Summary of airliner models and DTED
David H. Whittington (dhw3314++at++aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com)
Mon, 24 Apr 1995 08:24:56 -0700 (PDT)
I wanted to thank all of you who responded to my questions about
available airliner models and overseas(from the US perspective) DTED
data.
Viewpoint ++at++229-3068(Jay Taylor) seems to be a great source
of airliner and all sorts of models at reasonable prices. I do
think that there should be a subdirectory at sgigate.sgi.com in the Performer
area for all of us to "donate" nonlicensed models, particularly those
that could be considered "realtime", i.e. a limit of 500 polygons per
major object? I appreciated some of the simpler models at avalon (the
747-200 has over 9000 polygons and takes about 20 ms on an ONYX)By the
way, Medit(the 3D Modeler) can take a high polygon count model like
that and color(with materials) and texture it with ease - rendering performance
is great (they also supply some rendering code for adding objects into
Performer(a loader) or your own gl code.
Secondly, the issue of non US DTED data. One very interesting response
I got was from Axion Spatial Imaging(Tel: 403 488 3565 Fax 403 488 3889)
regarding this kind of data(axion++at++sas.ab.ca):
"AXI creates from stereo pairs of satellite imagery such models at 2 and 10
meter resolution, and from map sources at 100 meter resolution for
most of the world if 1:250,000 scale or better map are available.
We have created a worldwide 1,000 meter DTM database for aeronautical
applications. "
This last model - the world at 1000 meter posts may be too coarse for
some applications BUT it is a great WORLDWIDE start!
Also Ran Yakir of BVR says that they have a software package
called MkDTM that can help(rany++at++bvr.co.il)
I talked to some folks at the Army Topological Labs and others who feel
that DMA is on the verge of making nonUS data available but it might take
us to write letters to our Congressmen and DMA directly (1-800-826-0342)
Address:
DMA Headquarters
ATTN: PR
8613 Lee Highway
Fairfax, VA 22031-2137
Some more DTED data notes - one response mentioned a DTED
performer reader:
pub/Performer/src/npsdted.tar.Z
A very good source for seeing what available in DEM elevation data and
satellite imagery for the US is the USGS web page at:
http://info.er.usgs.gov/
It was great to see the response from you all and it indicates the
great interest in terrain and aircraft visualization. I hope that maybe
we could start a FAQ list and like I said above, maybe an area at sgigate
for contributions. Together we can get there faster and easier!
.=========================================================================.
/ David H. Whittington | Voice: (206) 662-4610 (work) \
| Boeing Commercial Airplane | |
| P.O. Box 3707, M/S 19-MH | Internet: dhw3314++at++aw101.iasl.ca.boeing.com |
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