[INVESTIGATING] Odd Lake Across the Street from KSEA

[Herman Ross]

I tried searching the forum and didn't find anything on this. The lake across the highway from the KSEA terminal A (47^o 26' 17'N 122^o 17' 37"W) is in a hole in my scenery. The lake is in the right place, it's just at too low an elevation (I live 30 minutes from KSEA and actually checked, and if you look at Google Earth you can tell that it's a normal looking little thing). My PNW is only a few weeks old, and I'm pretty sure I patched it correctly as I installed it. Any ideas on how to fix this?

[fltsimguy]

I just checked mine.  Its perfectly placed and the mesh shows a gradual shoreline into the lake.

Perhaps check your terrain mesh settings.  I have mine set at 10m.

[Herman Ross]

Thanks for the response and suggestion. Changing from 2m to 10m didn't change the effect on my system. I probably should have added that I don't have any supplemental terrain or mesh installed. Perhaps that will help someone else pinpoint what I need to do.

[Tim Harris]

Do you have a 3rd party AI add-on?

Search your FSX folder for KSEA, see if you have anything extra installed apart from the PNW files

[Herman Ross]

No third party anything in the area. I should have anticipated that one too. The only scenery/mesh/landclass product in the Seattle area (or the Puget Sound, for that matter) is NA Blue. I've never used a third party AI app. I had Van+ but disabled it when I added NA Blue. But of course Van+ doesn't go down to Seatle.

I started with the settings sugested in the NA Blue manual and then tightened them up when I added a couple of FTX airports.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.

[Herman Ross]

Here's some other things I checked out. I tried changing to different mesh resolutions without fixing the hole. I tried DirectX 10 on and off without fixing this. I also tried changing the default away from and then back to NA Blue in the control panel, again without affect on the hole.

I flew around KSEA in the default JetRanger and this is the only lake with this issue. Angle Lake (just to the south of my problem lake) looks perfect and so do all the other lakes around the airport. The bluffs on the west and north sides of the airport look just like they should with a good mesh in place. which is to say the bluffs are quite noticeable.

[Tim Harris]

Me again,

Sorry, just had a look on my own system, and I have the same as you, Bow lake.. looking in Bingmaps birds eye view shows that it does have a step down, but maybe not as much as what's seen in PNW, I'll try and get Holger to have a peek at this

[Herman Ross]

Thanks for looking again, Tim. You're right on that it's Bow Lake. Usually the locals know that, but with the right mapping support, anyone can be a local.

I do appreciate you're getting with Holger on this as he has time. You guys rock!

Very Best Regards

[fltsimguy]

sorry gulfstream, I had the wrong lake, Angle instead of Bow, yes mine is also quite sharp and steep.  The lake has a shape elevation drop and likely this has somehow been over stated in the mesh.

It is likely easy to make an elevation change flatten file to compensate.

[Herman Ross]

Thanks for updating your earlier post. I was really wondering why you weren't seeing the hole Bow Lake is in compared to Angle Lake and I was. I too would bet that a simple flatten file would do it.

BTW, the headquarters for Alaska Airlines is on the shore of Angle Lake and has quite a nice view of it.

I appreciate all the responses to my initial question. It does appear that it's simply one of a gazillion lakes around this exceptional scenery that somehow got missed. I'm perfectly content to wait for the next update for the fix. In fact, it's almost like an Easter Egg, except it's so out in plain sight.