SAN DIEGO COUNTY TERRAIN MESH This FS2000 terrain mesh, at 30 meters horizontal resolution, covers most of San Diego County, California, USA. Reputed for having mild weather year round, San Diego County's terrain is varied. High and low valleys, deserts and green mountains and 70 miles of beaches make this area a very popular destination in Southern California. As anything of this complexity in flight simulator, this scenery can demand plenty of computing power, including CPU and RAM, to achieve acceptable frame rates and a smooth image. I recommended to try this terrain mesh only if you are experienced in tuning your FS installation for performance. To Install: This terrain mesh is contained in a file called san30m10.bgl which you can install as any other scenery file. If you are not familiar with this process, please read Tim Dickens tutorial. Point your browser to: http://www.flightsimulatorworld.com/tutorial/fs2kscn.htm Here is a summary of the main steps, find more details in the tutorial above: 1) Place the san30m10.bgl file into the scenery subfolder of the folder where you would like to install very high resolution terrain mesh files like this one. Keep these very high resolution files in separate folder(s) from the lower resolution terrain mesh files available from Eddie Denney, and others. 2) Start FS2000 and select Scenery Library from the World menu, then select Add area and find the folder where you placed the san30m10.bgl file. Click OK and if needed, click the checkmark to make the scenery active. 3) To make sure the simulator installs the scenery file correctly the first time, quit the simulator and start it again. If you skip this step, you may risk crashing the simulator or your computer, or not having your scenery loaded correctly. This step is a workaround required by possible bugs in the MSFS 2000 software. Performance Tip: Included is a screenshot (display_settings.jpg) of the display settings that can be used to evaluate the effect on frame rates of complex terrain mesh files like this one. In general, the "Terrain mesh complexity" setting can be moved from 100 to 1, doubling the frame rates while sacrificing some of the detail and accuracy of the elevated terrain mesh. Take a tour: Landing on runway 27 at San Diego's Lindbergh Field (KSAN) is always interesting as the elevation on the approach path make you fly closer to the ground than you would expect. This terrain mesh file was tested with Version 5.0 of Kevin Trinkle's San Diego Scenery for FS2000. You can find this scenery at http://www.flightsimmers.net/flypsa/san/ . Other interesting areas are around Warner Springs where you can find a gliderport (CL35), and not too far, the Palomar Observatory. Technical Information --- Source data: 81 7.5 Minute DEM files from the USGS (at 30 meters horizontal resolution) converted to 1x1 arc second DTED files and merged to a single DEM file, then converted to BGL. This is the standard method I use in generating large 30 meter resolution terrain mesh files. If you have installed my previously released Riverside terrain mesh, this San Diego file will merge seamlessly with it. Level of Detail (LOD): 10 Approximate area covered: 9900 sq. km. (3867 sq. miles) Corners of the area covered (WGS84): NW NE N 33.62750° W 117.87222° N 33.62750° W 116.37583° N 32.52944° W 117.87222° N 32.52944° W 116.37583° SW SE Calibration point: Palomar Mountain Summit Elevation and Geographic Coordinates from DEM 6142 ft (1872 m) N 33 21 54.41, W 116 50 13.74 (WGS84) Elevation and Geographic Coordinates in FS 2000 with this file 6135 ft (1870 m) N 33 21 54.6265, W 116 50 14.3139 Tools used: Microsoft Terrain SDK ( http://www.microsoft.com/games/fs2000/devdesk.asp ) Microdem ( http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm ) (latest debugging version) DEMconvert ( http://members.bellatlantic.net/~pguth/demconv.htm ) (version that can export BSQ files) Notes about this first release: FS2000 runways can only be rendered absolutely flat. That's the way it works. The side effect is that if an airport lies on terrain that is on a gentle slope, the flattening of the runway may create ridges around the airport that are not really there in real life. This is annoying and distracting, but there's no way around it. Finally, just as a reminder, terrain mesh files don't change roads, rivers, coastlines and the placement of textures over the terrain. Odd things can happen, like floating lakes, rivers and roads, as well as farmland on top of a rain forest, snowless alpine elevations, or suburban streets on the sides of steep slopes, etc. This can be fixed, but it's an entirely different project. Other 30 Meter Resolution Projects Previously Released: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA (cos30m10.zip) Riverside Area, California, USA (merges with this San Diego area) (ral30m10.zip) Las Vegas Area, Nevada, USA (las30m10.zip) El Paso, Texas, and South Central New Mexico, USA (elp30m10.zip) Phoenix Area, Arizona, USA (merges with Tucson Area) (phx30m10.zip) Tucson Area, Arizona, USA (merges with Phoenix Area) (tus30m10.zip) Puerto Rico (purtmv1.zip) Next Project: San Francisco Area, California, USA (scenery area centered near Fremont) Acknowledgements: Dr. Peter Guth (creator of Microdem and DEMconvert) fine tuned his tools to make this work possible. He offered valuable insight on the method to use to convert multiple 7.5 minute DEM files into a single seamless terrain file for flight simulator. Copyright and License to Use: This archive is Copyright by Orlando Sotomayor. You have the right to use for your personal enjoyment. Redistribution on a commercial basis is strictly prohibited. October 19, 2000. Questions or comments? Contact Orlando Sotomayor at osd@att.net