Comments on: Airport Layout Cutoff for X-Plane 10.0

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 19:14:50 +0000

I am a MSFS user and I am thinking about switching to X-plane. Do you know if X-plane 10 will include heliports or hospitals for helicopter simmers? Thank you.

By: Patrice Aubry

Patrice Aubry — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 04:50:45 +0000

“For what it’s worth, I told Austin that if we didn’t get X-Plane 10 out this year I’d cut off one of my fingers.”

Don’t forget to upload on YouTube!

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 01:13:21 +0000

In reply to Nelson.

The DSF generation process deletes roads that are too close to the runway – this has been the case since 820. In some ways this is a shame – OSM is often accurate enough that a road that is IRL very close to a runway will be correctly placed.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:18:52 +0000

Not fully related with this post, but since you will use OSM data to create the road layout, is there a big probability that we will have roads crossing the runways (like in KNGU) and aligned highway strips (where the road is represented in OSM and where we have the runway in apt.dat)?
Or the automatically generated exclusion areas will remove the roads for cases like these?

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:45:02 +0000

In reply to Adam Celaya.

Yes. V9 scenery will work in v10.

If there are other scenery packs like default airports, they will conflict unless you use an “exclusion zone” in your overlay to exclude what is below your scenery. Generally you should ALWAYS use an exclusion zone in custom scenery, to be safe. Exclusion zones have worked for a while in v9.

By: Adam Celaya

Adam Celaya — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:57:43 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik.

I have been building scenery files for Beta testers on http://www.pilotedge.net and have a growing archive of over 40 airports in the California area of coverage (Eugene has already been submitting the apt.dat files to Robin.)

My questions are:
Will these XP9 scenery files import into XP10?
Many of the scenery files contain custom apt.dat files, will these conflict with XP10?

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:41:13 +0000

In reply to Flightime56. This is strictly for airports. Cities will be a different system that we'll work on some other time.

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:40:16 +0000

In reply to Richard.

It won’t be apt.dat – it will be overlay DSFs – the storage requirement will still be very very small, perhaps smaller than apt.dat, since DSFs are binary.

Robin and I have not worked through the logistics of submission and distribution yet – we’ll work that out after 10.0 is out the door.

By: Flightime56

Flightime56 — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:18:17 +0000

“Our intention is to collect and redistribute airport building layouts and ATC data (using X-plane 10′s new airport element art assets) the same way we do for apt.dat files.”
Absolutely, Its going to be a fun toy box, could you add to the list?,
could you also use the apt.dat system for cites (landmarks), at the moment apt.dat is for airport areas so could you create cit.dat say for certain roped off city or building areas (warehouses?) to place significant .obj with the OSM in place as a guide, think of Las Vegas and its unique skyline……pics would be really great Ben when available.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 05:49:26 +0000

Will this be handled via an extension to the apt.dat file format?

That would keep the relevant data local, with only a small increase in data size.

Will there be a new central upload tool of airport data, perhaps like wikipedia, to simplify things for Robin….? Though it would be good to keep him as an editor to ensure quality control.