Map roads automatically using openstreetmaps

[Auzy]

Hey, just wondering if you guys have thought about using open street maps to map the roads in FTX automatically?

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Its too late for AU:blue, but I have noticed that at the very least, the Highways have been mostly properly done, and here in VIC, I've been spending the last 2 days to get a lot of the minor roads in, in some places. Not sure how you are handling road creation, but maybe theres a way to merge this data with your own?

[John Venema]

Thanks for the link Auzy. Looks promising.

We have not placed too many details roads in urban areas for good reason - they tend to clobber the ground textures horribly - thus the reason for us only placing the major arterial roads. At some point we may re-sweep the road data and offer more finer detail in rural areas for VFR flights etc.

I've passed the URL onto Holger, our road project leader; he'll let me know if there's potential to use this data if their licensing permits it.

[Auzy]

Well, from what I've seen in it, you can just extract highways and primary roads (its creative commons, so dunno what that means for you guys).

But yeah, I get what you mean.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Andrew,

OpenStreetMap is indeed an amazing community effort. I looked in detail at the data before starting on the FTX roads and decided not to use them (aside from the potential issue with the "open" license). If we were just to draw roads it would probably be OK though OSM data quality isn't consistent, particularly outside of urban areas. However, we need to have the road vectors themselves pointing in specific directions to allow for proper FSX road traffic, specifically, the road vectors for all split-lane roads, ramps, traffic circles, and bridges. OSM doesn't offer this information (at least not embedded in the vectors) and thus it's "easier" to create the vectors from scratch than editing existing vectors, like OSM or GeoData.

It's the typical conundrum of a GIS data user: there are nicely detailed data sets available for your area but it's one or two issues with either that make them difficult or impractical to use  \

Cheers, Holger

[Auzy]

Ahh ok, I know that some roads in it have had the directions embedded, but I must admit, not many, and yeah, there are issues with single lane roads I guess. Maybe FS11 will deal with traffic better (but unlikely I guess).

Cool. Good to see that you have already considered it in the past