FreeMeshX is a global terrain mesh replacement for the stock terrain mesh and features LOD10 (38-m) coverage for almost the entire world. LOD10 is equal to the same terrain level of detail used for the USA in the stock scenery. The rest of the world varies from LOD6 to LOD9. FreeMeshX was created to bring the rest of the world up to the LOD10 standard as much as possible, although some regions of the world in the higher latitudes are still limited to LOD9 (76-m). Compiling the source data into LOD11 yields neglibible improvements and is mostly a waste of precious hard drive space.
FreeMeshX features LOD10 (38-m resolution) coverage for:
- North America (A separate LOD12 USA mesh is available for beta testing)
- Europe
- Asia
- Africa
- Australia and Oceania
A few regions are limited to LOD9 (76-m resolution):
- Antarctica
- Greenland
- Russian territories north of 60 N latitude
FreeMeshX was compiled using over 400 GB of raw terrain data. The final size of the product is 46 GB, making it one of the largest freeware projects ever for FS. It wouldn’t be in everyone’s best interests to download all 46 GB at once, so we are releasing the product the product into continental regions for a total of 7 regions total. Each continent contains a number of 10 deg x 10 deg titles, mosaiced from 1 deg x 1 deg tiles into a 2.5 GB file, and then compressed into a BGL file. Defragmentation is highly recommended for mechanical hard drives to ensure smooth and quick loading.
Largest improvements are found in regions that contained mainly the default LOD6 and LOD7 meshes. These included remote regions of Africa, South America, Antarctica, and Asia. Europe and Canada sees some improvement, but it’s LOD9 mesh is just a one level upgrade to LOD10. Subtle improvements for these previously LOD9 regions will be found mainly in the accuracy of the mesh and level of detail in mountain ranges.
More information here.
