In my previous post I referred to the growth of 3D modeling in Google Earth and how much I find it rewarding. I've also mentioned my interest in creating scenery for Flight Simulator. Those seem inexplicably related, but I never realized how much so until yesterday. There is a program for converting the KML files generated by GE for use in making "photoreal" additions to the FS world (roads, rivers, fields, etc) , but terrain is a bit more tricky. The learning curve I ran up against in my desire to build a fictitious island slapped me down somewhat as I began to realize how much studying is involved. Nevertheless, figuring the rewards to be worth the effort, I am committed, and even if I have to learn C#, so be it. Yesterday, during my research, I stumbled across a reference to something called "SketchUp." The author of the article I read was decrying the fact that Microsoft hadn't followed the example of Google in giving its users a free tool to simmers, the way Google had given GE users SketchUP. I had no idea what was being referred to so I looked it up. If you know what I'm talking about please forgive my ignorance and excuse me as I risk turning this into a tech blog by elaborating.

SketchUp is a free 3D modeling tool that is so easy to use that thousands of interested users have been contributing their own creations of familiar territory to the "Google 3D Warehouse" for the betterment of the overall Google Earth environment. I downloaded it and in less than an hour I had given dimensions to all the buildings at the Houston Yellow Cab lot. My work was crude, but it was done with no experience whatever. Then I started watching the training video tutorials. I have played with other such programs before, some of them very expensive; but I've never seen anything do all the things SketchUp does, with the user friendly simplicity of this amazingly revolutionary tool. So take this as my shamelessly slavish endorsement and do yourself a favor (if you haven't already), download it and give it a whirl. I guarantee you'll be impressed.

In the meantime, I will continue pursuing my much more difficult Flight Simulator terrain design project and perhaps devote a little time following my niece Misty's lead and tweak this site a bit, since it has fallen to neglect somewhat of late. My only recent accomplishment in the FS realm has been the updating of Supercar's FSX instrument panel to include a GPS-NAV switch and clock. The switch installation wasn't easy, but is very worthwhile in that it allows the aircraft to follow the GPS line automatically, which is a pretty big deal on long flights. The panel itself is still rather Spartan, but changes in the program platform from FS9 to Flight Simulator 10 made the modification a challenge. Since Microsoft has closed the ACES studio (the design team responsible for FS development) I suppose I'll have plenty of time to grok the current rules of terrain design before any more changes come down the pike. BTW (by the way), here's a look at my updated Supercar instrument panel--