Setting up a new project

If you are new to scenery design please read tutorial 1 first.

GroundMaker is loaded, now how do you make a new airport? What you need to know is where you want to place the airport in the world and at what altitude it is. You need to know the exact location of the runways in order to allow IFR navigation. Misplaced runways will lead to wrong ILS, DME, VOR, NDB approaches. You can find enough information on the internet or you can look up the runway locations and altitude in FS.

 

The settings

Click the FILE\ NEW... menu item. A dialog will appear. The data to be entered in this dialog is important since it positions the drawing area at the desired location in the world.

 

General settings

In the GENERAL tab, enter the airport NAME. It will be used in the World Entry Menu in FS. You can add your name or text in the COPYRIGHT field. This information is added to the FS scenery file (*.BGL). Use it as your own 'signature' for your sceneries. The COMMENT field is just for notes and does not have any influence on the scenery itself.

 

Location settings

You enter the most important data in the LOCATION tab. ALTITUDE is in meters ASL (above sea level). Use the CONVERTER if you don't know the altitude in meters. MAGVAR (magnetic variation) is expressed in degrees. As a matter of fact, the geographical (true) and magnetic North are not identical. Groundmaker's Y axis in the drawing area points to the true North. The magnetic variation is the difference between true and magnetic North. It doesn't have a direct influence on the shapes and objects you design but is of importance when adding radio navigation (ILS and VOR) to your scenery. Read tutorial 1 to learn more about magnetic variation.

LATITUDE and LONGITUDE define the scenery's location in the world. Latitude is the vertical angle on the globe and ranges from -90 (South) to 90 (North). Longitude is the horizontal angle and ranges from -180 (West) to 180 (East). Both values must be entered in decimal degrees (e.g. -84.45674, not -84 23' 45.456'').

 

The unit convert

Use the CONVERTER to get a decimal value from DD:MM:SS or DD:MM. FS usually displays latitude and longitude in the decimal minute format: N33 38.8098'. To convert this value to decimal format (DD.DDDDDDD), enter the value on the left. The value must be formatted the following way: The angle must be preceded by a sign (-) or a letter (N, S, E, W). S34 or -34, N45 or 45, W23 or -23, E56 or 56. Enter minutes or seconds like any other decimal value. Make sure to add a space between degrees, minutes and seconds. Select the DD.DDDDD (decimal) format in the drop-down option on the right and click CONVERT. Select the resulting value and copy it by right-clicking it (click COPY on the popup menu). Paste the value where needed.

 

Scale settings

Set the scales in the SCALES tab. Scales can be a pretty complicated topic, especially if you are new to scenery design. First, a scale is the size of the smallest possible design unit (meters) in FS. GroundMaker's positioning accuracy is 0.5 meters ( 1 1/2 feet). Using a larger unit than 0.5 may lead to slightly distorted shapes when they have a smoothly curved outline.

The pixel size of polygons (POLY only) can be influenced with the POLYGON scale option. At a texture size of 256x256 pixels, one pixel is as large as the scale factor. At a scale of 0.5, one polygon pixel is 0.5x0.5 meters in size. The scale factor also influences the design accuracy. If you want to design smoothly curved shapes, use 0.5 for full design accuracy. Otherwise leave it to 1.

The DOTTED LINE scale has an influence on the visibility range of dotted lines. The design accuracy is also influenced by the scale factor. It is recommended to leave the value to 0.5.

All polygons and dotted lines will make use of the scales specified here.

Note: It is possible to make polygons (POLY and TEXPOLY) which make use of individual scales. You must enable the USES OWN SCALE option and set a scale value (shape properties dialog, VISIBILITY tab). This is for the advanced user only.