Various objects (aprons, taxiway points and paths, etc.) can sometimes float based on elevation of initial load

Version: SU/AAU/WU XX - 1.XX.XX.X
SU 15 - 1.37.19.0, SDK v0.24.3, however this is not the first SDK version I have noticed this in

Frequency: Once/Rarely/Frequently/Consistently

  • Rarely with major consequences (like the example I’m showing in my attachments section)
  • Frequently with minor consequences

Severity: Low/High/Blocker
Medium: Even when the issue is minor, it makes it very hard to line up aprons, etc. when things are floating at different elevations

Context: What package? When editing or mounted from Community? In main menu or in flight? etc… When editing in the Scenery Editor. I’m in Scenery Hub mode, but I’m guessing it doesn’t matter

Bug description:
When loading into an airport or something at the beginning, sometimes the scenery will start out with some hills and eventually adjust itself flatten out. (Sometimes, this adjustment is major enough that it flips my parked aircraft over, though that’s not what this bug report is about.)

This adjustment can sometimes result in things like these floating:

  • Apron vertices
  • Light rows
  • PaintedHatchedAreas (the lines are on the ground, but their lines and vertices are in the air)
  • PaintedLines (the lines are on the ground, but their lines and vertices are in the air)
  • TaxiwayParking spots
  • TaxiwayPaths
  • TaxiwayPoints
  • TaxiwaySigns (the 3D models are on the ground, but their maroon points are in the air)

In the example I am showing below, the sim loaded up with a several-meters-high terrain bulge before settling down, resulting in a really bad case of things floating in the air. (This comment is outside the scope of the bug report, but I don’t know why this process isn’t deterministic. Shouldn’t the scenery always load the same way from the same parking spot every time?) I am not 100% sure if this is what’s happening, but it seems to me that various points allow themselves to be pushed upward, but not back down again. Is it that there is no mechanism to adjust them to the final elevation of each point?

I am giving an extreme example, below, that happens once every 4-6 weeks or so to me. But on an almost daily basis, there are also minor cases where points can be a little bit off the ground, making it difficult to line things up against each other visually. You then need to click on each point you want to flatten, go to the gizmo, click on the “alt” field and hit Enter to push them back down, and repeat this for all applicable points. It can be time consuming and frustrating. I’m also not sure why items that sit on the ground, such as TaxiwayPoints, even have a z component to their coordinates in the first place.

Repro steps:

As I mentioned above, as the scenery loading process seems to be non-deterministic, you will not always get the dramatic example of the screenshots I am attaching below, but you can often get something.

The pictures I’m showing, below, are from RPVE airport that I downloaded from the World Hub. You often get dramatic elevation shifts when loading up this airport. I’ve also had my dramatic elevation shifts at SAWH airport, which I edited a month or two ago in the World Hub.

  1. In the Scenery Editor, open an airport. If you have an example where the elevation shifts somewhat dramatically when starting, even better.
  2. Load it in the inspector.
  3. Hopefully for the repro, you will see a dramatic situation like the example I gave, but that does not happen to that extent frequently. What you can do is pick something like a TaxiwayPoint at random. Click on it, then put your cursor in the “alt” box in the gizmo so that it is active, and click the Enter button with the keyboard.

Expected result:
The altitude of whatever you clicked on shouldn’t change, as it should already be flush on the ground.

Observed result:
All too often, the altitude of whatever it was adjusts, and the point you clicked on moves to be flush with the ground.

Attachments:

Private attachments: Send a PM to @PrivateContent with the link to this topic and the link to download your content

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Same complaint. Runways seem to always have some sort of float to them and I dislike that it introduces parallax error when trying to align things like runways and taxiway aprons or runway start points.

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