The first thing you need to now is the altitude of the airport, then start with the NW corner of the area you want to flatten. write down both the Lon and Lat, then go to the NE corner and copy the Lon/Lat. Do the same for the SE and SW corners, When you type all this into you scenery cfg file it should look like this:

Flatten.0=ALT,N00 00.00,W00 00.00,N00 00.00,W00 00.00

I've only shown two corners in the above example, you will have to contenue with all four corners in a cw or ccw order. Put you altitude where I have "ALT", the save it.

Hope this helps, let me know.

Steve

how should i set out the information?

i know flatten=0 alt. and all that but how do you do the rest??

What do you mean by "do the rest"?

If your asking where to put the flatten switch, then this is what you do.

Go to FS9s folder, follow this path: documents and settings\your name\application data\microsoft\FS9, with in this folder you will find a scenery cfg file that is opened with notepad. Open it and scroll down to the bottom where you should find the "Area" that is your AFCAD secnery. Place the flatten switch at the bottom of this "Area" and save it. DO NOT save as, just save.

Restart FS9 and you should see the area flattened.

BTW: If you need an exclude switch, place it under the flatten switch.

Hope this helps, let us know how you do.

Steve

data 790

Your not being a pain at all, we all had to learn. I edited your switch below, try it and see what happens.

The "0" after flatten. means it is the first flatten switch, you can have up to 10 total ie 0-9. Leave out the "*" in the coordenants, just use a space. and the "alt=" isn't needed.

Flatten.0=470.9,N53 27.68,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 48. 72,
  N53 27.68,W0 48.72

Steve

PS: The file is in the FS9 folder located in the path as I said in the earler post. NOT in your Flight Simulator 9 folder.

Go to your Local Disk (C:), look for Documents and Settings, click on the "+" and look for a folder with your name and click the "+", then click the + for Application Data' look for a folder for Microsoft and click the "+", your should see the FS9 folder, click the "+" and you will find the scenery.cfg file.

data

What OS are you using? If the Doc' and Settings folder is empty then I am lost as to where to find the FS9 folder.

It shounds to me like you are on a network and the admenistrator has blocked the folder. I could be wrong.

You might do a search for the FS9 folder in the search engine, make sure you look for hidden files also.

Let us know what you find and hopfully someone will have a better idea as to what is happening.

Steve

I think we're getting a little confused with CFG files. I've not tried it in FS9 but the flatten switch would be added to Scenery.cfg. This is located in the main FS9 directory folder on my system. This is the default location.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9

fs9.cfg is the one not in the usual location. Depending on your OS this will be different. (Copied from Readme.rtf.)

The fs9.cfg file is located in:  
o      Windows 2000 and Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9.  
o      Windows 9x and Windows ME: \WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9

Maybe you should ignore my previous comments. I've just checked & there is a Scenery.cfg file in both locations. One in the FS9 main directory & the other in the Application Data\Microsoft\FS9 folder. I have no idea which one you would need to edit.

data:

I think I know what is wrong. After taking a closer look at you cord', it appears that you started your flattening area at the northeast corner. The manual says start it in the northwest and go eather cw or ccw, so try the following:

Flatten.0=470.9,N53 27.68,W0 48.72,N53 27.68,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 48.72

Just copy this and past it into your area and see if it does the trick.

Befor you do, you might check the area due east of your airport and see if it is flat.  Bet it is.

Let me know if this works.

Steve

Data. I assume you're creating a new airport in AFCAD. I've never done this myself & haven't used a manual Flatten switch since the early days of FS2000. I just read the instructions included with the latest version of AFCAD & the principle is exactly the same as in FS2000. There's a link to this page in the AFCAD instructions. http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2000_articles_sceneryobjects.as...
I suspect this is the "manual" that Steve is talking about. It might also be included in one of the FS2004 SDKs.

Just to make sure you're doing this correctly the new scenery must be activated in FS9 before it will work. The Flatten switch line is added below the existing entry for the scenery.

I hope this is some help.

The last time I messed around with AFCAD or TTools was in FS2002. Things are a little different in FS9 so it's no use me giving anything but general advice. I might trying creating a small airport in FS9 with AFCAD later to find out what all this is about.

The comprehensive instructions included with TTools should tell you all you need to know. These are not always easy to understand so make sure you read them carefully. I found that a front end utility like AITM makes it so much easier to  work with TTools. http://www.molitor-home.de/fs/News.html

Maybe it would help if I know the problem & exactly what you wish to do. The Flatten switch will flatten the area around the runway or airport. If the entries are not exactly right you should see a warning message on starting FS9. I'm not sure the Exclude switch works for all objects in FS9. I found a little utility that creates Flatten switches & Area16N Flat area BGLs. http://www.fs-traveler.com/flatten.shtml This might be better but might confuse you even more. It requires FSUIPC.DLL & other extra files to work. I haven't tried it yet.

I tried creating a small airstrip in AFCAD with no problems. From what I can make out this only adds the basic runway with no other scenery objects. It might be easier to create the visual airport with one of the conventional scenery design applications, Airport for Windows or FS Scenery Creator. Then add the menu entries, parking gates, navaids & all the other bits & pieces with AFCAD. This is how I would tackle it myself.

Hager:   Good point about the alt, I assumed it was ok, and we all know what "ass-u-me" spells

Also thanks for pointing out that we can put the flatten switch in the main scenery folder. I've always put in the root folder.

Hopfully data has it now. The last thing I had noticed was his starting point with the coord', as I understand it you have to start in the NW corner. I could be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time.

Steve

Hager:  It was a good guess. I'm not sure what happens if it is to high, but if you place it over hills and don't set the elevation low enough you will see the tops of the hills flattend and still have some low areas.

As for the scenery.cfg file, I understood that the flatten and exclude files went into the one located in the FS9 folder, which is found under the Doc and Settings folder.

It took me a long time to learn that the starting point had to be in the upper left corner. And that the exclude uses only a lat for north and south, lon for west and east. And they have to be in N, W, S, E order.

Anyway hopfully we have done some good here and data will let us know if all is okey now.

See ya in the posts

Steve

Thanks for the input to an interesting thread I built my first airport using Lee's AF2 and was disappointed by the lack of a flatten switch (trees in runway) Lee tells me he will include this in the next AF2 release (due out in June 04)
Bill
http://members.shaw.ca/bai/wwa/wji-airport.jpg

Hager  Great post, that is the manual I was refering to earlier. Its also where I found that I was doing the exclude wrong, ie... you don't use both Lat/Lon for each leg.

Really helps when one reads the instruction.

Steve

Yes data, you use the exclude to take out the objects in and around your airport.

It is slightly a differant format: your start with North Lat, then the West Lon, followed by South then East.

And it must be in that order. Take a look at Hagers reply above.

Place a line below your flatten switch that looks like this:

Exlcude=N00 00,W00 00,S00 00,E00 00,objects

Glad you got it. Safe flying.

Steve