answered NRM Northern Rockies - autogen appearance

[wulfbindewald]

Hi there,

 

just made a flight from Kalispell to Bozeman and found in one valley strange autogen texture during the winter season, please see the pic (incl. coordinates). The visual appearance is fine in all other adjacent valleys, which include locally some autogen terrain too. There is acc. to Google map a bit of a chessboard character in this valley, but IMHO it´s over-prounounced in this special area....autogen texture selection to be optimized?

For your disposition.

 

Wulf

[Jethro VH-JET]

Hi Wulf,

 

I think your scenery is as it should be, these checkerboard patterns are forestry cut-blocks, some contain standing trees and others have been felled for the timber industry. There are quite a few large cut-blocks scattered throughout the valleys in this region. Have a peak in Google earth around those co-ordinates I'm sure it will confirm what you see you can clearly see them around Murr Peak and Campbell Peak using GE.

Quite possibly the white snow on the bare ground where there are no trees accentuates the checkerboard effect, try a different season to see if the cutb-lock effect is reduced.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi there,

 

Jeff is correct, the depiction of the Railroad Land Grants square-mile cutblocks is as best as we can model them with landclass textures (autogen are the 3D trees and buildings on top of the landclass ground textures).

 

I couldn't find a winter satellite image of the exact same area but below is an area from a bit further south taken in February 2012 showing the harsh contrast between forested and open areas. As you probably know conifers don't fully go dormant during winter and thus have evolved to shed snow off their branches quite effectively; that snow drops to the forest floor and thus becomes more or less invisible from the air while the openings -- meadows or forestry cutblocks -- remain white.

 

That being said, these checkerboard clear-felled areas didn't all get cut at the same time and also re-grow new trees at different rates. While the NA FTX Regions use three different texture sets for cutblocks, showing various phases of regrowth, there's a limit as to the level of diversity we can portray, especially since we rely on local forestry databases that may or may not be accurate in terms of the current status of a particular cutblock.

 

Cheers, Holger