Veritas777 opened this issue on Oct 24, 2005 ยท 26 posts
Veritas777 posted Mon, 24 October 2005 at 8:52 PM
As INTELLIGENT vectors, SHP files that represent highways
could be placed atop a Geo-Referenced Terrain and instantly
-you have a highway system on your terrain! Assigning a VUE
Highway Eco-Material would produce marked black-top highways
with cars on them! SHP files representing railroads could
nearly instanteously create a railroad network on your terrain with tracks, switches (and with some clever AI programming) even bridges and tunnels. (This is how it is done in MS Train Simulator).
Eco-Materials of Geo-Referenced aircraft could populate airports while Eco-Materials of ships and boats could populate a harbor. Basically- INSTANT airport, INSTANT harbor- using SHP files as accurate guides for Eco-Material placement.
By using REAL shape data there would NEVER be roads, airports, train tracks anywhere OTHER THAN in realistic and logical places! So Vue would NOT have to be calculating the CORRECT places to put things- that would have already been done by the fact of using realistic Geo-Referenced data!
All Vue would be doing is assigning Eco-Materials to the data. For instance- Hydrology shape files of rivers and streams could instantly define streams, rivers and lakes on a VUE Terrain- in the CORRECT and NATURAL places- and all you would have to do is zoom down and locate your camera! With a good "smart" Eco-Water material- water would get whiter in downhill rapids areas and calmer in slow moving rivers- ending up still and clear in lakes... all guided by Geo-Referencing.
You could, of course, use shape files to define grassy fields, forests, parks, golf courses, hiking trails, gardens, Ancient Egyptian, Roman and Greek cities- All with pre-defined Eco-Materials. There is already LOTS of FREE GIS SHAPE data out there- provided by Governments, Universities and Non-Profit Organizations.
The ESRI software SHP format is the DEFACTO STANDARD! (Much
like 3DS, OBJ or LWO is to most 3D model-makers.)