[Flightgear-devel] Quality of apt.dat from x-plane gateway and genapts850 fitness?

[Torsten Dreyer]

Hi,

I managed to pull the complete set of airport definitions into a giant
apt.dat using this python script:
https://github.com/accek/fg-nav-fixups/blob/master/xplane-apts/xplane-get-apts

Throwing this at genapts850, it stops while processing the airport with
identifier XEDAC.
After some debugging, I found that this airfiled (which is a small glider
port) defines some linear features, one of those expands to more than
20.000 nodes.
Is our genapts850 script ready to chew the latest airport definition from
the gateway or is the airport definition for that field broken?

Does anybody know more about those 5-letter Xabcd codes? XEabc seem to be
German glider fields with some random four letter ICAO suffix from other
existing airports.

Torsten

[Torsten Dreyer]

This is the culprit: https://gateway.x-plane.com/scenery/page/XEDAC

Post by Torsten Dreyer
Hi,
I managed to pull the complete set of airport definitions into a giant
https://github.com/accek/fg-nav-fixups/blob/master/xplane-apts/xplane-get-apts
Throwing this at genapts850, it stops while processing the airport with
identifier XEDAC.
After some debugging, I found that this airfiled (which is a small glider
port) defines some linear features, one of those expands to more than
20.000 nodes.
Is our genapts850 script ready to chew the latest airport definition from
the gateway or is the airport definition for that field broken?
Does anybody know more about those 5-letter Xabcd codes? XEabc seem to be
German glider fields with some random four letter ICAO suffix from other
existing airports.
Torsten
--
Torsten Dreyer

[Erik Hofman]

Post by Torsten Dreyer
This is the culprit: https://gateway.x-plane.com/scenery/page/XEDAC

It looks to be fairly simple:
http://x-plane.cleverest.eu/#XEDAC

Erik

[Torsten Dreyer]

Post by Erik Hofman
http://x-plane.cleverest.eu/#XEDAC
and it adds 2630 lines to apt.dat :-/

[Florent Rougon]

Hi,

Post by Torsten Dreyer
Does anybody know more about those 5-letter Xabcd codes? XEabc seem to be
German glider fields with some random four letter ICAO suffix from other
existing airports.

I don't find the reference anymore, but ISTR that airport identifiers
starting with X are used for airports that don't have a proper ICAO
code (small airfields, historic and now closed airports, etc.).

(Also, if someone could maybe whitelist Ben Supnik for this list, this
could be helpful. One informative message from him was rejected last
time, and I had to forward it to the list on his request. I already
asked this, but didn't see any reply.)

Regards

[Alessandro Menti]

Post by Florent Rougon
I don't find the reference anymore, but ISTR that airport identifiers
starting with X are used for airports that don't have a proper ICAO
code (small airfields, historic and now closed airports, etc.).

That's correct, the reference is here:
https://gateway.x-plane.com/NOTAMs (see the June 24th, 2015 announcement).

Cheers,
Alessandro Menti

[Torsten Dreyer]

OK - thanks. That clarifies the X-codes.

I think I also found the reason for the issues with genapts.
The artist who created that airfied used a "Linear Feature" to create
runway markers [1] as 3d objects using multiple "Airport Line" elements,
roughly 70 nodes for a simple four-surface object [2]. Note: this object is
as small as 1m x 0.5m.
I would consider this a bug in the airfield definition but it seems to be
OK with X-Plane.
Don't know how to proceed. With it's current content, apt.dat from the
x-plane gateway seems to be unusable for us to build the world scenery.

Any suggestions?

[1] Loading Image...
[2] Loading Image...
<Loading Image...

Post by Alessandro Menti

Post by Florent Rougon
I don't find the reference anymore, but ISTR that airport identifiers
starting with X are used for airports that don't have a proper ICAO
code (small airfields, historic and now closed airports, etc.).

https://gateway.x-plane.com/NOTAMs (see the June 24th, 2015 announcement).
Cheers,
Alessandro Menti
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[Florent Rougon]

Hi,

Post by Torsten Dreyer
I think I also found the reason for the issues with genapts.
The artist who created that airfied used a "Linear Feature" to create
runway markers [1] as 3d objects using multiple "Airport Line" elements,
roughly 70 nodes for a simple four-surface object [2]. Note: this object is
as small as 1m x 0.5m.
I would consider this a bug in the airfield definition but it seems to be
OK with X-Plane.

Did you say this just because the airport def is there, or because you
saw a comment from an X-Plane dev saying it's okay? If the former, it's
possibly a scenery bug for X-Plane too, and the X-Plane Scenery gateway
accepts bug reports and submissions of alternate scenery packs.

