Hi. Here's Isla Màs a Tierra (aka Robinson Crusoe Island) in the Juan Fernàndez archipelago, 400 miles or so west of Chile's Santiago. A screenie and a map extract. I have FS Global 2008. You can see that the mesh is not aligned with Microsoft's coastline. I'm growing tired of the flat north coasts and huge south coast sea cliffs that crop up everywhere as a result of the misalignment. Could someone be kind and take ten minutes to do me a favour by posting a similar screenie and map extract of the same place under alternative mesh? Newer Global or any Genesis come to mind, but anything really. It would help me in deciding whether to obtain a replacement for Global '08. ... Also, in a lighter vein, does anyone know if this is a true likeness of Alexander Selkirk ? Cheers,D

I have FSGlobal 2010 and I must say that there are bumpings and big square/rectangle..any shape of mountains or hills just like the ones in your screenshots at a lot of places. Even in citys or towns. I don't know if this is normal but I can live with it...for now.

I'm using FS Global 2008 as well, and I get the same results as you. The runway is sitting on top of a plateau, but the mountains in the north-east look reasonable from the runway area. Haven't been near them, though. Colin B PS: I think his nose is too big!

I would say the default scenery is only an approximation of the island shape and position. scott s..

No, it is not a true likeness of Alexander Selkirk, he had a beard !!!!

I'm using FS Global 2008 as well, and I get the same results as you.

Unfortunately, you will. So will everyone who uses Global '08 with default LWM. My problem is that FS Global 2008 is offset from the default LWM along a NW-SE line, and by about half to one mile. the giant sea cliff on the south side of the island is caused by the mountains being cut off where the planet's surface becomes ocean. You can see the offset most clearly in the map screenie- the north coast is a parallel, offset, copy of the foot of the mountains because the mountains are too far to the SE (or the coast is too far to the NW). The higher ground on which the runway should lie flush is lost (and so flattened to 0 m) in the sea to the south east. I've just bought worldwide coverage at 76 m by FS Genesis since today it's very, very cheap. When that arrives I'll post some comparison shots myself. Cheers,D

Unfortunately, you will. So will everyone who uses Global '08 with default LWM. My problem is that FS Global 2008 is offset from the default LWM along a NW-SE line, and by about half to one mile. the giant sea cliff on the south side of the island is caused by the mountains being cut off where the planet's surface becomes ocean. You can see the offset most clearly in the map screenie- the north coast is a parallel, offset, copy of the foot of the mountains because the mountains are too far to the SE (or the coast is too far to the NW). The higher ground on which the runway should lie flush is lost (and so flattened to 0 m) in the sea to the south east. I've just bought worldwide coverage at 76 m by FS Genesis since today it's very, very cheap. When that arrives I'll post some comparison shots myself. Cheers,D

You will find that FSGenesis does much better on the island in question... DJ

If you believe Google Earth, then FS9 is off. don't have any addon mesh for this area, but I wouldn't assume it is wrong. scott s..

If you believe Google Earth, then FS9 is off. don't have any addon mesh for this area, but I wouldn't assume it is wrong.

Scott, That's a very interesting picture and confirms what I suspected, in that the Google Earth coastline matches almost exactly the Global '08 terrain (cf. the map in the original post). I had a feeling Global would be in the right place, simply because it's more detailed, and that FS9 being the more complex product was likely to be inaccurate. I'm awaiting delivery of FS Genesis world terrain now. It will be interesting to see whether that has been adjusted to fit the default coastline. Thanks very much, nice pic.D

Aaaawwww! FS Genesis doesn't cover it. The archipelago fall between Pacific Islands and South America. Just my luck... So on to a new question. Which is likely to be easier (and less time-consuming)? 1. Make new LWM and vector coastline2. Make a new mesh for the islands3. Any other solution to realigning the terrain-elevation with the water. Bear in mind I have no experience of doing either so all suggestions, however ribald, will be appreciated. Cheers,D edit-- just noticed the title-bar in scott's screenshot above. 'Scenery Builder'... ...sounds like an intriguing tool: delete the stock airport, make a quick adjustment of the LWM, add a new airport & Robert's my mother's brother?

It's not exactly quick, as you first have to exclude all the default water and shoreline and then create new water polys within the FS9 grid system. Unfortunately, in FS9 water polys flatten the mesh and the flattening can't be removed, except to edit the default HP9 file. The only saving grace is that there isn't much in this particular HP9 area, since it's almost all water. Also, in all likelihood it needs some landclass (not a big deal for such a small area). I guess I could spend some more time on it, but I really don't like doing FS9 scenery compared to FSX. scott s..

Ah. More experimentation, and research, required then: I assumed that altering the LWM would allow the mesh to show through again. Silly me... I think there are only three islands there in FS9, and only one of them has an airfield, but I suppose that removing the HP file for that area would create a huge rectangle of land which in turn would need redefinition as water. Sticking to simply getting the mesh to show just to start off, possibly as an academic exercise, what would you recommend I do? Cheers,D

I took a closer look and was able to knock something together. I used GE and it seemed like it was best to set the airport elevation to 121m. It seems like the NDB is off, but I couldn't find any better data on it. It looks like all that's needed is to fix the main island and also Selkirk. I don't have any addon mesh, but I put together something from the SRTM 90m mesh. I would say that data isn't great, but I guess better than nothing. scott s..

Hi Scott. That looks very good. A string of new questions come to mind, the uppermost being... What is GE?Am I correct in assuming that adjusting the LWM won't let the mesh show?What did you actually do (step by step and very briefly?) to make the islands look respectable? I'd like to have a go myself: I thing it might be a useful ability... Cheers,D

I will put some finishing touches and upload to the library. I deactivated the default terrain: FL9, AB9, HL9, and HP9 files for the area (2 LOD5 areas as Selkirk Island overlaps both). This gets rid of the water LWM files (which also set the mesh to sea level), and the coastline as well as the default SCIR airport flatten and background. I used SBuilderX (designed for FSX but has a neat feature of downloading satellite image from Google Earth (GE). It is possible also to take a screen shot via this site by Dick "Rhumbaflappy" http://www.ludowise.x10hosting.com/gmaps/rhumbamaps.htmlWith the map as a background image in SBuilder (FS9 version) I traced out the island coastlines as a line. Because FS9 does not have an "island" feature (can't cut a hole in the ocean) I had to create two water LWM polys for each island. I also did some area fills to ensure that all the default mesh is forced to sea level in the area. I didn't work on the watr class ata ll, but that could be an addition. I did create some landclass definitions over the new island, using the default as a basis (pretty much LC 008 bare desert). Now that I had my new water LWMs and coastline VTL I needed to work on the airport. I used ADE9 1.50.17 to move and align the runway, and create some apron/parking/taxilines so AI could be assigned if desired. I used the same Google-derived image as a background in ADE9. I looked at Google Earth and it showed the runway was sloped from about 130-88m. I decided to use 121m as a compromise (I find it better to make it towards the high side as it's better to have a drop at one end than a wall at the other). Since I didn't have any mesh it was hard to really test. So I decided to take a look at the SRTM DEM data that is available from CGIARhttp://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/SELECTION/inputCoord.asp I have a commercial GIS program (Global Mapper) which makes it easy to convert DEM formats. SBuilder has also the ability to do some DEM conversions, the end point being SBuilder creates a special bitmap image that represents elevation. This is loaded in SBuilder as a "mesh map" and SBuilder will build FS9 mesh files from it. I also traced a couple of roads, but it isn't 100% accurate as there is a bit of cloud cover in the Google image. scott s..