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Products Support => Dallas FSX/P3D => Topic started by: johnny_gitara on September 09, 2012, 11:53:07 am

Title: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: johnny_gitara on September 09, 2012, 11:53:07 am
Hello first!I am sorry if this was disscussed before, but I was trying to edit the DFW afcad to include Qantas and Emirates flights at the international terminal, but when I started the fsx at KDFW the buildings were gone, taxiways... and no itćs not the couatl issue cause lax was fine, sfo, phx, ord were all good and working. any ideas? Thank you!
Ivan
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: data63 on September 09, 2012, 09:21:54 pm
Sounds strange to me - I edited the DFW AFCAD lot's of time (parking sizes, Assignements eve some taxi-lines) - never had a prob.

Which editor did you use? - maybe you saved the AFCAD under a new name and now have a duplicate?

Happy landings (good luck finding the err)

Juergen
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: virtuali on September 09, 2012, 09:31:02 pm
KDFW taxilines aren't made with the AFCAD. If you edit the AFCAD, you must be sure your editor doesn't change the Exclusions we programmed, otherwise the default scenery might pop up.

If you have a duplicate, because you saved with a new name, chances things will disappear at random.

And, be aware that, if you save the AFCAD with another name (meaning you will have to remove the original one), the original one will be restored automatically when you install the Stand-Alone Addon Manager, for example to do a GSX Major update, so this will create a duplicate.

And, if you save with the same name of the original one, during the update your modifications will be overwritten and your file will be saved with the current time/date with a .BAK extension.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: data63 on September 09, 2012, 09:53:48 pm
KDFW taxilines aren't made with the AFCAD. If you edit the AFCAD, you must be sure your editor doesn't change the Exclusions we programmed, otherwise the default scenery might pop up.


Sorry - I was a bit unclear - I didn't talk abaou the "visible" taxilines bus just about the "lines" the aircraft (ai aircraft) follow

would be a pity if the AFCAD lines would show up in such a pretty scenery :-)

Happy landings

Juergen
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: johnny_gitara on September 10, 2012, 09:52:58 am
There were no duplicate afcad files in the dfw scenery folder. all i did was a change to a few gates, ie Qantas and Emirates flights, and a little bit of E terminal. All i did was saved changes to the original file. When i opened addon manager it said the product is active but not installed. So i reinstalled KDFW and now it works fine in it original state.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: virtuali on September 10, 2012, 11:39:42 am
When i opened addon manager it said the product is active but not installed. So i reinstalled KDFW and now it works fine in it original state.

That's an entirely different issue and yes, you can't expect the scenery to be working, if it's not installed.

If it was installed, note the Addon Manager will say a scenery it's not installed, if not all files are there so, your issue was likely you removed one of the other files (not the AFCAD) from the scenery folder by mistake, so the Addon Manager consider it not installed.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: johnny_gitara on September 10, 2012, 12:59:29 pm
Though I wonder what did i do by editing the afcad file that i removed some important files from the DFW insatlation. oh well!I decided to get the available afcad from forum here, edit it to the latest situation at real DFW and copy it in the seceney folder. Thanks a lot for all of your replies.
Ivan
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: virtuali on September 10, 2012, 01:05:14 pm
Though I wonder what did i do by editing the afcad file that i removed some important files from the DFW insatlation.

I haven't said that editing the AFCAD would remove another file from the KDFW installation. Fact is, that file WAS removed, otherwise the Addon Manager wouldn't have said "not installed", which means such file must have been removed inadvertently.


Quote
I decided to get the available afcad from forum here, edit it to the latest situation at real DFW and copy it in the seceney folder.

No. The file available on the forum is not guaranteed to be the most updated version available. The latest version available it's always the one downloaded with the Live Update feature, that's the whole point of having a Live Update feature to begin with: you don't have to look for a file or wondering what the most current version can be found.

To get it, download and install the Stand-Alone Addon Manager installer, which will run a Live Update for all the AFCADs of all your installed scenery.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: johnny_gitara on September 10, 2012, 07:40:49 pm
oh ok :) i will run the stand alone manager then to update the afcad. thanks a bunch!
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: Catchman86 on April 03, 2013, 05:48:31 pm
I'm having a very similar problem trying to edit parking assignments with ADE 1.55. I have a hunch that an ADE update I installed recently is affecting  and removing/changing something in the afcad because after any edit, I'm left with no buildings or groundpoly.

