Checking out the Texas Gulf Coast pre-Hurricanes

J

jhefner

Charter Member
My family and I used to live down on the Gulf Coast of Texas, but decided to move further inland in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita. Hurricane Ike and another hurricane in between confirmed that our decision may have been a good one.

With Tileproxy now working on my computer, I made a flight from KBPT to Galveston Island, with Tileproxy turned on. I thought that maybe enough time had passed that the images would be post-hurricane; but they (as well as those on Goggle Earth) are pre-hurricane; giving a picture of the way things used to be.

This is a stretch of the coastal highway (Hwy 87?) between Sabine Pass and High Island, Texas. This stretch of highway was closed after a hurricane in the early 1990s; and this image shows why. There is just a narrow strip of beach and road together now, with the Gulf on one side, and the marsh on the other. (Some hardy souls, however, have still tried to drive it with 4WD vehicles.) I think that is barge just offshore?



Continuing to follow the highway, we are now flying on the stretch between Crystal Beach and Galveston Island. It is hard to believe that Hurricane Ike wiped out all but one of the houses that dot the landscape, as well as much of the land on the right side of the highway.



We continue on to Galveston Island itself. The state's ferry service that used to connect the above highway to Galveston Island is just above the top of the picture. The Galveston seawall is the light brown strip you see running along the right edge of the island; with the darker beach beyond and jetties sticking out every now and then. The broad strip near the top of the picture is the Commodore Hotel; which was built on piers out over the Gulf itself.

The seawall was built after the 1900 hurricane to protect Galveston from a repeat of that storm's destruction; all of the houses/ships/buildings on the right side of the island was piled by the storm surge into a giant wall of wreckage that ran the length of this area at about the right wingtip of the Fairchild. The seawall held up as hoped for, but the Commodore Hotel and some buildings built on the seawall itself were damaged or destroyed, and the left side of the island was flooded by the storm surge moving into Galveston bay. Much of the beach was also washed away.



Here, we see Galveston's airport, and the I-45 road bridge and railway viaduct that are remaining means of getting to the island. The blue, pink, and grey pyramids of Moody Gardens are just below the plane; they were spared from a devastating flood by a few inches.

The Lone Star Flight Museum is located in the hangers off the left wingtip. The flyable planes were flown out and escaped the storm's wrath; but the planes that could not be flown out and the permenent exhibits suffered devestating damage; as did the railroad museum near the historic Strand. (The Strand is a section of historic buildings that escaped damage in the 1900 hurricane.)



The good news is that the island's population is at 50% or maybe greater than the pre-hurricane number. The bad news is with the loss of the ferry service, the extensive medical complexes on the island are moving inland. With the loss of the ferries; there will be no one coming from the east; and it doesn't make sense to make folks coming on I-45 drive all the way to Galveston anymore.

Tileproxy is a really neat way to explore; and I can see some more (maybe less sober) expeditions in the future.

-James
 
Also, and this should be obvious, the viewing is best done from a few thousand feet and in a slow aircraft to allow the tiles (initially) to write. Autogen is nonexistent, so nothing 3 dimensional at all. When you land there isn't a twig to be seen, not a building nothing, just flat land.
 
falcon409 said:
Autogen is nonexistent, so nothing 3 dimensional at all. When you land there isn't a twig to be seen, not a building nothing, just flat land.
Click to expand...

Not entirely correct. While it is correct that trees, houses and buildings generated by autogen are not there; bridges, tall buildings, towers, and other landmarks are. There is a tall building representing the bank tower near the Strand in Galveston, as well as the airport details in the pictures above.

Autogen mixed with photo scenery is a mixed bag to me. True, when you are sitting on the ground, there is not a building or tree to be seen. But, once you take off and start flying at cruise altitude, autogen mixed with photo scenery does little for me. Buildings appear right on top of roads and other locations where they don't belong, and trees less so.

The Galveston aerial photography above is one of those instances where they took their pictures with sun directly overhead, and no shadows are visible. Thus, there is little indication of height.

However, the photo scenery generated for the Dallas-Fort Worth area has strong shadows; and does a very good job of conveying depth. You can fly over highway interchanges, and clearly tell which overpass is on top of another. In that case; autogen seemly randomly scattered across the landscape does little for the immersion experience to me.

The images below are of MegaScenery Dallas-Fort Worth on FS2002. There is autogen; but the little bit of autogen scattered about does very little for the immersion experience. Tileproxy generated scenery looks even better to me; it turns out looking sharper; like the images above.





This arguement happens every time photo scenery comes up; once again, to each his own. However, since Tileproxy runs as a standalone application in a DOS window, you can disable it by simply not starting it. I wish it had night textures; but it does not. I simply do not run Tileproxy if I plan to fly at night. If you don't run Tileproxy while FS is running, you get whatever you had before you installed Tileproxy. It's an either/or kind of thing; but to me, it is just not the same without it. I am even trying to get Tileproxy to work on my ancient FS2002 machine.

Tileproxy is really good when flying over the Grand Canyon, or in the mountains where there are few man made structures anywhere. There are some great sample screenshots in the first link above.

-James
 
jhefner said:
. . . . .This arguement happens every time photo scenery comes up; once again, to each his own. . . . . .James
Click to expand...
Yep, I agree. . . .I downloaded and used it once to see how accurate it was with places I was familiar with both in North Texas and New Jersey, but once I had done that and seen them, it was pretty much ho hum for me and that was the last time I used it.
 
I like the option of being able to switch from my normal setup to Tileproxy and back without alot of headaches. It is a nice alternative....now if I could just get those coastlines to look right!!! If you are a tweaker, this one will keep you busy for a while....worth a try at least!:applause:
 
Was going to do some test flying over the weekend, and decided to do so with Tileproxy turned on while flying over Marble Canyon, AZ. The only other enhancement installed is Rumbaflappies' LOD8 mesh; I took the last two in the evening as the shadows made their way up the canyon walls. I could see dry stream beds and jeep/horse trails while I was flying; I also forgot how colorfull the otherwise barren desert is in this part of the country.







-James
 
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