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Basic Setup

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shred86 edited this page Jun 30, 2024 · 14 revisions

This page will explain some general setup procedures and considerations for getting started with Ortho4XP.

Orthophoto provider

Users can choose from a number of orthophoto providers and the quality of the imagery will largely vary depending on the area. For example, some orthophotos will have regions where the images include shadows from clouds or transition "lines" where imagery was used from different sources or taken on different days. The easiest method for determining which source to use is to check the providers website map to view the imagery. It's important to note that the quality of orthophotos can widely vary depending on the zoom level, so when using the providers website map, zooming in to load the different levels of orthophotos is necessary. Users should be aware that some providers may ban a user from their service if they are downloading a large amount of imagery. This is completely up to the providers. By default, Microsoft Bing (BI) imagery is used but this can be changed in the Ortho4XP main window using the "Imagery" dropdown.

Zoom Level (ZL)

Deciding which zoom level to use is a balance between storage capacity, system performance, and image quality. Orthophotos can quickly fill up hard drive space so many users will prefer to use external storage solutions for their X-Plane scenery which is discussed further in the following paragraph. A comparison of zoom levels can be found on simHeaven's website. In general, ZL16 is commonly used as the default with ZL17 and ZL18 used only around airports or areas where lower altitude flying is expected. The default is set to ZL16 but this can be changed in the Ortho4XP main window using the "Zoom Level" dropdown.

Storage

When creating tiles, Ortho4XP will download data from external providers and convert that data into tiles used by X-Plane. The largest amount of storage space used will be the latter, the tiles used by X-Plane. However, the orthophotos downloaded from external providers will also taken up a large amount of storage space. While these can be deleted after the tiles are built, users may want to keep them if planning on making changes to re-build the tiles without having to re-download the orthophotos. Orthophotos and tiles are stored in the "Orthophotos" and "Tiles" directory located in the main Ortho4XP folder (located in _internal/Ortho4XP_Data/ for users running the pre-packaged version of Ortho4XP).

The "Base Folder" setting in the Ortho4XP main window specifies where the tiles will be stored when they're built. As a reminder, these are the scenery files used by X-Plane. There are generally three ways a user might specify this setting:

  1. Store tiles in the default "Tiles" directory located in the main Ortho4XP directory. In this case, this field is left blank.
  2. Store tiles directly in the X-Plane Custom Scenery directory. Set this field to the X-Plane Custom Scenery directory.
  3. Store tiles in a separate location. Set this field to the directory where tiles will be stored.

X-Plane will search for scenery data in the Custom Scenery directory, so if the tiles are stored directly in the X-Plane Custom Scenery directory (option 2 above), no further configuration is needed. If tiles are stored in a location other than X-Plane's Custom Scenery directory (option 1 or 3 above), symbolic links (symlinks) need to be created in the X-Plane Custom Scenery directory that point to where the tiles are stored.

Ortho4XP has a built-in feature that allows users to quickly create symlinks from the user interface. To use this feature, the location of X-Plane's Custom Scenery directory has to be specified in the Ortho4XP Config window "custom_scenery_dir" field (e.g. /Users/pilot/X-Plane 12/Custom Scenery).

Once tiles have been created, they will appear in the Tiles Collection and Management window as black rectangles with the orthophoto provider and ZL used (BI 16 in the example screenshot below). By holding Control on the keyboard and mouse clicking (left) a tile, a symlink is created in the X-Plane Custom Scenery directory which is indicated by the text within the tile rectangle turning bold. To remove the link (use default X-Plane scenery for that tile), simply Control click the same tile.

sym_link

Overlays

Overlays are a type of tile that superimposes content over another tile, such as adding buildings or other structures. Ortho4XP will need to extract the existing overlays as a part of the tile building process, so the "custom_overlay_src" in the Ortho4XP Config window must be specified. In most installations, this is set to the "X-Plane 12 Global Scenery" directory located in "X-Plane 12/Global Scenery" (e.g., /Users/pilot/X-Plane 12/Global Scenery/X-Plane 12 Global Scenery).

When Ortho4XP creates tiles, the extracted overlays are built in a folder titled "yOrtho4XP_Overlays" which is located in the base Ortho4XP directory (located in _internal/Ortho4XP_Data/ for users running the pre-packaged version of Ortho4XP). This folder will have to be moved or copied to X-Plane's Custom Scenery directory (e.g. /Users/pilot/X-Plane 12/Custom Scenery) or alternatively, a symlink can be created from the Tiles Collection and Management window by pressing the letter "O" on the keyboard. If a symlink already exists, it will be deleted.

Building tiles can be accomplished individually or as a batch. For first time users, consider creating an individual tile first to make sure everything is functioning as expected before creating a large batch of tiles.

Building a single tile

  1. Specify the region for building a tile by opening the Tiles Collection and Management window and double-clicking the desired area to set that as the active tile indicated by a yellow box. The latitude and longitude in the top left corner of the Tiles Collection and Management window should match the latitude and longitude in the top left corner of the main window.

  2. Specify the imagery source and zoom level on the top of the Ortho4XP main window.

  3. Specific tile settings can be modified on the Tiles Configuration tab in the Ortho4XP Config window. Tiles that have not yet been built will not have a tile configuration file and the settings on the Tile Configuration tab will be read-only since the global tile settings are being used. If changes to the setting are desired for an individual tile, click "Save Tile Cfg" which will allow settings to be adjusted as a tile configuration file now exists.

  4. Build the tile by clicking "All in one" in the main window at which point you should see text in the output window as the tile is built.

Building multiple tiles

  1. Specify the regions for building tiles in the Tiles Collection and Management window by holding Shift and clicking (left) the desired areas which will be indicated by a red box.

  2. Specify the imagery source and zoom level on the top of the Ortho4XP main window. These are the settings that will be used for all tiles.

  3. On the left side of the same window under "Batch build tiles", select the top five options, "Assemble vector data", "Triangulate 3D mesh", "Draw water masks", "Build imagery/DSF" and "Extract overlays". Select "Batch Build" and text in the main window output section should start appearing as the tiles are being built. If a tile has a configuration file, it will be used. If it does not have a configuration file, a tile configuration file will be created using the global tile settings.

  4. The "Override tile cfg" option can be used if a user wants to force using global tile settings which will overwrite any existing tile configurations, including their zones.

Note: This behavior is different from the original version of Ortho4XP which overrides tile configurations by default.

Setting up X-Plane

When X-Plane is launched, the "Custom Scenery" directory is searched and if new scenery files are detected, they are added to the scenery.ini file located in that same directory. This file determines the order in which scenery is loaded/prioritized and will need to be adjusted for everything to load correctly.

  1. Launch X-Plane and after getting to the main menu, quit X-Plane.

  2. Open the scenery.ini file located in X-Plane Custom Scenery directory. Several entries will be present but the ones that need to be moved are the Ortho4XP produced overlay and tile folders. Move the SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/yOrtho4XP_Overlays/ and SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+33-112/ to the bottom. For an X-Plane install with only the default U.S. scenery and no other scenery add-ons, the file should look like the picture below:

scenery file

If multiple tiles were built, then multiple lines for each tile will be present (zOrtho4XP_+xx-xxx).

For more information on organizing the scenery.ini file, refer to the explanation on the simHeaven FAQ.

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