A letter from Greg the NZ COASTER

[kiwibarguy]

I contacted Greg (nzcoaster) recently to see how he was doing with the much awaited Northland scenery that he is working on. He has asked me to pass this on.

Hi Kiwibarguy

Thanks for your continued interest in this development , I'm sorry due to the longevity of this project and how its probably causing a lot of "I wonders if well ever see it"
The project is still a high priority for me, however I have been in a recovery mode for a long time on and off with issues relating to cancer that have been going on for 8 and a half years
which have put me through the wringer 1 to many times and consequently it raised many side issues for me and my family, and due to this I had suffered a breakdown 1 to many straws on this camels back.
I have not been in full regular work for a long time due to this and the last significant work I had was in development pioneering work involving GIS and 3D for Whangarei District Council, this gave me the opportunity and resources to see a large area of Northland developed for Flight Simulation which was very exciting for me.
I have actually completed the first full set of data which consists of about 2.3gb of Northland photo Scenery including Poor Knights Island this First set has an extremely large and coarse buffer
around the coast as that aspect was not important to my former boss. There are some minor finalization issues before I send the Scenery to WDC GIS
The second set which I have made reasonable progress on is much more refined in terms of the land water mask buffer being optimized to give a good visual experience of the rocky complex coastline that we have including seaplane landable tidal estuary's with 50 percent water transparency mask. I can only say this is not an easy and fast method but results in what I believe simmers would expect.. So I am committed to the completion of the project and after that can only hope that Harvey my former GIS manager approves the release of it to the Flight sim community, and in what package I don't know free , pay , or other. There are some areas of the scenery that I just do'nt know how to digitaly process for optimum color continuity as parts of the photo scenery were taken at different times so from very high attitude you can see some of that aspect but because the scenery is high detail at low level I have just left it as is since you don't really notice it for vfr exploring at lower altitudes. I could consider posting a dvd of to some of the members here that are experienced at scenery work like Timo or Toprob for a strictly confidential preview and analysis of what I've done so far to see if they may offer some insight into finalizing the project. I have time on my side at the moment being on the sickness allowance so getting on with and finishing it is a definite. But I would value the input of more experienced developers. Just pray like crazy if you do that sort of thing that Harvey is happy to let me release it to the Sim Community as I see it has many positive spin offs for exposure to Northland cause if you kook at Whangarei Northland in google earth you definitly would have no idea of whats under those clouds little own fire up Tileproxy.
The good news is I'm upgrading my pc to Q9450 8gb and 9800gx2 so processing some of the data will be faster both in compiling and photoshop work, cause it was a major frustration processing massive geotiffs on my 3 year old machine
So there you go my FS friends I'm fairly quiet sort but hang around alot in forums gleaning watching and being inspired by others works and am absolutely greatful for the high quality and commitment of New Zealand FS developers.
In the mean time thanks for your patience ,I'm still recovering and have very little sleep for months but am getting there slowly
Believe me assuming Harveys go ahead this forum will be the first to know of its release.
As for Hand placed autogen thats another story and probably would need others help if people want it

Thanks Kiwibarguy
You can repost this anywhere in the forum so others may understand whats up

Kind Regards
Greg

[AlisterC]

What a great letter and what a great guy! Cheers for posting it. Get well soon!

[Timmo]

Thanks for that- Pass on our sympathy and well wishes if you contact him again.

I talked with Gregs manager at the ESRI User Conference late last year and he seemed enthusiastic about the possibilities of using flightsim for 3D Visualisations (similar to what I previewed at the conference using my Government Gardens scenery) so I (we!) hope that that enthusiasm carries on to the release of this scenery.

I think the good grace of my old managers at Environment Bay of Plenty were encouraging as well (i.e. It always makes it easier to get approval for sign off from the higher tier management if some other council is doing the same thing)

We will wait and see!

[Ian Warren]

Selfless , worrying about others in the flightsim community with illness recovery , Greg amazing .
As for Hand placed autogen thats another story and probably would need others help if people want it - this area I can help you with.
Get well soon .

Ian

[ardypilot]

Well by the time this gets released, I should hopefully be running 'X'- the previews looked amazing and IMO would make purchasing the new sim a reasonable decision.

[Kelburn]

How noble. never giving up and always thinking of others.
Good on him!