivery (I only know, that the source files on all mirrors are OK ... as I explicitly ask all parties to do integrity checks on the ZIP files before bringing them online).