GeoBase in Action
Virtual Landscapes in Microsoft's Flight Simulator take off with Geobase
Designers and developers are using two GeoBase data layers to create realistic landscapes.
The Canadian Digital Elevation Data (CDED) are used to produce virtual scenes for the Microsoft® Flight Simulator software FS9 (FS2004), as well as for the latest version FSX.
"1 second of arc accuracy CDED data enabled me to create virtual landscapes with a level of detail of 38 metres per pixel, and 76 metres from the 3 seconds of arc data for the Quebec area," explains Gilles Gauthier, the landscape design expert. The attached example of the Peribonca River in Saguenay gives an insight of a virtual landscape with a 38-metre detail level.
"With the GeoBase National Road Network layer, I added the road network to my landscapes for Quebec," added Mr. Gauthier.
These landscapes are available for free at a reference Web portal for Flight Simulator add-ons created for Quebec's virtual designer. It presents the past and present work of designers and developers across the province and, in some cases, links to their web sites.
To create a virtual landscape, the designer starts with a CDED. He then adds the hydrographic network, a texture, i.e. land cover information (vegetation, barren lands, towns, etc.) and then transportation networks, such as roads and railroads. The next step is to convert the data into a readable format for the flight simulator.
"Overlapping topographic information on the CDED is now a simple task as compared to doing so with SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) digital elevation models, because the data originates from the same GeoBase source", says M. Gauthier.