Umberto, would you recommend AFX or ADE? Also, what settings should I check to ensure that the afcad isn't stripping a necessary part of the file (e.g.  the exclusions)?
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: virtuali on April 03, 2013, 07:31:28 pm
As far as I know, ADE doesn't strip exclusion zones, the old AFCAD did, so ADE should be ok to use. The only thing to check is the parameter "DeleteAllApproaches" in the source XML, which should be False if the original BGL was set to False, and True if it was set to True, depending if the airport redefined or not any approaches.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: Catchman86 on April 28, 2013, 03:47:57 am
Figured out the problem with ADE. I had it set for height in meters. It was converting from your afcad which I believe is set in feet. I changed ADE to use feet and now all is well.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: virtuali on April 28, 2013, 04:02:00 am
Figured out the problem with ADE. I had it set for height in meters. It was converting from your afcad which I believe is set in feet. I changed ADE to use feet and now all is well.

There's no such thing as an AFCAD set in meters or feet.

The one and only format for the altitudes a .BGL can contain is in meters (or, more exactly, in 1/1000th of meters). Both the BGLCOMP program from the SDK, and the various AFCAD editing tools can show and let you set units in feet, for your own convenience, but the final format that you'll find in a .BGL it's always meters.
Title: Re:
Post by: Catchman86 on April 28, 2013, 05:18:38 pm
Right. It was because of my unit preset and the fact that ADE keeps converting to or from meters and feet that the height was off just enough to make it an issue. I changed the setting in ADE and now everything works.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: andyclv2 on July 07, 2013, 12:11:37 pm
Hello, I am having the same problem as described from the two previous users, whenever I make a change to the KDFW AFCAD via ADE9X, absolutely everything in the scenery disappears.  All I was trying to change where some gate assignments. Also, my add-on manager reported that KDFW was Active but not installed, however the only file I have overwritten is AP_KDFW.BGL, and the only way to correct the problem is to reinstall the scenery.   

Its odd because LAX and ORD don't seem to have this problem, as I have made several changes to their AFCAD's.

any help would be appreciated. 
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: virtuali on July 07, 2013, 12:27:56 pm
Hello, I am having the same problem as described from the two previous users, whenever I make a change to the KDFW AFCAD via ADE9X, absolutely everything in the scenery disappears.

This doesn't have anything to do with KDFW, of course, but it's something you did editing. Something that might cause a scenery to disappear, is a duplicate AFCAD, which you can easily create yourself if you are not careful, if you recompile the edited BGL with a different name and leave the original there.

Quote
Also, my add-on manager reported that KDFW was Active but not installed, however the only file I have overwritten is AP_KDFW.BGL, and the only way to correct the problem is to reinstall the scenery.

Then you must have edited some other file too, without checking it. The Addon Manager doesn't check the AFCAD of a scenery to check if the scenery is installed or not, for the precise reason you might want to edit it.

In case of KDFW, the file the Addon Manager checks to print the "Installed" or "Not Installed" message, is AP_KDFW_OBJ.bgl, and that's not an AFCAD so, if the Addon Manager said "Not Installed", it means you have removed it by mistake. It was removed because, if that file simply changed, the Addon Manager would report "Installed and Outdated" instead.

I've just made a small test, opened the AFCAD supplied with KDFW, named AP_KDFW.BGL, with ADE, change a gate assignment and then compiled the airport. ADE saved it as KDFW_ADEX_FSDT.BGL (_FSDT is added because those are the developer initials in my ADE config) to so, I made sure it was renamed back to AP_KDFW.BGL once copied in the fsdreamteam\KDFW\scenery folder, overwriting the original one. Of course, no problems whatsoever, and the airport loaded fine on the next FSX startup.
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: andyclv2 on July 08, 2013, 01:48:57 am
hello again, thanks for the quick and detailed response. It seems to have worked, as I have edited and compiled multiple times. However, the one difference this time around was I did not compile directly into the KDFW scenery folder, and instead put it on the desktop and renamed it there then copied it over to the scenery folder. Do you think it would make a difference whether or not I compile and overwrite the original file at the same time?
Title: Re: Editing DFW afcad brings problems for me
Post by: virtuali on July 08, 2013, 09:29:26 am
Do you think it would make a difference whether or not I compile and overwrite the original file at the same time?

No, if FSX is not running while running ADE. Yes, if it does.