I need a lifeline here, if anyone can throw me one.
For reference, this is for KBJC - Rocky Mountain Metropolitain Airport. It’s my home airport and I’m trying to improve on the algorithm-generated version. (Because that one is flattened and lots of things are wrong with it.) KBJC has two main, sloped runways and third, rarely used, intersecting runway. I want to use the proper elevations and slopes of the runways so it’s accurate, then build from there.
Here’s what I’ve tried:
- Built-in runway terraforming, adding a profile, then setting the endpoints to be equal to the FAA diagram elevations. This results in a horrendous mess of concave and very bumpy runways.
- Built-in runway terraforming, adding a profile, setting the endpoints as above, then using Add Point in the profile to pack as many in as possible and individually moving them around to try to flatten. This result is only marginally better, but still very lumpy and lots of creases.
- Built-in runway terraform, add profile, set endpoints, then adding a runway-sized Rectangle, enabling terraforming, adding a profile, adding tons of points and adjusting all the points individually. This result isn’t any better than 2.
- Built-in runway terraforming, profile, endpoints, then laying down individual non-overlapping Rectangles with terraforms and profiles, then fiddling constantly to try to get rid of all the creases. This is the best so far, but it’s ridiculous and still not completely flat.
This has been incredibly frustrating and disappointing! My expectation is that the proper way to do this is adding the runway, enabling terraforming, adding a profile to adjust the endpoints based on elevation, and bingo, I should have a perfectly flat runway from end-to-end. Instead, I’ve put hours in, only to get this:
or this:
Can anyone out there give me advice on how to get a perfectly flat, sloped runway? Or three?
Does your airport has Apply Flatten on? That usually interferes with the built in runway Terraform
I made sure that was off. In a couple of test projects, I turned it on and off to see if I could work with the result. The AI version is very flat and it loses the character of the airport, so I want to develop it without flattening. Cheers, though.
This is what I see when I tried to replace one of the runways - namely 12L-30R. Surely something is wrong with mesh data of the airport area.
I used the airport diagram from skyvector and only entered 2 elevations of each end of the runway to replace the msfs one.
Airport diagram shows 116.2 heading but actually the base runway heading is 124.37 degrees. I guess this is due to mag var. I will give it another try tomorrow as it is a bit late for me to continue now.
Yes, those are some of the steps I took as well. If I load the sim with a blank Community folder and load in at Parking 94, it’s obvious the AI airport is flattened. Creating a new project and loading it removes the flatten and allows the underlying mesh to come through. There are a lot of temporary glitches like you showed until the rendering settles, at least for me. Once what I believe is the underlying DEM mesh shows, I can zip around the airport and see the legitimate terrain changes KBJC actually has. Honestly, you can follow the elevation change of runway 12L-30R at ground level and it becomes clear the underlying mesh isn’t far off the actual field contours. There are defects, for sure, but nothing drastic. The issues start when you add a runway. Suddenly, the runway is concave, unpredictable, and impossible to flatten relative to the surrounding mesh no matter what I try. Sometimes moving a profile point up or down results in creases appearing where there weren’t any before.
As for the heading, the magvar is about 8.1 east from what I recall so expecting 116 and getting 124 is about right.
One question: Have you deleted runways before you started adding a new one?
Here, I just added a polygon to the airport area (not sure if it helps but I always do it and I do not see too many mesh cracks with it.). I tried to level the camera height to show the elevation from 30R towards 12L (new runway with a straight elevated profile).
And here I added 2 random points to see if it worked in SDK:
End result in the sim (camera at ground level from 30R):
Here is the project file.
KBJC_RockyMountain_test.zip (32.5 KB)
To test the scenery, copy the scenery folder in the packages folder to your Community and start your sim.
Hope it helps, I think you can continue from this point onwards.
Thanks so much for all your effort.
I did delete the runways upon creating the project.
Your file does manage to create a smooth runway, but the elevations of 12L and 30R are reversed, so the slope is the wrong way. I swapped the points and, after the mesh rendering settled, the runway is still indeed flat, but so is the field around the runway. The terrain contours are lost.
After some experimentation with your project, I found this:
Runway terraform set to -1: runway is flat, but so is the vast majority of the surrounding terrain, as if the influence of the runway is vast.
Runway terraform set to 50 (or 100): runway is lumpy, but surrounding territory reassumes its correct contour.
If nothing else, we’re isolating in on where some of the deformation issues are coming from. 
