XPTools General Notes

Overview

XPTools are a series of small utilities to aid in the creation of flight sim scenery for X-Plane. XPTools are:

Simply and small. You will need to use different programs to accomplish different steps in your scenery creation.
Cross-platform. XPTools run on Mac or PC on any machine that can run X-Plane.
Drag and drop. XPTools provide very simple user interfaces.
Text file based. Many XPTools use text files as intermediate formats.

These are the current XPTools:

ObjView - lets you view X-Plane .obj files with textures.
ObjConverter - converts version 2 x-plane objects, DXF and 3DS files to version 7 objects.
TaxiMaker - creates taxiway objects.
Env2CSV - converts .env scenery files to text files and back.
AddObjects - adds objects to an .env file base don terrain types.
GetImage - downloads and converts terrain textures.

Using XPTools - Drag and Drop

Most XPTools utilities work by dragging and dropping files from the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer into the tool's window. Simple converter utilties create a small window with status information; drag files into this window to process them. Larger apps have viewing windows; drag files into these windows to view them.

Extensions

File extensions matter to XPTools both on Macintosh and Windows! You must have the right extension to process a file; even if the file is of the correct format, a bad extension will stop it form being processed. If a file has the right extension but wrong content, usually the utility will generate an error message.

Env files can have additional info attached to their names, but this info must be added after the env lcoation, for example:

+42-086.env                This is ok, this is a normal ENV file.
+42-068_new.env       This is ok, info added after the location, before the extension.
new+42-086.env        This is illegal, info added before the location.
+42-086.env.new        This is illegal, the file extension is not .env.

File Extension	File Type	Usage
X-Plane file formats
.obj	Object (X-Plane v2 or v7)	3-d models for use in x-plane scenery.
.env	Scenery File	Stores terrain, roads and objects for a 1x1 degree area
.bmp	Windows Bitmap File	Image file for object textures and terrain textures
.png	Portable Network Graphics	Image file for object textures and terrain textures
Formats from other modeling software.
.3ds	3D Studio Max File	3-d models from 3DS and other modeling programs
.dxf	Data Exchange Format (Autocad)	3-d models from autocad and other modeling programs
Intermediate Formats used by XPTools
.taxi	Taxi Sign Script	Contains a list of taxi signs for TaxiMaker to generate.
.csv	Comma-Separated Value	Contains the contents of an .env file in text file or spreadsheet-readable format.
.opf	Object Placement File	Contains lists of objects to place on various terrain types.

File Names

When XPTools create new files, they almost always are created with an extension to the name so that they do not replace the existing file. This is done for safety; using a file converter will not overwrite the original files, even if they have the same extension. This means you may have to rename your output files before you can use them in X-Plane (for example, removing _new from the filename).

Troubleshooting

A few warnings about XPTools script files: they are usually case sensitive and file-name sensitive. When a script cannot be parsed, the erroneous line will be shown. Check for case sensitivity errors, mistakes in the number of parameters, and typos.

Important: often it is necessary to drag several files into the XP Tool application at the same time. By dragging the files all at once the tool knows which files go together. If you drag one file and then the other later the tool may not work.