EL PASO/So. Central NEW MEXICO TERRAIN MESH



This FS2000 terrain mesh covers a good segment of south central New Mexico and includes El Paso, Texas. Plenty of scenic elevations in this area, short and tall, green and desert, mesas and craters, at 30 meters horizontal resolution.



As anything of this complexity in flight simulator, this scenery demands plenty of computer power, including CPU and RAM, to achieve acceptable frame rates and smoothness of the image. I recommended to try this terrain mesh only if you are experienced in installing terrain mesh files and tuning your FS installation for performance.





To Install:



This terrain mesh is contained in a file called elp30m10.bgl which you can install as any other scenery file.



1) Place the *.bgl file into the scenery subfolder of a folder where you would like to install very high resolution terrain mesh files like this one.



2) Start FS2000 and select scenery library from the World menu, then select Add area and find the folder where you installed the scenery. Click OK and if needed, click the checkmark to make the scenery active.



3) To make sure the simulator loads the scenery file correctly the first time, quit the simulator and start again. If you skip this step, you may risk crashing the simulator, or not having the scenery loaded correctly. 





Take a tour:



You can start enjoying this scenery by setting your aircraft at KALM (Alamogordo, New Mexico) or KELP (El Paso International, Texas). Then takeoff and head to Las Cruces International (KLRU, New Mexico). These are nice short hops, so make sure you don't hit any mountains.



There are also many interesting features, most significantly Aden Crater. This is one of the best-preserved volcanic features of the El Paso southwest. Check it out at N 32 04 16.0177, W 107 03 27.9747. You will notice immediately that though this is a shield cone, it's no Mauna Loa.





Technical Information ---



  Source data: 138 7.5 Minute DEM files from the USGS (30 meter horizontal resolution) converted to 1x1 arc second DTED files and merged to form 2 major areas, subsequently merged to produce one BGL file. This is the standard method used in most of my large terrain mesh projects. In addition, a section of Mexico that touches the USA border was merged into this scenery from the W140N40 GTOPO30 file (about 1 km horizontal resolution), using the level of detail of 8.



  Level of Detail (LOD): 10 in USA Territory



  Approximate area covered: 20900 sq. km. (8142 sq. miles)



    Corners of the area covered (including Mexican territory):



    (NW) N  33.12917° W 107.25417°     (NE) N  33.12917° W 105.75°



    (SW) N  31.65° W 107.25417°        (SE) N  31.65° W 105.75°

  



  Calibration point: 

                     Organ Needle Summit

		      Elevation and Geographic Coordinates from DEM

			8967 ft, N 32 20 50, W 106 33 45 (WGS84)

		      Elevation and Geographic Coordinates in FS 2000 with this file

			8948 ft, N 32 20 49.8663 , W 106 33 46.095

		



Tools used:



Microsoft Terrain SDK ( http://www.microsoft.com/games/fs2000/devdesk.asp )

Microdem ( http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm ) (latest debugging version)

DEMconvert ( http://members.bellatlantic.net/~pguth/demconv.htm ) (development version that can export BSQ files)





Notes about this first release:



Finally, just as a reminder, terrain mesh files don't change roads, rivers, coastlines and the placement of textures over the terrain. Odd things can happen, like floating lakes, rivers and roads, as well as farmland on top of a rain forest, or suburban streets on the sides of steep slopes, etc. This can be fixed, but it's an entirely different project.





Other 30 Meter Resolution Projects Released:



Phoenix Area in Arizona, USA (merges with Tucson Area)

Tucson Area in Arizona, USA (merges with Phoenix Area)

Puerto Rico (entire island)





Acknowledgements:



Dr. Peter Guth (creator of Microdem and DEMconvert) fine tuned his tools to make this work possible. He offered valuable insight on the method to use to convert multiple 7.5 minute DEM files into a single seamless terrain file for flight simulator. 







Copyright and License to Use:



This archive is Copyright by Orlando Sotomayor on the year 2000. You have the right to use for your personal enjoyment. Redistribution for any type of commercial use is strictly prohibited. September 13, 2000.







							Questions?



							Contact Orlando Sotomayor at osd@att.net