Month: August 2008

While working on the FSX MDL reader for ModelConverterX I came across something interesting. I had some models that showed up a bit weird to say the least. It turned out that I was reading both their exterior model and their shadow model. But wait, did you say shadow model there? In the MDL format it is possible to define a special shadow model, with its own vertices, triangles, etc. For complex models this can be used to improve the performance, by using a less complex model for the shadow calculations. In the FS2004 format this was also possible already … Continue reading Shadow model

I had came across the OpenStreetMap project before, but only when I revisited it earlier this week the reail power of it struck me. Let me start with a little explanation about what OpenStreetMap is. It is a free Wiki world map as their slogan says. I has been created by people collecting GPS tracks and combining that with other copyright free GIS data to get a really free world map. On their website you can browse to all the data in a similar way as Google Maps. But that is not all, the real powerful thing is that you … Continue reading OpenStreetMap rocks!

Since I released alpha version 13 of ModelConverterX, I have been working on the next version. For that release I have mainly planned improvements to the usability of the tool. So that means the user interface gets cleaned up a bit, functions are made more logical etc. Another example of the things I am implementing is that the import and export processes will be running on a separate thread, so that the user interface will no longer appear locked up. But while working on all this, I also realised that the old user intreface was not always very logical. Some … Continue reading Sneak preview