Regards

[Torsten Dreyer]

The former - I was under the impression that submissions get reviewed
before getting accepted.
It was by no means meant as an offense against anybody. I am not very
familiar with the x-plane gateway procedures, please bear with me if I am
making wrong assumptions.

Post by Florent Rougon
Hi,

Post by Torsten Dreyer
I think I also found the reason for the issues with genapts.
The artist who created that airfied used a "Linear Feature" to create
runway markers [1] as 3d objects using multiple "Airport Line" elements,
roughly 70 nodes for a simple four-surface object [2]. Note: this object

is

Post by Torsten Dreyer
as small as 1m x 0.5m.
I would consider this a bug in the airfield definition but it seems to be
OK with X-Plane.

Did you say this just because the airport def is there, or because you
saw a comment from an X-Plane dev saying it's okay? If the former, it's
possibly a scenery bug for X-Plane too, and the X-Plane Scenery gateway
accepts bug reports and submissions of alternate scenery packs.
Regards
--
Florent
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[Florent Rougon]

Post by Torsten Dreyer
The former - I was under the impression that submissions get reviewed
before getting accepted.
It was by no means meant as an offense against anybody. I am not very
familiar with the x-plane gateway procedures, please bear with me if I am
making wrong assumptions.

No problem, I didn't see any offense towards anybody in what you said.

Bugs can be reported here:

https://gateway.x-plane.com/bugs

Airport ID -> XEDAC
Scenery Pack ID -> IIRC, this is the main handle to download an airport
via the X-Plane Scenery Gateway JSON API
Seeing
<https://gateway.x-plane.com/scenery/page/XEDAC>, it
should be 37371, I think.

Ah, there seems to be an easier way: if you are logged in at the X-Plane
Scenery gateway and click on the only line in the list at
<https://gateway.x-plane.com/scenery/page/XEDAC>, you'll see:

http://imgur.com/a/9MOBr

Apart from that, I suggest being diplomatic, especially if you can't see
by yourself the X-Plane performance being affected by the linear feature
you spotted...

I believe people who submit alternate scenery packs usually do it with
WED:

http://wiki.flightgear.org/WorldEditor

According to <https://github.com/X-Plane/xptools>, it is free software:

"""
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LICENSING AND COPYRIGHT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The LR original code lives in the sub-directory "src" and is licensed under the
MIT/X11 license. If you find a source file with no copyright, or double/
conflicting copyright, please report this (see contact info below) - this is
probably a clerical error.

The directory "libs" contains tarballs of a number of publicly available open
source libraries - they are included for convenience in building. I believe
that all of the libsrc libraries are under either an MIT/X11-type or GPL-type
license - if you find a library that is incompatible with WED's licensing,
pleaes report this.
"""

Regards

[Torsten Dreyer]

Post by Florent Rougon
https://gateway.x-plane.com/bugs

Thanks for the link.
I don't think I will go over and report bugs. I am more interested in
setting up our Pipeline to have the world scenery created at a regular
schedule and probably better spend my time making our toolchain more robust
against "bad" input data.
I don't want our scenery process to fail just because somebody used the
WED in a creative way :-)

Post by Florent Rougon
Apart from that, I suggest being diplomatic,

Yep - that's also rules /me/ out as a bug reporter :-)

[w***@gmail.com]

Post by Torsten Dreyer
OK - thanks. That clarifies the X-codes.
I think I also found the reason for the issues with genapts.
The artist who created that airfied used a "Linear Feature" to create runway
markers [1] as 3d objects using multiple "Airport Line" elements, roughly 70
nodes for a simple four-surface object [2]. Note: this object is as small as 1m
x 0.5m.

looks like they're playing with the new 3D scenery stuff over there...

Post by Torsten Dreyer
I would consider this a bug in the airfield definition but it seems to be OK
with X-Plane.

i don't know how to consider it... on the one hand, ok but on the other
shouldn't 3D stuff be handled by 3D objects instead of being generated from the
airfield data?

Post by Torsten Dreyer
Don't know how to proceed. With it's current content, apt.dat from the x-plane
gateway seems to be unusable for us to build the world scenery.
Any suggestions?

if they're going to be doing this going forward, i'd say to either ignore or
strip it out of what we use OR to embrace it and generate the 3D objects as
well... this may require preprocessing to output a suitable file for genapts to
use or it may very well require that genapts be updated to handle these lines
one way or the other...

2 centavos tossed in from the peanut gallery ;)