Discussion About a terrain generation API and a question on Orulex

[dumbo2007]

I have been working with the Orulex terrain generator API for some time now and I had found these functions to be sufficient for my purposes :

bool ORUCheck()
double ORUGetElevByVec(VECTOR4 pos)
double ORUGetMaxElev()


I had hardcoded a 3 second delayed start to let Orulex initialize before my plugin starts doing stuff. It now seems that Orulex is taking longer, approx 10 secs, to start up. This may be due to accumulation of data in terrain files over the last few months or some other reason (I have been using the same Orbiter and Orulex installation all this time).

So now I have changed the delay to over 10 secs but this may rise further in the future. This is more of a question to Artlav, I was wondering if there is a way to detect if Orulex is ready for use. ORUCheck() simply checks if Orulex is available or not. Otherwise I ll read in the delay from a file and the user can keep on increasing it based on what he sees.

These is also this delay when switching planets/reference bodies. It takes less time, approximately about 3 secs before Orulex is ready to supply terrain data for the new body. I am going to read this time from file too as there is no ORUReady() function.


My point of this thread is, probably any terrain generator will have a startup delay and a delay when switching reference bodies. So the API for terrain generators should be something like this :

bool ORUCheck()
bool ORUReady()
double ORUGetElevByVec(VECTOR4 pos)
double ORUGetMaxElev()


Question to Glider,
Will the D3D11 client generator have any such delays and API functions to detect these delays ?

 

[Artlav]

I had hardcoded a 3 second delayed start to let Orulex initialize before my plugin starts doing stuff.

As far as i remember, the data is always available, and the time when the percentage is shown on screen is only a visual blackout.

What caused you to add the delay in the first place?
Were there incorrect data being given?
Is there more delays other than loading?

I'm cursed with a fast PC, so all these delays take under a second combined.
Which one of them gives you the problem?

 

[dumbo2007]

During initial startup, if I request terrain elevations immediately then I get incorrect values. I found a 3 second delay is enough to get over this.

Currently the screen annotation is on for about 15 seconds, so I was assuming that the Orulex data is now not available for about 15 secs. But it seems to be fine with 3 seconds again. So all good.

I ll check with planet switching.

---------- Post added at 02:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------

It would have been great to have the terrain data for any planets with bases or vessels near them, available simultaneously and not just that of the camera reference body.

Right now I am trying to figure out how to freeze vehicle/vessels on the Moon that are moving on the terrain, if the focus is suddenly switched to Mars.